Kick clean
Bottas, who pulled away mid-race with a smoking engine to bring out both the VSC and then the safety car, was not to be, as that battered kick saber proved trickier to recover from than first thought. An emotional day on home soil saw the checkered flag, unable to challenge for the points after two sticky pit stops. The team gambled on another late stop for softs to see if he could climb back through the field, but he only managed P14 in the end.
Valtteri Bottas, DNF
„Today marks a disappointing end to a very promising weekend: starting P10 and putting me in a good position to fight for the points, the race was going well overall until I suddenly lost drive and my engine shut down – something we will have to fully investigate in the coming days. It's very unfortunate, still When I had to go a long way, I was fighting with Nico [Hülkenberg] who converted it into points. It's hard to accept, but this is the race, and many opportunities will arise: our momentum is improving and as a team, we're making small steps on multiple fronts all the time. We were around the P10 all weekend and were able to learn a lot about our car and our upgrades, which will allow us to maximize our potential. As we continue to make those steps, I'm looking forward to racing in Miami again, a track I've enjoyed the most over the years.
Cho Guanyu, 14th
„This weekend was an amazing experience: for years, I dreamed about racing at home, and finally I was able to do it. Seeing the passion and love of everyone in the stands is something I have never experienced before: especially, seeing so many people shouting and shouting your name is something I will never forget. Every In the grandstand, I made sure to wave to the fans at every corner, and as I considered it a typical race weekend, the emotion was undeniable, especially when I stopped at Parc Ferme: a special moment, to top it all off as the first Chinese driver Betting on the Brics.
„The race was difficult, especially in the first stage I didn't have much grip and I was sliding everywhere, but we managed to recover well. Finishing the race doesn't make me happy – fighting my way through the field, giving everything and not giving anything up is difficult. Unfortunately, starting from the back and breaking the points is difficult. We know that, but we can focus on some positives like our speed; and, of course, the big improvement made by the team and the crew, which were mostly clean. In the end, we chose to use the softs: if we didn't stop, we could maintain the position we were in We knew, so we gambled to switch to softs and see if we could improve. And we did a lot of overtaking, the car was good, it was good to fight my way. I'm happy with the work I did this weekend. The whole weekend was positive, yesterday afternoon and today were a bit rough but we gave it our all.
Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Group Representative
“It was not the race we expected and not the race we wanted. Before moving on to the analysis of the race, it is worth acknowledging the important page that Joe and the team wrote in the history of motorsport and Formula One in China. The support from all the audiences throughout the weekend from Thursday is testament to this: it exceeded our expectations. Thanks to Zhou, we have seen how much the popularity of Formula One is growing in China and we are proud that our team can be a part of it with him. We expected a tough match for him starting on the 16th, but he had good pace and fought well in his many battles. In the final stages we adopted an aggressive strategy, switching to soft tyres: unfortunately, he didn't have any points today, but it was important to show that he can fight and compete against the cars around him.
„It was a disappointing end to the race for Valtteri, who fought with Nico [Hülkenberg] For the top ten. He had a solid start on the medium tyres, and the choice to move to the harder was the right one: unfortunately, his race was cut short by a drivetrain problem, as we'll investigate. Huge disappointment as he had the pace to finish in the points which was a deserved finish for him and the team. Finally, a positive aspect of today's race was the consistency in our pit stops, in which we were able to achieve the goal we set for this weekend. This is an improvement that will give confidence to our pit crew as well. Now, we set our sights on Miami with the knowledge that we can get there with a strong weekend.