Our post-Singapore objective was to come back fighting in Sepang and that’s what we’ve done here - a step forward in every area. Well done team, well done drivers. Two cars home - Pascal P15, Esteban P16.
Pascal Wehrlein
Well done, Pascal. 15th place in your first Malaysian Grand Prix. How was it?
“Well, the first lap was pretty cool. I got a good start and was up to 15th from 21st quite quickly, so that was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, after that, we didn’t have the pace to fight as closely as we would we like and gradually we started to drop back. Realistically, I knew yesterday that it would be more of a battle between Esteban and me, which we had, and it was good.”
How did you cope with the conditions? It’s a demanding race, this one?
“It was tough. Very hot in the cockpit and a nice warm drink to keep me going. But it was okay. I think we managed the tyres well; the track temperature was pretty high, but no real problems there. We just didn’t have the extra pace to push for something more today.”
Esteban Ocon
Esteban, up to P7 by lap 10. What an incredible start to your race today?
“Yes, it was pretty good, wasn’t it? I had some fun with that. The start was excellent and on the Soft tyre on the first stint we could have a good race. Once we pitted onto the hard tyre we started to struggle. We had a decent battle with Ericsson but I couldn’t beat my teammate, who was on a different strategy, and the penalties put paid to that anyway.”
Perhaps not the result you wanted today, but a step up from Singapore and a sign of better things in the coming races?
“I hope so. We were definitely better off here and we’ve made some real progress since Singapore, no doubt about that. So my thanks to the team for a really good job this weekend and let’s keep moving forward.”
A word with Dave Ryan, Racing Director
“Thanks to the whole team for a really big push since Singapore. The hard work really paid off this weekend and from the inside we can see that we’ve made a good step forward. Our trackside operation also needed some work to counter the issues we had in recent races and, again, we’ve made good progress there. I’d like to give particular mention to the pit crew today. It was an area we needed to improve on and we’ve done just that. Our five stops today were all really controlled, so top job. Last, but far from least, our drivers did a fantastic job today in what is a notoriously challenging race for man and machine. So let’s hang onto this momentum and use it to our advantage in Japan.”