CLOSING THE GAP WITH FOURTH AND FIFTH IN CHINA
Company press release.
BEIJONG, China – The Team moved into second place in the Formula One Constructors' Championship as Daniel and Sebastian finished in fourth and fifth places respectively at the Chinese Grand Prix.
The 22 points earned move the team three points clear of previous second-placed squad Force India who now have 54 points, with Ferrari fourth on 52 points. Mercedes again took victory, with Lewis Hamilton finishing ahead of teammate Nico Rosberg.
At the race start, Sebastian made a good start and stole past his teammate as the field barreled through the first corner. Daniel's start was less successful. The Australian, who had started on the front row behind pole winner Hamilton, was also passed by the fast-starting Fernando Alonso.
That formed the pattern of the opening stint. However, when the first round of stops began the order at the top changed, with Sebastian losing second to Alonso as the pair made their first visit to the pit lane. Daniel, too, lost out, Nico Rosberg stopping two laps earlier than Ricciardo and gaining time as Daniel's tires reached the end of their lifespan.
In the second stint, Seb's pace began to drop slightly as he suffered greater tire wear than Daniel and the three-second gap he had enjoyed to his teammate disappeared. Eventually the team asked the champion to let Ricciardo through and after being made aware that they were on different strategies, Sebastian pulled across on lap 33 and let the Australian through. While Sebastian held on to claim fifth spot, Daniel set about chasing down Alonso, who by lap 42 was in third place, having been passed by Rosberg. Daniel chased hard but the Ferrari driver responded and used his greater pace on the straights to respond to Dan's charge.
Thus Daniel finished fourth, taking 12 valuable championship points. Afterwards he said that getting to within two seconds of Alonso at one stage 'was the best he could do.'
'I started on the dirty side of the grid and had quite a poor getaway; I was spinning up on the line a bit too long and lost the two places,' he said. 'From then on however, I thought the race was good! With Seb, we were racing and you always want to hold on to your position, but the team radioed and he let me through. I did what I could after each stop and we improved the car; at the end I was doing all I could to catch Alonso and I think we got to within a couple of seconds of him as we went over the line. It's going well with the team, I feel comfortable here and I did the best I could today. I really want that podium and we're getting close!'
Vettel, meanwhile, said that once he understood he was on a different race plan to his teammate, he'd had no hesitation in letting him through.
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'I moved over for Daniel once I knew that we were on different strategies. When I was first asked, I didn't understand as we were on the same tire, unlike in Bahrain, so I double checked. When the team said we were on a different strategy, I moved over and then, as the race went on, I saw more and more that I didn't have the pace. There was no point in holding Dan back. I'm not yet where I want to be with the car, but it's an on-going process,' he added. 'Hopefully at the next few races we will make some more steps in the right direction. Our weakness isn't in the corners, but on the straights. The first stint today was okay but after that I'm not sure what happened.' Team Principal Christian said that the day's work had yielded a 'solid result.' 'I think the wet conditions in qualifying yesterday helped us get higher starting positions up the grid,' he said. 'In today's dry race, ultimately fourth and fifth is realistically where we were this weekend. Mercedes again were particularly strong and Ferrari carried their form through from Friday into a dry race today. Fourth and fifth is still a solid result with good points. Heading back to Europe we know we have a lot of work to do.' He added that in the mid-race battle between Seb and Dan it had been the champion's tire wear that had defined the call to allow Daniel to pass. 'Sebastian made a great start, but then appeared to go through the tires quicker than Daniel,' he said. 'After the first stop, it was apparent Seb's degradation was particularly worse than Daniel, so we looked at switching him to a three-stop and therefore released Daniel who was very much focused on a two-stop at that point. Thereafter Daniel was able to close the gap to Alonso, but unfortunately we didn't have enough to get onto the podium today.'
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