Sunday: Zero points for Lotus Renault in Korea
The LRGP team approached today's race with high hopes, especially to score new points and stay ahead of Force India in the Constructors' Championship. But things did not go as planned - Bruno Senna was unable to climb back into the points and Vitaly Petrov ended his race by colliding with Michael Schumacher when the Russian driver could have finished in the points.
Bruno Senna – 13th
« It was far from my best race. I got off to a bad start, and from there, I had to face a tough comeback. I found myself stuck behind a number of single-seaters which didn’t allow me to get into the points today; I don’t feel there was any weakness with my car but I just wasn’t able to do more. We will now see what we can do to improve this situation, and be able to come out strong in India. It’s a culture I’ve never had the chance to see and it’s a race I’m looking forward to. »
Vitaly Petrov – Retirement
I tried to defend my position against Fernando (Alonso) but I was in the braking zone on the dirty part which caused me to lock my wheels and collide with Michael (Schumacher). I was focused on my battle with Fernando because I had the potential to be ahead of him. We both braked too late because he also missed his corner. Until then, I was pleased with our strategy and how my race was going. I want to apologize to Michael, it wasn’t his fault; it was my fault – once my wheels locked up, there was nothing I could do. But that’s racing, and tomorrow is another day.
Eric Boullier – Director of the LRGP team
Once again, I have mixed feelings after this race. If I look at the weekend as a whole, we showed that we had good pace but perhaps did not know how to capitalize on it. It’s disappointing that Bruno couldn’t qualify better yesterday and as a result, we knew the race would be difficult for him. Vitaly had a good position on the grid and everything seemed fine until his mistake on lap 16. If he had managed to continue as in his first stint – when he was on the super softs – then we could have expected to see him finish at least 8th, maybe even 7th. Unfortunately, this is not the case, but we will now look to the future with an exciting new challenge in two weeks – the Indian Grand Prix.
