Sunday: Liuzzi and Ricciardo bring up the rear with HRT
The two HRT drivers finished the race in Suzuka. It's already a small victory for the Spanish team, which brought up the rear in this Japanese Grand Prix.
Daniel Ricciardo – 22nd
The race went quite well considering the gap we had yesterday, and we are quite happy to be only a few tenths behind the Virgins. At one point, I was even ahead of them, but the safety car didn’t help me. It came out at the wrong time for us. I am quite pleased with the performance and personally, with the way I drove today… I don’t think I could have done more. We made good progress until the end of the race because in the last Grand Prix, we had incidents in the early laps. I am happy to have been able to have a clear race.
Vitantonio Liuzzi – 23rd
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It was a really tough race. And we paid the consequences of having done little driving on Friday and Saturday. We entered the race with settings done somewhat blindly. I suffered significant degradation of the rear tires, particularly the left rear, which didn’t allow me to do many laps with the same set of tires. At the beginning, it wasn’t too bad, and I was able to fight with some drivers ahead of me, but after a few laps, I had to pit. Crossing the finish line was the most positive point of the day.
Colin Kolles – Team Principal
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Above all, today’s race met our expectations. That is to say, not having major problems with both cars and competing with the Virgins. Daniel managed to maintain a good gap with them and fight with D’Ambrosio and especially Glock. Due to the blue flags, we finished behind them, but Daniel had a very good race and made another step forward. After a difficult weekend, Tonio and his team arrived with little information for the race and limited time on the track…but he did his best by pushing the car lap after lap until the finish. He couldn’t do more.
