Sunday: Caterham responded well after difficult initial stops
As often on Sundays, a Caterham finished at the head of the back of the grid, but this time, the honor goes to Vitaly Petrov, who had the least eventful race of the two. The Russian and his teammate, Heikki Kovalainen, both experienced a bungled first pit stop, but the Finnish driver also had two spins.
Vitaly Petrov – 14th:
I had a pretty good race and pushed as hard as possible all afternoon and I think I finished as high as I could. At the start, I managed to get through the crash without any issues and moved up to 13th. I pitted on lap 12 and had a problem when rejoining but I was able to stay ahead of the chasing pack and maintain a good pace until the second stop, shortly after mid-race. We switched to Hard tires and the degradation was good on this stint, so I was able to push until the checkered flag.
Heikki Kovalainen – 17th:
« I got off to a good start, avoided the debris from the pile-up, and was in 10th place after the safety car. There were some faster cars behind me, which passed after the neutralization, then I made a small mistake in the last chicane that dropped me a few positions, but I quickly caught up and had good pace right behind Vitaly. At my first pit stop, we had an issue when restarting and unfortunately, I hit the HRT while exiting, having to reverse to change the front wing. From there, all I could do was try to catch up to the cars ahead of me, but I spun again a few laps from the end. I still managed to pass one of the HRTs, but with the problems we had today, it was the end of my race. It hasn’t been a good weekend, but we’ll regroup and come back to fight in the next race in Italy. »
