Sunday: The Caterhams couldn’t do better in Austria

Kamui Kobayashi (No. 10) – 16th

The Japanese driver didn’t experience the race he hoped for, being outpaced by Jules Bianchi’s Marussia, but he did everything he could with his team: « I didn’t get a good start, but I recovered and overtook my teammate and Bianchi, and I was doing well in the first stint. We started on super-softs, and they held up well until our pit stop on lap 14 to switch to the softs. Our plan was to make two stops, and our race was set on the Marussia, once it became clear that Bianchi would only stop once. We decided to change strategy in the second stint, which meant I had to manage that set of softs for 55 laps until the finish. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out because, with 10 laps to go, I couldn’t hold him off. »

Kobayashi therefore prefers to focus on the positives from this Austrian weekend: « Despite this, I think we can take some positives from this weekend as our performance compared to our close rivals has slightly improved. Our reliability was much better this weekend and the setup changes made on Friday night have paid off once again today. »

Marcus Ericsson (No. 9) – 18th

Things went quite well at the start of the race for the Swede: « I am delighted with my race today because the gap with our direct competitors on Friday suggested something larger than it turned out to be today. I had a very good start, overtaking several cars, but we planned to make the soft tires last until our first stop around lap 28. So, I didn’t want to wear them out too quickly by defending early in the race. The first pit stop was good, switching to the super-soft tires that worked well for about 10 laps, and then they started to struggle, so we pitted again on lap 43 to switch to the soft tires to go to the end. »

But during his second stop, things got complicated and Ericsson then lost a lot of time: « Unfortunately, we had to extend my stop by 4 more seconds because of an oncoming Ferrari, which meant I came out 12 seconds behind Chilton. The car was good and in a few laps, I managed to reduce the gap to 3 seconds, but then the blue flags came, and that cost me a lot of time. They are obviously part of the race, especially for us, even if they make our life more complicated, particularly on a circuit as small as this one. »