As you can see even the drivers were happy that Kamui Kobayashi achieved a podium at his home race. To see what else the first three drivers thought-post race we suggest you check out the Japanese Grand Prix press conference transcript after the break.
For race winner Sebastian Vettel much of the talk was about his chances in the world drivers’ championship. While Felipe Massa and Kamui Kobayashi faced plenty of questions about their futures.
In his Red Bull’s official post-race statement Mark Webber a bit more circumspect in his critique of Roman Grosjean, but we suspect the Lotus driver won’t be Mark’s Christmas card list:
Mark Webber: “I haven’t seen what happened at the start, but it’s been confirmed that it was Grosjean who hit me. We’re trying to fight for results each weekend and it doesn’t help so, yeah, it’s frustrating as a few of the big guys suffered out there today. We went onto a one stop strategy from then on, but I kept pushing, I didn’t give up and got something from it. To finish eight seconds off fifth, after the fact I was in reverse at one point—and also the safety car came in before I caught the back of the field—was something. I’ll come back in Korea.â€
Meanwhile, Grosjean responded via the Lotus post-race report: “Ever since I came back in Singapore my priority has been to be very cautious at the start, and I was watching Sergio [Perez] on my left to make sure there was no contact with him. There was quite a big speed difference between me and Mark [Webber] as I came into the first corner which caught me by surprise and we collided. It was a stupid mistake. Mark [Webber] came to see me after the race and was obviously not happy, but I apologised and we have to move on. We’ll sit down and look at things again before the next race to see what we can do to improve these situations. In the last few laps of the race the tyres were at the end of their life and we were out of the points, so it made sense to retire. Not a good day, but we have to look ahead to Korea and a chance to make amends.”
[Pic: Sauber Motorsport AG]