Heikki Kovalainen beat Sauber in the Korean Grand Prix while Virgin and HRT were at the back of the field...
Team Lotus:
Heikki Kovalainen: "After the fantastic performance last weekend in Japan this is another big step forward for us - finishing 14th today, ahead of both Saubers and within touching distance of Senna on the final lap is for sure our strongest ever race and it's a great feeling for me and the whole team to see us fighting with a big group of cars right from the very first lap. I had another amazing start, passing a bunch of cars into turn 1 and making it look like they were all in reverse. From there I had a good first stint on the options, managing to look after them well enough to stay out for an extra couple of laps that really helped in the first stop. We went onto the primes, and my pace on them was just fantastic, good enough to help me match the times of the cars ahead right up to about tenth. The second set of primes we put on were exactly the same - the wear rates were totally manageable and I could really push on every lap. We knew there were a few cars ahead who would struggle to get to the end, and if I'd had another half a lap I would have passed Senna for sure. As it was we finished ahead of both Saubers on pace and strategy and that's a very good feeling. We've been strong all weekend and it's great for the whole team that we're heading towards the end of the season with a car that is giving us a chance to really show what we can do. Honestly, I'd like to get straight back in now and do it all over again - now I can't wait for India!"
Jarno Trulli: "That was a really strong race for us, definitely the best of the season, and I want to congratulate the whole team for the work they've done here and back at the factory for giving me and Heikki a car that we can really race with. For me, the start wasn't so good - I lost a few places into the first corner but I made them back up again quickly on the first set of tyres, and when we changed to the primes my times were great. Heikki and I were keeping pace with the midfield and easily pulling away from the cars behind, but then in my second stop I had a bit of an issue with traffic in the pitlane which lost me a bit of time and brought me out just behind where we wanted to be. As soon as the blue flags started coming out late in the race I had to slow up, and if I hadn't had those problems I'm sure I could have finished with Heikki ahead of Kamui and Sergio. Despite that it's been a good weekend, and now we have another three races to build on today's performance and finish the season as well as possible."
Sauber:
Kamui Kobayashi: "My start was okay, except I couldn't gain any positions. When I was fighting with Sébastien Buemi our cars touched and the front wing was damaged. I changed to supersoft tyres after ten laps, as I had started on the softs. When the safety car came out we lost the advantage from the fresh tyres, as everyone was pitting then. I also had some damage to the rear wing, but I don't really know where this was from. At almost mid distance Bruno Senna was behind me and was pushing extremely hard, which actually resulted in a damaged front wing. Because of that my car was understeering a lot and the tyres were blistering. I then had to pit earlier than planned to replace the front wing. After the second stop I was able to overtake a couple of cars at the back of the field, but there was obviously no chance to score points today. We were just too slow, but we will go and work on it."
Sergio Perez: "Initially my start was pretty good, but then I got stuck behind some other cars and the positions I gained were lost again. In the beginning with the soft tyres it was quite good, but then with the supersoft tyres I struggled. During the last stint especially they degraded way too much. I had to pit and change them three laps before the end because the front right tyre had a hole in it, and you could see the casing. It was a shame, but there was no way I could have finished the race with those tyres. However, we didn't have the pace today to finish in the points."
Virgin:
Timo Glock: "It has been a good weekend for us. Strategy-wise I think we made the right choice. I had a very good car the whole race - very consistent to push until the last lap and all the problems that we thought we had before were less of an issue. The Pirellis were very good and very consistent. I had a lot of fun and could push until the end, until the last lap. We had a bit of a fight with HRT in the middle of the race, who were suddenly very quick, and I had to push more and more. Overall I'm happy and got the maximum out of the car. The pitstops were good so we made a big step forward in that area too. Now we're off to our big adventure in India, which I think the whole team is looking forward to."
Jerome D'Ambrosio: "It wasn't a great race today, but I can say that compared to yesterday and bearing in mind that we couldn't do any big changes on the car because of the rules, I think that today went pretty well. We tried to do what we could to compensate with the tools that we had and we went in the right direction. So in general it was good, definitely much better than yesterday."
HRT:
Daniel Ricciardo: "We had a good race, it's nice to finish considering the weekend we had. We had a strong pace throughout the race and had a good fight with the Virgins so that's two consecutive races where we have been much more competitive with them so we have to be happy about that. I'm a bit disappointed with myself after the safety car because I went to attack Glock but it worked against me with D'Ambrosio getting past me. That made me work hard to get back past him again so, at least we split the two Virgins. Next time we have to work hard to get ahead of both of them."
Tonio Liuzzi: "We had a really good start, we overtook a few cars and heading into turn 3 there must have been some contact because there were pieces of carbon flying. I hit something with my front end and after that I had problems locking the front which caused my contact in turn 4 with one of the Virgins. After that I damaged my front wing and was forced to come in which killed my race. We had pretty good pace during the first stint but the safety car came out at the worst time possible, just as the leaders had lapped me, so I was a lap down with respect to my main rivals. The race was very difficult after that and the balance was all over the place, it was really hard to drive. But with all those problems we endured, we still made it to the checkered flag which is a positive thing."
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