By Various sources
March 29 2009

By courtesy of AFCA: - Massa DNFed with a broken wheel mount. Raikkonen brushed the wall seemingly having a lot of luck but in the end he had to give up with a broken differential.

Domenicali: ''Having the hard compound in the middle of the race we were able to go as fast as BMW Sauber.''

''For Felipe we chose a strategy that was too aggresive tyre-wise.''

''The race was Ferrari-unworthy.''

- Hamilton did a good race but P3 obviously isn't representative of McLaren's current situation, Whitmarsh: ''In Malaysia I expect us to be a little less competitive still.''

- Vettel on struggling a lot on soft tyres that were long worn off, eventually colliding with Kubica: ''I was only still sliding about. The tyre left at the front grained horribly.''

''Under braking the car didn't want to stop. It was clear to me that Robert was faster, but I wasn't planning to let him go past without a struggle either. I was alongside side Robert, at the very inside of the kerbstone, Robert perhaps didn't leave too much space for me. Where was I to go ? I slided into his car, left at the front there simply wasn't any grip.''

The German will lose 10 places on the grid in Malaysia, he thinks that's a rather harsh penalty. ''Surely I didn't do it on purpose and I apoligised to Robert.''

On top of this RBR received a $ 50,000 because Vettel continued to driving on three tyres. Horner: ''We only told him to stop driving after he had fallen out of a points scoring position.'' Vettel sees the positive side of the weekend: ''Behind Brawn GP we were the second force. I've given it my all to stick with Button, but they're still too strong for us.''

The 21-year old doesn't think he could have really won the race: ''Button played with us.'' Horner agrees: ''Button pulled out a lead and then held on to that. But today we were the best of the rest and we were the closest to Brawn GP.''

According to Horner RBR only lacked 0.4 seconds to Brawn GP. The fact that Kubica was so strong in the end is down to the safety car as far as Horner is concerned.

- Rosberg showed what Williams is capable of doing but in the end he didn't finish any higher than P6: ''I had a brilliant start, but in the third corner I left the door open at the inside and three cars came past me.''

The biggest problem were the tyres: ''We struggled an awful lot to heat up the tyres. I think we did so more than the others. That's also why I didn't want to take any risks in the opening lap. The soft tyres actually only keep up for one fast lap.''

It didn't take long before Rosberg was aiming for the podium again, but in his first pitstop he fell back to P13. Left at the front the guard pin got stuck and it ruined the thread of the wheel gun. For a driver it's awful to just sit and wait not being able to do anything: ''Every second seems to last forever.''

The third mishap was Rosberg's own fault. He intended to treat the soft tyres in his last stint very gently. ''In the first laps I drove very cautiously to preserve them. Then we noticed that if would hurry up we were able to beat Barrichello. The engineers over the radio said: push, push. Then I did a qualifying-alike lap, being 1.2 seconds faster at once, but already in the final corners of the lap I noticed that the tyres were getting worse. (In the end - AFCA) the tyres were totally gone.''

The German is pretty happy with P6 after all that has happened: ''The guys have given me a superb car. I thanked them for that on the radio straight away.'' Michael: ''We were able to keep up with everyone when we had a clear track.''

- Heidfeld's chances on a good race were diminished after only 300 meters into the race. He was involved in the start crash with Barrichello, Kovalainen and Webber. He had to come in because of a puncture and a damaged front wing. But the floor and the right sidepod were damaged as well. ''After that the car was hardly driveable. Only on the straights it was half driveable using KERS trying to defend myself against faster cars.''

The BMW Sauber driver is frustrated: ''Who cares wheter you finish 11th or 13th in the end ?''

Theissen is convinced Kubica was in with a great chance: ''Robert would have won the race.'' Kubica was one of six that started the race with the soft compound. This allowed him to be consistent in the final two stints of the race.

The supersoft tyre was even worse than was feared for, Kubica: ''After three laps it felt as if I was driving on stones. But Massa in front of me wasn't much better off. He had those soft things mounted on his car as well.''

Only when they were treated gently the loss in time could be contained. But at some point you simply lose too much time and then it's better to come in, which is what BMW Sauber did with Kubica, Theissen: ''We had to change (tyres) two laps earlier than planned.''

It was the right decision, on the hard compound the Pole was consistent and faster. He set his fastest time after 24 laps in the second stint. In the final stint Kubica was to take on the fight with Vettel who was driving on inferior rubber. Kubica was 1.5 seconds faster when Vettel's tyres started to grain. It was only a matter of time before he would have gone past: ''I had already gone past Sebastian but suddenly he came back. He must have released the brakes for a second, then he hit the accelerator once more and slided into my car. It's a shame, he ruined two good races with that.''

Kubica didn't notice his frontwing got damaged in the accident: ''In the left hand turn there was still grip, in the right hand corners following onto that the car simply went straight on.''

The impact Kubica made with the wall was so hard that the chassis broke. The rim of the left frontwheel created a dint in the chassis. BMW Sauber will send his chassis back to Hinwil and from there a new one will be flown to Malaysia.

Apart from the material damage there's the frustration: ''I would have overtaken Button as well. With soft tyres you can only have one fast lap. After that they're unusable. In case I'd gone past Vettel then I would have still had three laps to get passed Button. Perhaps he could have defended himself for one lap, but not for three !''

Theissen on the pecking order: ''In the middle of the race Robert was able to set the fastest times. Red Bull and Williams were strong as well. The differences are small, these three teams are at the same level.''

- Starting from the back of the grid Glock ended fourth. ''The race was really exiting. Unfortunately I was stuck behind Alonso for some time and have lost a lot of time there.'' Glock even had an off-track excursion trying to overtake the Spaniard but soon picked up the good rhythm again.

''My car felt really good, unfortunately I wasn't able to get passed him. Only when he had gone into the pitlane I was able to go a second faster and show that the performance was good today.''

On his fourth place, at the expense of Trulli: ''Of course I'm happy with P4 but it's obviously frustrating for Jarno.''

On the importance on bouncing back as a team after being disqualified after qualifying yesterday: ''I think that we've proved we've been just as fast as we've been yesterday. That goes to show that the pace of the car is real. I already said before the race that after wintertesting we look strong and it's great that we're also able to prove that in race circumstances.''

- Ending at P9 Sutil only just missed out on a points-scoring position. ''I actually had a good start but in the first corner Webber started to go slowly and I had no chance to avoid him.''

With a new front wing that he got in an improvised pitstop, Sutil could start his race to catch up: ''I lost time behind Heidfeld's BMW Sauber. I was faster but there was no way past him.'' After the Safety Car period Sutil could make up some ground immediately. ''We had a good strategy with a short stint on the soft tyres in the middle.'' There may not have been a points reward in the end but the car made till the chequered flag: ''I think we can be happy.''

- A final word on Williams' protest yesterday:

Costa and Newey shook their heads: ''This action was completely unnecessary.''

Domenicali: ''It's a matter of measurements, it's better to say nothing more. It's a complete joke. It's better not to think about the motive behind it.''

Of course Briatore has an opinion of his own: ''I just lodged a complaint because I nearly stumbled over a dog while I was walking out of the garage.''

''I wonder what uncle Bernie thinks of all of this.''

The mockery went as far as Ferrari and the stewards having to use the Oxford English dictionary to look up the exact definition of 'inner edge' and 'outer edge' of a 'fully enclosed plane' in the area of the barge boards in front of the sidepods. Since Williams decide to withdraw the protest it turned out to be a storm in a cup of tea.

There are two versions of Williams withdrawing their complaint. Williams themselves sustain that half of the field would have to be banned pursuant to the regulations. The team didn't want to risk this for the sake of piece within the FOTA/sport.

In no way would Ecclesone have approved of half the field being excluded from the race. Michael: ''It wasn't an act of revenge against the teams that have protested against us because of the diffuser. It's a matter of principle.''

The other version is that the FIA warned Williams not to take this case too far. The sport has been damaged enough already. The configuration of the barge boards is nothing new. In fact, according to Williams' way of reasoning most cars would have also been illegal last year .

The question now is whether Williams has perhaps hurt themselves a little. In Paris on the 14th of April they might be seen as troublemakers and with the hearing of an appeal in the diffuser-saga on that very day, you better be friends instead of enemies with the FIA.