German GP: Sauber race quotes
Nico Hulkenberg - 10th: "It was an extremely tough race. I was fighting on every lap, but thisis what we were able to get out of it. To be honest, I expected we wouldhave better pace today, but we didn't. The car didn't feel as good asI expected it would either. I thought, and hoped, we could fight withMcLaren, but, unfortunately, they were too fast for us today. It was arace with a lot of overtaking and wheel-to-wheel battles, which arealways fun. However, having to fight for positions all the time is nevergood for the strategy, as it's tough on the tyres and you loose time.Nevertheless, this weekend was better than the previous ones. We didn'thave an update on the car, we experimented with the set-up, which workedwell."
Esteban Gutierrez - 14th: "From the beginning to the end we were fighting for positions, so it was a very tough race. It was difficult to overtake, because we were lacking speed on the straights. My rhythm was quite reasonable and I tried to do my best. The strategy wasn't ideal, although everything went to plan,but we pitted just before the safety car, which didn't make it any easier."
Monisha Kaltenborn - team principal: "One point is not exactly what we expected after a strong qualifying,but the safety car period didn't play into our hands. Nevertheless, wemove on to the test in Silverstone and to the next Grand Prix withconfidence. We were able to improve, particularly in qualifying, and wewant to continue to improve. Nico delivered a strong performance. Thelast stint particularly was absolutely thrilling. Of course, we are notwhere we want to be, but we made a step in the right direction."
Tom McCullough - head of track engineering: "We elected to split the strategies with the tyres at the start. Esteban started on the soft tyres, Nico on the medium. Unfortunately, the timing of the safety car was at the worst moment for us as a team - eight laps into Nico's second stint on the medium tyres and immediately Esteban had pitted. Therefore, it was going to be difficult to recover and scorepoints from there. Nico did a good job in the last stint to get tenth place, which is good for the morale of the team."
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