Categories: FeatureFeatures

Italian Grand Prix - Quotes of the weekend

F1i looks back at some of the best quotes from the Italian Grand Prix weekend as Sebastian Vettel pokes fun at Lewis Hamilton's hair and Maurizio Arrivabene tries to backpedal 

“I start talking with my hands a bit more! It’s automatic: you arrive in Italy and you start using your hands … What was the question?”

Daniel Ricciardo gets so caught up joking about his hand gestures when he’s in Italy he forgets what he was even asked


“Without a testing programme we won’t be able to stay in the sport.”

Paul Hembery makes it clear Pirelli will quit at the end of 2016 if it is not allowed to test


“That was a bloodbath, wasn’t it? F***ing hell.”

A senior McLaren team member is glad to escape a group media session which saw Honda motorsport boss Yasuhisa Arai face countless questions on the Japanese manufacturer’s failings and his own future


SV: “Yeah, we were waiting for Lewis. I think he was trying to finish his hair.”

LH: “I was!”

Sebastian Vettel explains what he and Kimi Raikkonen were talking about in the pit lane after qualifying


“To sum it up, it’s fairly simple, it’s the best second place I ever had. The emotions on the podium is incredible. If we take this away from the calendar for any shitty money reasons I think you are basically ripping our hearts out. We are here, we are racing and this makes it so much more worthwhile. It’s what we’re here for. You stand on the grid, you look to the left, you look to the right, people are just happy to be part of it and it makes our day. So, simple as that. It’s incredible.”

Vettel sits on the fence when it comes to whether he wants the Italian Grand Prix to stay on the calendar


"We were exactly on the minimum pressures, as we should have been, when the tyres were put on the car.”

Toto Wolff defends Mercedes’ tyre pressures to TV crews after escaping penalty from the stewards at the Italian Grand Prix

"The pressures were well above the minimum because safety is important for us.”

Toto Wolff defends Mercedes’ tyre pressures to print media after escaping penalty from the stewards at the Italian Grand Prix


“A car is either legal or illegal, the car that won the race was not legal because the tyre pressures were not legal…

“It’s not for me to judge what is legal and what is illegal. Now there is a car that is under investigation and we are all waiting - me, your colleagues – for an announcement. I know our car was legal because we got the release from the FIA. This is something that I know, but I don’t want to talk about other cars, other competitors, because it is not my job and I don’t want.”

Before Mercedes escaped punishment, Maurizio Arrivabene makes it clear he thinks its Lewis Hamilton’s car was illegal, before deciding he doesn’t want to comment on the situation

Click here for F1i's driver ratings from the Italian Grand Prix

2016 F1 driver line-ups so far

F1 drivers' girlfriends gallery

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.

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