Haas
Oliver Bearman, DNF
“I just got smashed off. I was turning into Turn 4, and the next thing I knew, I was looking at everyone else coming past me, facing the wrong way. It was a good race to be honest, I had great pace, and we were in the fight for points, and I was in the points when I was taken out. It happens, it just sucks.”
Ryo Hirakawa, 10th
“There were a lot of things to do today, especially around the start, and lap one – It was not easy, especially here going into Turn 1. You’re thinking about braking points and you’ve got cars all around you, so I think I took too much margin because my focus was to finish the race as I wanted to learn. After that, I was trying to learn from what others were doing, and maybe the first stint was tough, but I learned a lot. After the Safety Car, with the soft compound, I had more confidence and, after the last one, I had much more confidence and passed two cars, so I’m happy to finish like that. I need to digest this moment, I’m really happy as today was my dream, so I just want to enjoy this moment.”
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal
“The result is obviously disappointing, but overall, as a team performance, it was a decent day. Race pace was really good with Ollie, we were quicker than Audi, and he made some really nice overtakes. With that Turn 4 incident, Ollie did everything correctly. He put the car in the right place, and there’s nothing you can do when someone drives into you, so it’s really unfortunate. I think we had a chance to score points for sure, but you have to take it on the chin – you can only control what you can control.
“What can I say about Ryō’s first Formula 1 race? The first race start was good, and as we expected, throughout the race, he was improving and he stayed calm. The second race start wasn’t as good, but how he came back to overtake both of the Williams' was spot on, so he should be really proud of his performance. I just want to say thanks to all the crews here, they’ve had a lot to work on this weekend and we never missed a session, even with some big changes. Now, we move on to Brazil.”
