Chinese Grand Prix: Quotes of the weekend

Following the excitement of Malaysia, the Chinese Grand Prix was a largely dull affair on track as Mercedes secured another one-two and Ferrari was able to mount a sustained challenge. However, in the post-race press conference things started to liven up...

LH: "I wasn’t controlling [Rosberg's] race, I was controlling my own race but, great race, I’m really happy..."

Q: Nico, can you talk us through your view of the race today. Started second, finished second but you sounded at times as though you felt at timed under a little bit of unnecessary pressure maybe?

NR: "No. It’s just now interesting to hear from you, Lewis, that you were just thinking about yourself with the pace in front, and necessarily that was compromising my race. Driving slower than was maybe necessary at the beginning of stints meant that Sebastian was very close to me and that opened up the opportunity for Sebastian to try that early pitstop to try and jump me. And then I had to cover him. So, first of all it was unnecessarily close with Sebastian as a result, and also it cost me a lot of race time as a result because I had to cover him and then my tyres died at the end of the race because my stint was just so much longer. So I’m unhappy about that, of course, today. Other than that, not much to say."

Q: Lewis, would you like to respond?

LH: "Not really! My job is not to… it’s not my job to look after Nico’s race. My job’s to manage the car and bring the car home as healthy and as fast as possible – and that’s what I did. I didn’t do anything intentionally to slow any of the cars up. I just was focussing on myself. If Nico wanted to get by he could have tried but he didn’t."

Nico Rosberg vents his anger at Lewis Hamilton as cracks start to appear in the relationship between the Mercedes drivers once again

"Sure, [Hamilton] will drive selfish. These guys ... I call them egocentric bastards, let's say, and this is the only way to win a championship. It's the oldest thing.

"So Nico does the same to Lewis and Lewis the same to Nico in the end if the s**t hits the fan. I fully agree, this is the way it is. Therefore we race."

A typically no-nonsense response from Niki Lauda to the spat between the Mercedes drivers

"I think it’s a clearly ridiculous provocative statement. Our wind tunnels are anything but dinosaurs. Just because a technology has been around for a while doesn’t mean that it joins those reptiles of old. Cars have been around for a long while. Are cars dinosaur technology? Maybe Bob ought to come and have a look at a decent wind tunnel and just see how technically advanced they are."

Pat Symonds responds to a question about Bob Fernley's support of a wind tunnel ban having labelled it dinosaur technology

"Not really, unfortunately I’m not too excited because I know that I haven’t won it."

Lewis Hamilton responding to a question about the Laureus Awards, having been nominated for World Sportsman of the Year, with the winner not named until Wednesday...

SV: "Well, I think he’s free to say what he wants so it’s fine. For me, I’m very happy with what I have achieved so far and looking forward to what might be coming and that’s it. "

JB: "Maybe it’s because you’re not on Twitter."

SV: "Yeah, is Bernie on Twitter then? I don’t know." 

JB: "I didn’t think he was into that social media stuff." 

SV: "Wonder how he knows, then?"

Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button joke about Bernie Ecclestone's comments that Vettel wasn't a good enough promoter of F1 when he was world champion

“I was happy and was pushing a team even when we had an uncompetitive car to fight for the championship until the last race, so that was probably thanks to my passion, my motivation and my way to motivate a team, even in difficult moments. For many years I showed that and I’m now in a new project trying to build up something important.

“To beat Mercedes you need to do something different, you need to take some risks, thats what I decided last year to do. As I said yesterday, I was second in the world championship three times in the five years I was with Ferrari. I could continue for two more years there and maybe finish second again for two more years but that was not enough.

“I preferred to risk it. Now I’m out in Q1, so it’s time for many to enjoy this moment. But I don’t think they’re fighting against me because some of the ones who are enjoying it are third, one second behind. So they are beating me but not beating Mercedes, that at the end of the day is my goal. So it’s time to enjoy for the others, hopefully soon it will be time to enjoy for me.”

Fernando Alonso's thinly-veiled dig at Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel following qualifying