2014 British Grand Prix Driver Reaction

The 2014 British Grand Prix was the ninth round of the season and was won by home favourite Lewis Hamilton. Valtteri Bottas finished in a career-best second place.

Daniel Ricciardo was third, just preventing Jenson Button from taking a maiden F1 podium at Silverstone. Here is a round-up of the driver's reactions.

Unplanned strategy pays off for Ricciardo:

"I feel good! This is the best third place I've ever got. I'm not normally ecstatic with a third but I really am today, obviously to redeem myself from yesterday and also the fact that I don’t think we had an awesome race car today, but we made it work.

"We used the cards that we had and played the game well, so I was really happy to make a one stop work. For the last two laps, I saw Jenson coming and thought I was probably going to be a bit vulnerable but we held on. The one stop wasn’t planned. We pitted quite early on the Prime because we were quite slow and it wasn’t working, so we came in for the Option and, at one point, my engineer pretty much said alright four laps to go on this tyre then let's box.

"I said the pace seems OK, the tyres aren’t getting any worse and let’s try and stay out or at least think about keeping me out there and he said OK we’ll look at our options. Then, a few laps later he said do you think you can go to the end, there’s 15 or 20 laps to go, and I said, at the moment I think we can give it a crack. And so, yeah, we did and it paid off."

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Hamilton ecstatic after securing second home win:

"Winning in front of your home crowd is just the best feeling. We really do have the greatest fans here and thank you so much to everyone for your patience after yesterday. To see the support all around the track is just amazing. I said before that I'd never give up but it was a tough qualifying and I really needed to dig deep and come back positive this morning. 

"A huge thank you to my family and all of the fans for pushing me on - I couldn't have done it without them. Nico had a pretty big gap at the beginning of the race but I kept pushing and was happy with my pace. After extending my first stint, we switched to the prime tyres and I honestly couldn't believe the pace that I had and was closing up to Nico. Of course, he then had a problem and I saw him pull over.

"It's a shame for the team and I never want to see a team-mate fall behind - I always want to battle it out - but I'm sure we will get to do it again in the future. It's been a rollercoaster weekend and to come away with the win after a day like yesterday is fantastic."

Raikkonen disappointed after huge first-lap crash:

"Unfortunately, my race today ended on the first lap, after I had managed to get away well, making up enough ground to be fighting for eleventh place. At turn 5, I went off the track and while trying to get back on, I must have hit a kerb.

"I then lost control of the car and ended in the barriers. It’s a real shame because yesterday, the feeling I had on track had improved and I was determined to do my utmost to bring home some points. I am really very disappointed with how things went today, but now I want to put this incident behind me and just concentrate on the next race in Germany."

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Poor grid position hurt Grosjean's race:

"It was a difficult first start to the race for me. I had a switch problem which meant limited power, but despite that we had a good first lap. I avoided the incident with Kimi, but my visor did get damaged by some debris.

"The restart went pretty well for me and the car felt alright. Towards the end of the race, on medium tyres, our pace was much better. We came close to the points but we’d started the race from too far down the grid. I understood quite a lot from the car today which should assist us in making progress."

One more lap needed to take third, according to Button:

"Circuits with high-speed changes of direction aren’t really our car’s forte, so I think we can go away from Silverstone feeling encouraged by what we achieved this weekend. Specifically, it was great to have such a good fight with Fernando [Alonso], and it was encouraging to be able to pull away from him and Sebastian [Vettel] in the last stint.

"At the end, I crossed the line only 0.9s behind Daniel [Ricciardo]; if there’d been just one more lap, I think I could have made it past. I got so close to a podium finish – and I think it would’ve been so great for the fans to see Lewis and me up there together. I’m sorry it didn’t quite happen, but I want to say a big thank-you to all the fans, and to my family, and last but not least to the entire McLaren team – everyone has been so supportive this weekend.

"Looking to the future, although today has seen us take another step forward, it’s apparent that we still have a lot of work to: for example, even though Williams started behind us [on the grid], they still beat us today. Nonetheless, we’re certainly not giving up."

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 Hulkenberg had hoped for more at Silverstone:

"It was quite a tricky afternoon. My start was not great; I lost a couple of places, and after that we didn’t seem to have the pace to fight for big points. I was struggling with the balance, which may have been related to the wind because it was very gusty out there.

"I had some good battles, especially in the early laps, but we were just missing the performance to really fight today. It’s good to score points, but starting fourth we were hoping for more. We now need to regroup and come back stronger for my home race in Germany."

Gutierrez blames Maldonado for clash:

"I had a good race start. After the restart I was fighting with Pastor (Maldonado). When I tried to overtake him in turn 16 he braked and did not leave me enough space. I was already beside him and could not avoid a collision with him. I feel very sorry for the team, as this is not the way a race should end. However, we have to look forward to the next races."

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Kvyat pleased with ninth place:

"This was a very intense race, especially towards the end when I was pushing to catch Hulkenberg. I was actually quicker than him and I was definitely getting very close, but unfortunately I was not able to pass him in the end. Overall, I am quite happy with this race weekend and I very much enjoyed driving this track with its high speed corners. And after having had a few difficult races, it is great to see that all the hard work has paid off and that we were able to get both cars into the points."

Bottas wasn't expecting top three result:

"We knew that this race would be good fun. We knew we had a quick car and maybe it surprised us it was so quick. The first stint we went through the field fast and that needed a bit of risk. I am so happy for the team, they have worked on race pace and it shows.

"We were thinking about points today not the podium, and the strategy guys did a great job. I really felt for Felipe today in his 200th race, and it was so nice of him to come to the podium with the team; I really appreciated that. We are a stronger team than we were in the first few races and it won't be easy to stay near the top but we are doing a great job of it at the moment."

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Bianchi hoping Marussia can find extra tenths:

"From 10th place at the restart I had a very enjoyable opening stint after the restart. I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold off the faster cars behind me but it was a good test of our pace as to how long I could keep them behind for and this was a fun part of the race for me.

"After that I just had to push as hard as I could to stay with the pack in case any opportunity arose. What we did see today is that all we need is just a few more tenths a lap to allow us to keep pace with the Lotus and Sauber cars, so we have to focus now on finding that extra time."

Suspension issue caused Ericsson exit:

"I had a fantastic start, my best of the year so far, and passed several cars on the outside of turn one, so by the time the red flag came out I was up to 16th, five places up from where I’d started. I was ahead of the crash that Kamui managed to avoid so my car was fine and after we restarted under the safety car I was ahead of him but then, going into turn six I hit something in the kerbs that smashed my suspension and that was the end of the race.

"It’s a shame that we had a DNF today as, even though quali didn’t go to plan, the weekend for me has been ok and I wanted a good race today, but now it’s on to Hockenheim, a track I’ve always liked racing at."