Manor’s Pascal Wehrlein has revealed a brake issue during the latter stages of the race meant he had to reduce his pace significantly.
Wehrlein finished 16th out of the 16 cars to make the chequered flag on his F1 debut but was as high as 13th on the opening lap after starting 21st.
The German was pleased to have finished his first ever race in the pinnacle of motorsport.
“First of all it’s great to finish my first race and thanks to the team for that. I got a fantastic start and I was very happy to find myself in 15th place at the end of the opening lap. That first half of the race was really strong and I was pushing hard on the Supersoft and then the Soft. It was great to be as high as 13th at one point and to be racing with Sauber.”
Wehrlein admits he struggled with tyre degradation throughout the race and is aware that this is an area Manor need to improve on in the next race in Bahrain.
“Things turned for me after my first stop, which happened just before the red flag. Our plan was to have a short stint on the Supersoft which meant we pitted for the Soft not long before the crash, so that was a major setback because many of the other cars still hadn’t stopped. After that, everyone ahead started to pull away from me and because we were struggling with tyre degradation I couldn’t do anything about it.
“Towards the end I had a braking issue, so I just had to focus on getting to the flag. We’ve all learned a lot this weekend and everyone is working well together, so we’ve made a good start and now we have to push hard to improve.”
