Manor Racing’s Pascal Wehrlein has hailed first ever points finish in Formula One as ‘amazing’ as he scored the team’s first points since the 2014 Monaco Grand Prix.
Having qualified a superb 12th, Wehrlein was forced to do a two-stop strategy due to the lack of rear downforce meant he grained his rear tyres quicker than his competitors’. The German was lapped after Sebastian Vettel’s stricken Ferrari was removed from the pit straight which resulted in a brief safety car period.
Wehrlein was 12 seconds behind the pack but still managed to come home in 10th and pressurised Williams’ Valtteri Bottas in the latter stages of the race for ninth.
“Under these circumstances, it feels great,” Wehrlein said. “In the middle of the race I was thinking the race was done because we were so unlucky with the safety car.
“But I kept pushing and tried to manage my tyres because I didn’t want to stop again and in the end I was fighting with [Valtteri] Bottas and [Esteban] Gutierrez and the team told me you need to keep Gutierrez behind you. He is on fresh tyres but you need to keep him behind and you can maybe score a point. It was a tough race at the end.”
Wehrlein was running in 11th until Sergio Perez was forced to retire due to a brake failure.
“When I crossed the start-finish line, I looked at the screen and I saw my name in P10 and I thought it must have been Perez. I asked the team, I was lapped and I wasn’t sure what the rule is. So I asked if we managed to finish P10 or P11 and they said P10. Amazing.”
This result means Manor now move ahead of Sauber in the Constructors’ Championship.
