• Pastor Maldonado finished 10th in today’s Hungarian Grand Prix, pushing hard throughout the race to claim an important first point of 2013 for the team.
• Valtteri Bottas had his first retirement of the season, stopping on track with a hydraulic problem on lap 42 which the team are still investigating.
Xevi Pujolar, Chief Race Engineer: We knew it would be a challenge with the high temperatures today, but we stuck to our three-stop strategy which worked well for us. Pastor made a great start which put him in straight into contention to fight for points. It looked like Perez was too far ahead towards the end, but with Rosberg’s late retirement Pastor was able to collect an important point for us. Valtteri drove well but unfortunately had a hydraulic problem which caused him to stop on track. Our first point gives us a good motivation going into the summer break to come back even stronger for the remaining races of the season.
Pastor Maldonado: I had a really good start from P15 and made a few overtaking manoeuvres during the race which were on the limit, which is especially pleasing as at this track it is very hard to overtake. The car felt consistent, maybe not as fast in the second and third stints, but very consistent. I really want to keep scoring points now and be even stronger during the second part of the season.
Valtteri Bottas: It’s a shame to have my first retirement of the season as the goal was to finish every race, but there was nothing I could do today. We still need to investigate what happened but it felt like hydraulics as first I lost the power steering and then the engine. Today wasn’t my best race but in general I feel I am improving all the time and looking forward to the second half of the season. Congratulations to Pastor and the team on claiming our first point, we now need to work hard to build on that when we return after the summer.
Laurent Debout, Renault Sport F1 team support leader: We were a lot more competitive during all practice sessions this weekend and so we are very happy to score our first point. Pastor drove a great race finishing 10th while Valtteri retired with a hydraulic issue. We continue to make some significant progress and we are looking forward to scoring more points in the next few races.
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