File picture of Nico Hulkenberg who helped Forced India double finish at Monaco. Sahara Force India pic.
Monaco: The only Indian Formula One team Sahara Force India has a pair of two foreign drivers in Paul Di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg who powered Force India to a double finish in points getting their team ten valuable points to inch closer to seventh place in the Constructors’ Championship after they finished seventh and eighth respectively at the Monaco Grand Prix, the sixth round of the Formula 1 World Championship which saw a sixth different winner this season..
With Sauber finishing out of the points, after Sergio Pérez see-sawed up and down the order to eventually finish 11th and Kamui Kobayashi retired due to damage sustained in a first-corner incident in which he hit the stranded Lotus of Romain Grosjean, Sahara Force India are now 13 points behind the Swiss team, on 28 points.
After the race Di Resta paid tribute to his team’s strategy in helping him climb from 14th on the grid to his seventh-place finish, his fourth points haul of the season. “We went aggressive with the strategy and I have to say the team really optimised it,” he said of the decision to start on new Soft tyres before taking on Supersofts after 35 laps and making them work until the chequered flag. “The secret was managing the tyres and trying to find clean air when we could.
“The car felt really good, much stronger than yesterday, and that allowed me to push when we needed to,” he added. “Fortunately, the rain held off at the end because that could have had a big impact on the end of the race. It’s great that we managed to get both cars in the points and we can celebrate tonight.”
Hulkenberg, who had started ahead of Di Resta in 10th, was on a reverse programme, starting on Supersofts and then moving to Softs after 29 laps. The German, however, blamed traffic and the slow Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen for his eighth-place finish. “For the first few laps I was running with Michael [Schumacher] and we were stuck behind Kimi, who was struggling on the Supersofts, but it was difficult to get by,” he said.
“Unfortunately, Kimi stopped on the same lap as me so I remained behind him and we came out in a lot of traffic, which is when Paul jumped ahead of me. The rest of the race was quite uneventful and I just focused on looking after the tyres. It’s a great result for the team and we should be happy with the result.”
It’s a mid-summer morning in Coimbatore. It’s unusually cool, as we stand in front of a huge white gate. Soon, a security guard escorts us to an outhouse in one corner of a big compound lined with trees and a well-manicured lawn that gives you the impression of an English courtyard.
Except for a beautiful black 911, there is not a hint that we are soon to be in the company of an F1 driver. And then, with two playful dogs jumping all over, Narain Karthikeyan emerges and leads us to the drawing room, adorned with trophies and memorabilia. The 2005 Jordan F1 helmet stands out, reminding us of the glory of an Indian first competing in Grand Prix racing.
Narain has just returned from Malaysia, and sits in his typical relaxed style. “It’s one of those rare days when I spend time at home between F1 races,’’ he says, to begin his free-wheeling interview with TopGear. With the rain-lashed performance still fresh in his mind, he speaks for the first few minutes about Malaysia. The mastery of how he piloted his car in the pelting rain at Sepang again showcased Narain’s driving skills.
“It was a great feeling to dominate in the rain and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’ve always said I’m as quick as anybody else out there. But we knew the car wouldn’t sustain the pace once it dried up. It yielded nothing in terms of the result, but it was nice to prove your talent and show the control you have on the car in such adverse conditions, even if only for a few minutes,’’ he says. On the last lap before the race was red-flagged, the HRT driver was in 10th place and his sector-one time of 42.4s was faster than the nine drivers ahead of him. Only Lewis Hamilton of McLaren, who also flourishes in rain, came close, with a time of 42.9s.
As we settle down, Narain speaks about his father, GR Karthikeyan’s influence on him. “My dad was a rally champion in his time, and the great S Karivardhan was a relative, so the sport ran in my family blood. It became my childhood passion and I was very stubborn about becoming an F1 driver. My father encouraged me a lot but he also knew it was a daunting task,’’ Narain explains. “If you really want to become a professional racing driver, you go and train in Europe, to see if you have it in you to make it big,’’ Narain recollects his father’s words. “I was still a schoolboy and my father thought once I saw the tough competition and the difficulties of competing in Europe, I’d give up,’’ Narain feels.
“That’s how I landed in France at the Elf School,’’ he points out. That was 1992, just after finishing school in Stanes Anglo Indian School in Coimbatore, and “I was all of 15 and raring to go. I impressed my teachers at the Elf Winfield Racing School, making it to the semi-finals of the end-of-the-course race,’’ he says. It was in the Pilote Elf Race for Formula Renault cars that his inherent talent was spotted. “Frankly, I didn’t understand that getting into Formula 1 is such a gigantic task. In hindsight, I feel it was a blessing in disguise, as I might have given up, had I known the tremendous difficulties one faces,’’ he confesses.
“But I’m glad I worked with single-minded determination. It was always going to be tough since motorsports was primitive in India in those days,’’ feels Narain.
Talking about his childhood pranks and how he and his friends used to ‘steal’ cars and do all kinds of stunts, he notes: “Those days, Coimbatore roads were not so busy and we used to take on empty streets… and I remember doing a Mahindra jeep when I was in Class 8. I had great fun, sliding, throwing-out and what-not,’’ he says while giggling.
On a serious note, he talks about how Karivardhan transformed motorsport in India. “Kari was a genius. He built completely indigenous racecars at a very cheap price, which allowed young race drivers to practice in single-seater cars. Those days when racecraft was virtually nil, and only a few understood the intricacies of Formula racing, he promoted motorsports and encouraged young talent,’’ Narain says.
After his debut podium in Formula Maruti in 1993, Narain returned to Europe to gain valuable experience in the Formula Vauxhall Junior Championship. Then came his first chance to watch an F1 race live, at the Portugal Grand Prix in 1994. He was driving the F1 support race and became the first Indian to win any race in Europe at the British Formula Ford Winter Series. “It was an amazing experience watching an F1 race and it only reinforced my dream,’’ says Narain, whose pioneering work laid down a path for other Indians to follow.
He crossed hurdle after hurdle and became the first Asian to win the Formula Asia International series in 1996. He moved back to England to make his debut in British F3 in 1998, after which he took time to settle down and finished third in the last two races. Five podium finishes, including two great victories at Brands Hatch in 1999, got him sixth place in the championship. In 2000, his third year in British F3, he did a notch better, moving up to fourth place, getting a pole position and fastest laps in Macau Grand Prix. He peaked with two stunning victories at Spa Francorchamps and Korea Super Prix, which got the attention of the world and soon landed him a test drive with Jaguar Racing.
And that is how Narain Karthikeyan became the first Indian to test a Formula One car at Silverstone, on 14 June, 2001. His amazing performance got him two more test drives for the Jordan F1 team in October and September, but it was a long wait till 2004 before he got an F1 call from Minardi. That effort proved futile because he couldn’t raise sponsorship money.
“You can master the sport and do everything you can, but when it comes to sponsorship I keep my fingers crossed even today. Nothing has changed even after reaching the zeniths of driving skill. One moment, I go down to utter despair, but then, I find a glimmer of hope somewhere. It was the same in 2004, and even now. But in all these periods of uncertainty, I trained hard and kept myself ready. In all the ups and downs, I thank Tata for steadfastly supporting me in my grueling journey from F3 to F1, and even today,’’ Narain says thankfully.
With his F1 career on the backfoot, Narain took time out for family and married Pavarna in 2004. “I met her through a common friend in 2001. For an outsider, the racing life looks very glamourous and glitzy but for your own family and wife, it’s very hard to cope with the rigorous and unconventional lifestyle. But Pavarna has been a stabilising factor in my life and has stood as a pillar of strength,’’ says Narain.
In Februray 2005, at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, the deal with Jordan saw him qualify 12th on the grid, ahead of giants like Michael Schumacher. On March 6, he created history when he became the first Indian to drive in Formula 1. He finished 15th in that first race. The rest as they say is history.
Narain continued in Formula 1 as a test driver for Williams in 2006 and 2007, in his struggle to keep racing at the top level. And just when the world believed his racing career was over, he landed a drive with HRT in 2011. “I always said I still have the mettle and Formula 1 is a continuing dream. So I trained extra hard to realise that dream of driving in front of the home crowd as F1 made its debut in India,’’ he says with a smile.
Narain continues to live that dream for another year with HRT. Asked if missing the podium in 2005 at the Formula 1 US GP was his biggest disappointment, he says: “With only six cars, I came fourth. But my greatest regret is not winning in Macau in 2000. Starting from pole, I was doing the fastest laps. It was over-exuberance and I was pushing too hard and made a stupid mistake. I was not mature enough. A win here at one of the toughest circuits in the world could’ve changed my entire career path,’’ he says a tinge of sadness.
“But I bounced back and retrieved whatever I could with dedication and hard work. That’s when I realised the importance of training hard. Now my training regimen is very strict. I do weights, endurance and specific workouts for individual muscles. Working to keep the neck and lower back fit is a complete routine in itself. I also do yoga and meditation,’’ says Narain, whose personal trainer now is Chandigarh-born German Balbir Singh, who once famously looked after Michael Schumacher.
“Karthikeyan is a true representative of India’s young spirit and he has set an example for the entire motorsports fraternity,’’ was how Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described him. “The Padma Shree was one of my proudest moments in 2010. It is not just an individual honour, it has come as recognition for all of motorsports in India,’’ Narain says, just as the fax machine rings. It’s his day’s training schedule, from his trainer in Austria. No time to waste. Another race weekend, another battle beckons. The Shanghai GP is just days away…
Mark Webber of Red Bull makes it three in a row for the team at Monaco. –FIA photo.
Monaco: The following drivers attended the final FIA post-race press conference for the podium finishers here on Sunday: Mark WEBBER (Red Bull Racing) whose first place finish made it a three in-a-row for Red Bull at Monaco while Nico ROSBERG of Mercedes and Fernando ALONSO (Ferrari) came second and third.
TV UNILATERAL
Mark, your second Monaco win, you won’t have a closer one than that, how are you feeling?
Mark WEBBER: Yeah, I’m feeling incredible mate. It was a very interesting race. Reasonably straightforward at the start: getting the gap on the Supersofts, just managing it with Nico. Obviously we had a bit of a gap over the rest as well, so both of us were getting away, and it was just a matter then of trying to get back into a reasonable gap. Also, the weather was threatening around that pit stop window as well and we weren’t sure if we should go a bit longer there and put a set of inters on if it rained or whatever. But Nico went for it, went early with the undercut, so obviously a few people had to react to his first chess move, and then the next phase of the race was very strange. It was very hard to get the Soft tyre warmed up, the harder tyres in terms of Prime tyre, and Seb, obviously, had his in and it wasn’t wearing down that much. So he was then coming back into the picture with his strategy. We were all trying to get temperature and at the start of the stint I had very, very low front grip and I had to manage that and move the brake balance around and things like that trying to get everything organised, and [I was] managing Nico and everyone else. But also, Seb’s going ‘Hmmm, this is interesting’, so I didn’t want him to get the magic 21 seconds, to make sure he couldn’t do the stop and get the victory – that wasn’t part of the plan. I managed to sort that out and I could concentrate on Nico again and then get the car to the end. But the rain – as Fernando said coming across in the car, there were times when he was praying for rain, saying ‘good, come on, rain, rain’, and then when it started he was saying, ‘no, no, I don’t want it to rain’. I think it was like that for everybody, except for me, because the first guy there is always tricky. So, amazing day for the team and myself. Yeah, so I’m really, really happy to have won here again. A great memory for me. Fantastic.
Nico, so close at the end – 0.6 seconds behind Mark. You tried a number of different things and you probably hoped for the rain as well but in the end I guess it wasn’t to be.
Nico ROSBERG: Yeah, in general. At the beginning it was pretty straightforward. I was hoping for a good start, I had a good start, but Mark had a pretty good start too. That was it then. And then, it was just a matter of tyre management and everything and I must say I was a bit surprised by how strong we were not only in qualifying but also in the race. I think, at the end of day, for the weekend, we probably had the fastest car out there, in qualifying and the race, which is great to see, because we’re just making progress all the time, so that’s fantastic. Unfortunately, it didn’t come together perfectly, so P2, it could have been P1 I think this weekend but there we are. No, I’m very happy with second place of course. It got a bit difficult there in the end, with the rain and the warm-up of the harder tyres but I’m very pleased.
Fernando, fifth on the grid, third at the finish, you now have sole control of the World Championship lead. Does this feel like a win to you?
Fernando ALONSO: Well, our target obviously was to try to finish in front of Sebastian, in front of Lewis – they were with us in the World Championship. And if you go race by race you concentrate on different drivers. The next one will be Mark, now he’s second in the championship. So, it will be interesting also this season with constant development of the car and the constant surprises we are having every race – you never know which one will be on pole or take the race win. Everything went smooth after the start, but I had a contact with Grosjean. At that point I thought maybe the car was damaged or something but the car was perfectly fine so I keep running. I felt good, I felt competitive but in Monaco it’s difficult with the traffic, to manage the traffic. We overtook Hamilton at the stop, with a perfect time, a perfect pit stop again. Thanks to the team I think we are in a privileged position and well done to all of them.
Mark, back to you. The start, obviously, was decisive and as you say, you got a good one. It’s not always been your strength. Tell us about today’s.
MW: Yeah, it went well. The first initial getaway was very good and control after that was good, but I knew straight away it was enough to get to turn one in good shape, so that was important. The next thing was the pit stop. When Nico went two laps short – aggressive underneath me in terms of pit stop, I thought ‘I hope he can’t get the tyres in’. But I was happy. Obviously I have full trust in the guys doing the strategy that he wasn’t doing much more than me or in traffic or whatever. So that was the next key phase and then obviously down to the driver in terms of concentration to the maximum.
Nico, tell us about how the strategies here this afternoon, because the way this race unfolded wasn’t really the way it was predicted. There were expectations of two stops. Tell us how things changed during the race.
NR: Well, it was pretty straightforward. You know, there’s two way to beat Mark. One is to go really long and hope that I’m that much faster in the end, which is even more difficult. The better chance was to go short and hope that I could put in some really good lap times straight away out the pits. But with the one lap it was just difficult and that’s why I couldn’t go fast enough to beat him on the track.
Fernando, you mentioned avoiding the spinning Romain Grosjean in the Lotus. Just tell us in a bit more detail what it was like to see that car go through 90 degrees and work out what to do next.
FA: Well, I had a fantastic start and in the first 10 metres I was side by side with Romain and I was passing Lewis as well but it was fair. They went close to each other and I put the car in the middle I think I touched Romain with my rear left and his right front and after that touch he spun. We were lucky that nothing was damaged on the car. After that spin of Romain, positions mixed a little bit. I think I saw Vettel like position five or six after the start. So some people were hurt and some people gained some advantage.
Back to you Mark, you’re the sixth different winner in the first six grands prix of the season – never happened before in Formula One. What’s it like to be part of this amazing season?
MW: Pretty good. I think we’re a little bit… like Fernando said, it’s up and down quali and the races are hard to predict so even for us, how we judge how the grand prix is going to unfold is not particularly straightforward. That is sometimes frustrating for us, because we’d like to push the limit and get the most out of everything we have, but we have to leave margin in not only strategy but also in driving and all that sort of stuff. So it’s different to how it was in the past. So maybe we’ll have seven different winners after Montreal, you never know. But hopefully we can get a bit of routine now. I think we got the maximum; we absolutely got the maximum out of this weekend. We were very, very fortunate to get pole. I was very, very happy with my lap. Then we knew that he race was our, not to lose, but it was a very, very special victory for us today. So, more to come hopefully.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Well done Mark. Was it any easier the second time? I don’t suppose it was.
MW: This one was harder. Obviously the strategy was very different but we knew that from the start of the race that it was going to be different to the 2010 victory if I managed to try to win here. The start of the grand prix was reasonably going to plan on the supersoft. Pretty happy with how long that tyre went but we still couldn’t quite get the gaps that we were after in terms of the mid-pack. Obviously Nico went for it, a bit shorter, and I was a little surprised that he went then because the tyres were still going not too bad – but it was worth a go.
And then the race started to take a little bit of a different phase because then we had… going to the prime tyre – the soft – wasn’t our ideal. We had to run it, obviously, but it was a very tricky tyre to get started. Obviously Seb was in the groove and underway and he was doing some very quick lap times in that part of the grand prix. And it was hard for us to get going, so I had to keep an eye on the Sebastian gap but also manage the… we needed to finish the grand prix on those tyres.
So when Seb pitted, then I could revert my concentration back to Nico. It was pretty good after that. I must say that there were a lot of marbles on the track. Marbles are tricky, especially at Turn Three, the track was incredibly narrow there, it was just one car width wide, and then the rain. And it’s always tricky when you’re the first guy arriving into corners when it’s sprinkling. So, again, on other tracks and in different conditions, a little bit of rain like that, you wouldn’t really have to back off so much for it but all of a sudden the car is wheel spinning, the front’s not biting, and around this place that’s not very encouraging. Particularly when you’re in the lead with only ten minutes to go in the race. So it required me then to really, really control the race and get the car home.
The start was key, the pitstop was key, both of them went well. I did a little bit of work in between and we got an incredible victory that I’m very, very happy with. It’s great memories for me to win here twice, fair and square off the pole positions. So I’m happy. Nico kept me honest. I had him under control but he drove well as well, and after that I didn’t see what else happened – but yeah, it was good grand prix.
Nico, at the start was there anything you could have done any better?
NR: No! My engineer and my team gave me a great start – but the problem was Mark had a great start too. I got away really well but he did too. We were miles clear of everybody else but not enough to get him. And from then on Mark drove a really, really good race, very controlled and at all times in control of what he was doing and in control of me also. So there was not much I could do. But in general it’s been a really good weekend for me, for the team and I have to say that I think I had the best car out there today, that was my feeling, so that’s really cool and lets me home for a lot more in the next few races. It’s really nice to see how we’re progressing so quickly.
You got a lot closer in the rain, in the wet conditions, did you have any plans how you were going to get past?
NR: No – I was hoping I might get a chance or something but my tyres were really struggling too and also I had Fernando behind me and at times it was very difficult, just front and rear warm up, tyres lost temperature and then they picked up again towards the end. So it was a little bit easier in the end but very much on the limit.
What does it mean to be standing here on the podium here in your home town, as it were, your home country?
NR: It’s very special, having grown up here. It’s great. The way through the tunnel is my way to school, so it was fantastic and I’m very happy.
Fernando, I guess the crucial thing was jumping Hamilton at the pit stop?
FA: Yes. I think the start was the first point where we had the opportunity to gain some places, we did a great start again. We had to lift off because there was no space between Lewis and Grosjean, if not we could also overtake Lewis at the start and maybe the race was different. It was good being fourth in the first corner and then Lewis had quite big degradation because he was so slow and before the pit stop we get close and then with one extra lap it was enough to jump him at the stop. I think the tyres were surprisingly good, surprisingly consistent, so with the warm-up problems and the pace that we had after the pit stop, I think if we run longer with that tyre maybe there was the chance to win even more positions, as Sebastian tried to do. So, that was close but it is always difficult to predict. I think it was surprisingly good, the supersoft, and maybe surprisingly difficult to warm up the softs. You never know – only after the race.
Did you have any plans at the end? You were all so close…
FA: If rain, then yes. I think at 20 laps to the end they said ‘maybe rain is coming’. And I said, if rain is coming we have to attack. We would put on intermediate tyres and there is always a better chance to overtake in the wet than in the dry. We were out there ready to risk, because victory in Monaco means a lot. So, we were optimistic on that, but then five or six laps to the end with the drops of rain that we had, I think we were all praying ‘no more rain’ because it was so difficult. As Mark explained, the difficulty of being the first two or three cars, you don’t know how the next corner will be. You have a little snap, a little bit of front problem in the corner before, you see all the drops on the visor on the straight and when you approach the next corner at 250kph, how wet will be that corner? You never know. At that point, five laps to the end, we all, I think, want to keep positions and finish the race as we were.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Frederic Ferret – L’Equipe) Mark, were your settings very different from Seb’s? And is it one of the keys to your victory today?
MW: I think, in general, qualifying has gone very well for me this year. Seb got me once in Bahrain, the rest have gone for well for me. Set-up-wise, we’ve always been pretty close, we always work very well as a team, to get the most out of both cars. He made some changes before qualifying, which – it looks in hindsight he wasn’t particularly happy with. That’s how it is sometimes for us drivers. Obviously we get it wrong and we get it right. Round here, if you haven’t got the confidence, then you’re not quick, which happened with Seb. He didn’t have the confidence in qualifying and he couldn’t produce the times, so that can happen at any venue. If you want to look at the battle between us then it was key that obviously qualifying went well for me but then I had my own battle with these guys, so if I just relaxed and tried to bed in by one tenth, I would have qualified eighth, so I need to keep my finger out and keep going.
Q: (Dan Knutson – Honorary) Mark, you and Seb are tied three points behind Fernando. You’ve said before that wins are what you really need for a championship; you got 25 points today. How much does that boost your championship bid?
MW: It’s timely off the back of a difficult weekend for us in Barcelona, through a few small things that we got wrong, and ultimately we paid for that with no points in Barcelona. Up until then, generally, we’ve got the maximum out of most weekends, and that was the case this weekend. So that’s all we can keep doing, Dan, is getting the most out of each weekend. In Shanghai, Nico was untouchable, Barcelona the Williams was quick. So we need to be scoring all the time and then when days like this come along you just cannot let them go at all. You have to grab them with both hands and feet and hang on to them like hell. That was the plan today but consistency is nice, but wins are what wins championships – well, DNFs can shag championships as well, but you need to win and then keep consistent.
Q: (Jaime Rodriguez –El Mundo) Fernando, you seemed extremely happy on the podium. What does it mean for you to be leading the championship, and what is the secret of this change in the team?
FA: I was happy all weekend. Yesterday there was some disappointment in the atmosphere around the result in qualifying, because we had been strong in free practice and then maybe people expected us to be fighting for better positions in qualifying, but inside the team we were extremely happy. We were fifth and seventh for the first time in 2012, both in Q3 after fighting to get through in some of the races one month ago, so this was definitely a very strong weekend with a good qualifying position and I think a good race position as well. In fact we overtook some other teams in the Constructors’ championship today with some good points, finally, so I was happy for that, happy for the direction or happy for the momentum that we seemed to have kept from the Mugello test so that we brought some updates for the car. Everything seems to work, not as at the start of the championship when some of the updates were negative and we were a little bit lost, so now we are happy not for the result, not for the pace which we understand that we need to improve – we are not the fastest out there – but happy for the direction that it seems we are in. Everything that we put on the car seems positive, so the next couple of weeks will be important.
Q: (Vincent Marre – Sports Zeitung) Mark, at what stage did you think you had the race won?
MW: Lap 78, out of turn 19. That’s Monaco. I watched the 1983 or ’82 Monaco Grand Prix. Prost was leading with two laps to go and he crashed. So you never get ahead of yourself around here, because you’ll get bitten in the arse really hard. So after the last corner was when I thought I was going to win.
Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport) Fernando, the lap before your pit stop, you had two purple sectors. Was the set of tyres good enough to do again the next but one lap and could you have possibly jumped Nico or even Mark?
FA: Yeah, definitely I think so, but as I explained before, nobody predicted the problems with the soft tyre warm-up today. The temperature, the track conditions, whatever it was, the soft was not very quick at the beginning, so when the people around us stopped, you need to make a decision. At the same time, nobody predicted that on lap 30, the supersoft would do pink sectors every lap. Knowing now what Sebastian tried to do and how our in lap was and the tyre state on that lap, with a few more laps, for sure we could jump Nico and Mark.
Q: (Livio Oricchio – O Estado de Sao Paulo) Mark, last year, at the same Grand Prix, you had a completely different situation than you have today, mainly compared to your teammate. He had won several races, you nothing, even inside the team it was different. Can you tell us what is the big difference between last year and this year?
MW: Yeah, last year was a little bit of a mystery to be honest. The gap sometimes was really really extreme and it was hard for me to understand why it was like that sometimes. I think there was also a factor of me getting on top of the tyres but it wasn’t all of it. I didn’t feel that I had lost that much form but as the season went on, obviously things got a bit closer and a little bit better. But you’re correct in your question, the first five months was very tough and I was in a different category to the other car, whereas this year it’s much much more like 2009 or 2010, which is nice.
Q: (Leonid Novozhilov – F1 Life) Mark, Red Bull Racing won today and the last two Grands Prix in Monaco. How do you do it?
MW: Well, we’ve been on pole position for the last three years here as well, which is a big help. 2010 was a similar race – actually the last three have been similar. I think they’ve all been one stop races, obviously different safety cars. Sebastian had a red flag to help him a little bit to get him over the line last year, but generally I think that we’ve had a very very good car every time we’ve come here. I think this year is probably the weakest car we’ve had here in the three years that we’ve come here, but it was still enough to win, so the other years were a little bit more straightforward, this one was much much more difficult. I don’t know, maybe the guys are drinking a lot of Red Bull and it gets them in the zone for the special weekend, but they’re very fortunate we’ve won three in row here and it’s a brilliant effort from the team.
From pole position Webber got a good start on Sunday, got to the first corner ahead of Nico Rosberg and never looked troubled. 78 laps later the first six crossed the line nose to tail, but this was rather more exciting than that suggests. Behind him Romain Grosjean spun after contact with Michael Schumacher. Kamui Kobayashi’s Sauber hit the spinning Lotus and both were out. The sixth race of the season also threw up a new winner in Webber to make it six different winners in six races at the principality of Monaco. Thus Webber became a double winner at the street circuit and joined the exclusive club
Webber, 2nd from left, poses after winning the Monaco GP on Sunday. An FIA photo.
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The safety car was deployed, the order behind it was Webber leading from Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton, Alonso, Felipe Massa, Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Räikkönen, Schumacher, Nico Hulkenberg and Bruno Senna. The variable in play was that Vettel, like Button and di Resta further down the order, was on the soft tyre, the other leaders were using the supersoft. Rosberg was the first man in for tyres, stopping on lap 27. Webber followed two laps later and got out comfortably in front of Rosberg. Hamilton, Räikkönen and Hulkenberg stopped at the same time.
One lap later Alonso came in and picked Hamilton’s pocket. Schumacher stayed out until lap 34 and jumped Räikkönen. The Finn had emerged behind the Marussia of Charles Pic and, with no way through, was forced to lap three seconds slower than Schumacher for several tours. Vettel led the race and began to put in a series of fast laps. His hope would have been to build up a cushion of over 20 seconds to be able to stop and retain his lead, but Webber began to pace himself against his team-mate and Vettel’s lead never got above 18 seconds. Finally it began to decrease as his tyres went away: he pitted on lap 46 and emerged in fourth, having jumped Hamilton and Massa.
“I was a little surprised that [Rosberg] went then because the tyres were still going not too bad – but it was worth a go,” said Webber in the FIA press conference after the race. “The prime tyre was a very tricky tyre to get started. Obviously Seb was in the groove and underway and he was doing some very quick lap times in that part of the grand prix. And it was hard for us to get going, so I had to keep an eye on the Sebastian gap but also manage the tyres. So when Seb pitted, then I could revert my concentration back to Nico. It was pretty good after that.”
Schumacher was forced to retire from seventh with a fuel pressure problem and then rain began to threaten but only a few drops fell on the circuit. It was enough to make Webber drop his pace by a few seconds and the leaders bunched behind him.
“It’s always tricky when you’re the first guy arriving into corners when it’s sprinkling,” said Webber. “On other tracks, a little bit of rain like that, you wouldn’t really have to back off so much but all of a sudden the car is wheel-spinning, the front’s not biting, and around this place that’s not very encouraging. Particularly when you’re in the lead with only ten minutes to go in the race. So it required me then to really, really control the race and get the car home.”
Despite the first six being covered by two seconds, no-one attempted anything desperate in the damp laps. “I was hoping I might get a chance or something but my tyres were really struggling too,” said Rosberg. “Also, I had Fernando behind me and at times it was very difficult, just front and rear warm up, tyres lost temperature and then they picked up again towards the end.”
Alonso, whose third place lifts him into the championship lead, agreed. “Five or six laps to the end with the drops of rain that we had, I think we were all praying ‘no more rain’ because it was so difficult.”
What rain there was soon abated and the track dried, allowing the front runners to resume lapping at their previous pace. Webber took victory, pushed across the line by Rosberg, Alonso, Vettel, Hamilton and Massa. Further back Force India had a good day with di Resta and Hulkenberg seventh and eighth. Kimi Räikkönen was ninth for a disappointed Lotus and Bruno Senna took a consolation point for Williams.
Alonso leads the Drivers’ Championship on 76 points, closely followed by Vettel and Webber on 73 each. Red Bull Racing had a fine day and extended their lead in that competition to 38 points, with 146 to McLaren’s 108.
“It was a very, very special victory today, and hopefully there’s more to come,” said a jubilant Webber. “The start was key, the pitstop was key, both of them went well. I did a little bit of work in between and we got an incredible victory that I’m very, very happy with. It’s great memories for me to win here twice, fair and square off the pole positions. Nico kept me honest. I had him under control but he drove well. It was good grand prix.”
Monte Carlo, 27 May 2012: The first Indian to drive in Formula 1, Narain Karthikeyan, achieved the best-result thus far in the season for HRT, the Spanish outfit at the principality of Monaco as he finished 15th ahead of Jenson Button, who was classified as 16th in a race won by Mark Webber of Red Bull who started on pole. The F1 World Championship 2012 set a unique record of throwing up six winners in the first six races of a season for the first time. In 1983, the season saw five different winners in the first five races.
The other highlight for Indian fans is a strong double finish by Sahara Force India. Paul Di Resta finished 7th followed by Nico Hulkenberg to boost the points as co-owner Vijay Mallya and his son Sid tweeted merrily.
For the team it was a bittersweet sensation once again as Karthikeyan skilfully drove through the Principality’s streets and, after a two-stop strategy, crossed the finish line with his F112 but his teammate Pedro de la Rosa who, despite completing three good practice sessions and an impeccable qualifying session, fell victim to the tricky Monaco circuit. The Spanish driver got hit from behind when trying to avoid a car that had crashed on the first lap of the race. The damage suffered to the rear wing was quite severe and de la Rosa was forced to retire.
With no time to lose, HRT Formula 1 Team will head to Madrid this very night to prepare all the material that will fly out to Canada in a couple of days for the seventh Grand Prix of the season which will take place in Montreal from the 8th to the 10th of June.
Pedro de la Rosa: “It was a terrible shame; I feel sorry for the team because yesterday we did a good job and today we were starting from an interesting position and I think we could have achieved a good result. Our one-stop strategy with softs first and super-softs second was good, you only have to see what Vettel did, so it was a shame not to have been able to complete more than 300 metres. It wasn’t a mistake by me or the team, but one by another driver, but those things happen in races. One day it might happen to me too, the sad thing is that it happened precisely here after all the good work we’d done and how much I was looking forward to finishing in Monaco with a good result. I leave here a little bit sad because, although we wouldn’t have scored a point, we could have at least finished with a good result”.
Narain Karthikeyan: “It was a tough race because we were very limited on our tyres. We tried to keep a constant pace, stay out of trouble and finish the race; we knew that if we managed to do that we would be able to finish in a good position. 15th position is a good result and a good way of getting over the disappointment from Barcelona. Now what I need to do is work on putting together a good lap in qualifying as that has been my weakest point this season. Hopefully I’ll be able to carry the momentum from here onto the next race in Canada and continue to progress”.
Luis Pérez-Sala, Team Principal: “We’ve got mixed feelings today. Pedro got hit from behind in the early stages, which was a real shame but, on the other hand, Narain completed a very good race and we achieved a 15th place finish, our best result this season so far. This race is always complicated and, given the forecast, we started with a strategy planned for a wet race. In the end it didn’t rain and that cost us a couple of positions. But we’re satisfied because we finished the race, with one car at least and only two laps off the winner, something which here in Monte Carlo is positive for us”.
Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo
Sunday, 27th of May 2012
Weather: Cloudy – Air 22ºC, Track 38ºC
Race: 78 laps – Track distance: 3.340 km
Pedro de la RosaF112-02 #22DNF
Narain KarthikeyanF112-03 #2315th
Force India managed to get 10 valuable points on the day.
P7 Paul Di Resta (VJM05/02)
Tyre strategy: New soft, new supersoft
Paul: “A great result today and I’m very happy to make up so much ground on my starting position. We went aggressive with the strategy and I have to say the team really optimised it. The secret was managing the tyres and trying to find clean air when we could. The car felt really good, much stronger than yesterday, and that allowed me to push when we needed to. Fortunately the rain held off at the end because that could have had a big impact on the end of the race. It’s great that we managed to get both cars in the points and we can celebrate tonight.”
P8 Nico Hulkenberg (VJM05/03)
Tyre strategy: New supersoft, new soft Nico: “It was a pretty messy start with lots of cars touching and I was lucky to make it through because I had to avoid Grosjean, who was in the middle of the track. For the first few laps I was running with Michael [Schumacher] and we were stuck behind Kimi [Raikkonen] who was struggling on the supersofts, but it was difficult to get by. Unfortunately Kimi stopped on the same lap as me so I remained behind him and we came out in a lot of traffic, which is when Paul jumped ahead of me. The rest of the race was quite uneventful and I just focused on looking after the tyres. It’s a great result for the team and we should be happy with the result.”
Team Principal and Managing Director Vijay Mallya says: “A very enjoyable Monaco Grand Prix and I am delighted to see both Sahara Force Indias well inside the points. Paul drove a very strong race, making up seven places on his grid position and managing the tyres perfectly. Nico was running the reverse strategy to Paul, which also worked out well, and means we leave here with ten important points. Now we look forward to the next race in Canada where we hope to continue our run of points finishes.”
HRT's Pedro got the best grid position with a P21 while Narain starts on P23 at the Monaco GP. HRT F1 photo.
Narain Karthikeyan, the first Indian to become a Formula ! driver and a pioneer in Indian Motorsport continues to get the second best car at the HRT, the Spanish outfit, and took his appointed 23rd place with Sergio Perez being last man on grid this time around as he failed to set up a time. Karthikeyan opted to go in only two times during the qualification thus saving a set of option tyres while his teammate Pedro de la Rosa, whose car is doing much better these days, set up the best qualification time ever for the HRT team and took 21st place on Grid at Circuit de Monaco on Saturday.
Sahara Force India made the most of a competitive qualifying hour as Nico Hulkenberg qualified in P11 ahead of teammate Paul Di Resta in P15. With a grid penalty for Pastor Maldonado, both drivers will move up a place on the starting grid.
Narain Karthikeyan: “We carried out a different strategy to Pedro, and went for two runs when maybe three would have been better. The positive note is that we have one more set of new option tyres for tomorrow’s race and we have to get the best out of them. Pedro and I have been quite closely matched all weekend and I’m sure we’ll have a good pace tomorrow. Although, if it rains it will be a bit of a lottery. Whatever happens, we have to be ready to make the most of any opportunity that may arise”.
Schumacher sparkes:
Indian interest apart, at the top it was 7-time world champion who found glimpses of his old charm to take pole but was pushed back due to a penalty. At his 44th time of trying after coming out of retirement and joining Mercedes in 2010, Michael Schumacher took a magnificent pole position on the streets of Monaco. However, he has a five-place grid penalty hanging over him from the Spanish Grand Prix and will start from sixth place. P1 instead will go to Mark Webber for Red Bull Racing.
The Australian will start alongside Schumacher’s team-mate Nico Rosberg. Qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix saw a stampede to the track with everybody going out early in the session but four minutes in Sergio Pérez caused proceedings to be halted. The Sauber driver tagged the barriers in the Swimming Pool section and badly damaged the left side of his car. Trying to recover to the pits his left rear wheel fell off and the red flags came out. With the cars of Caterham, HRT and Marussia most likely to fill the final six grid slots, and with Pérez unable to set a time, Q1 became largely irrelevant.
Heikki Kovalainen made it hard for several drivers, in particular Kimi Räikkönen and Sebastian Vettel who had to make last minute runs, but ultimately eliminated were Kovalainen (18), Petrov (19), Glock (20), de la Rosa (21), Pic (22) and Karthikeyan (23). All were well inside the 107% time. Pérez, having not completed a lap was 24th and last and will have to rely on the Stewards’ discretion to start the race.
At the other end of things fastest lap was 1:15.418 set by Nico Hulkenberg. At the start of Q2 it was yellow flags rather than red as Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne limped back to the pits with a damaged front wing. Vergne had snapped to the right at the tunnel exit and went into the barriers in a manner reminiscent of several accidents last year – this despite the resurfacing work done on that section of track.
The surprise elimination was Jenson Button, down in 13th position, eliminated along with Hulkenberg [11], Kobayashi [12], Senna [14], Ricciardo [15] and Vergne [16]. With the exception of the stricken Vergne, the entire field was lapping within ninth-tenths of the leader. Nico Rosberg was first out in Q3. He, Grosjean, Hamilton and Webber had all saved a set of supersofts, allowing them to have two runs during the final session. Rosberg soon went to the front but the track was getting faster, and all the action happened in the final minutes.
Rosberg was deposed by Webber but with the chequered flag out Michael Schumacher took the top spot. Still out on track Romain Grojean had set a fastest first sector but lost ground in the middle. Schumacher topped the qualifying times for the first time since the French Grand Prix of 2006. “Obviously I saw my time on the dashboard and I thought ‘Well, that shouldn’t be too bad,’” said Schumacher afterwards. The first four were within 0.2s.
Schumacher’s penalty lifts Webber to P1 with Rosberg alongside him. Lewis Hamilton will start third with Romain Grosjean fourth. Fernando Alonso will be fifth and Schumacher sixth. Felipe Massa had his best qualifying performance of the year with seventh, while Kimi Räikkönen finished eighth. Pastor Maldonado qualified ninth but faces a ten-place grid penalty for his collision with Sergio Pérez in FP3. Sebastian Vettel, who didn’t set a time in qualifying, will therefore start ninth in tomorrow’s Monaco Grand Prix.
HRT at Monaco
Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo
Saturday, 26th of May 2012
Weather: Sunny – Air 24ºC, Track 39ºC
11.00-12.00 FORMULA 1 PRACTICE SESSION 3
Pedro de la RosaF112-02 #22 24th (19 laps) 1:19.151
After enjoying a day off yesterday, Formula 1 action returned to the track today for the third free practice session. An hour of work which enabled HRT Formula 1 Team to fine-tune the set-up on its cars and Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan to gain confidence at such a tricky circuit. The work paid off as Pedro de la Rosa achieved the team’s best result in qualifying so far this year, with a 21st place finish ahead of Pic’s Marussia and only one tenth off Glock. And not only did the team cut down the distance to its immediate rivals but it was also the best qualifying result with respect to the best time, with a percentage of 103.6%. Narain Karthikeyan carried out a strategy with two sets of super-soft tyres and finished 23rd.
Tomorrow will be a tough 78-lap race where anything can happen so getting off to a good start, getting the pit stops right and maintaining a good level of concentration will be key.
Pedro de la Rosa: “It was the best qualifying session of the year and, without a doubt, the best lap I’ve ever done in Monaco. The car went well and we decided to do three runs with three new sets of super-softs because we already know that in Monaco the most important thing is to do one good lap. And that’s just what happened and I’m delighted about it because getting into the 18.0’s here is very good. I’m very satisfied because we got our timing right, the team knew when was the right moment to come out in order to avoid traffic and I accomplished my job, which was to do the best lap possible. I must admit I took some risks, on some laps in the last sector I even almost closed my eyes, but I had to attack and did just that. With one more tenth we would have also overtaken Glock but the truth is that we’re very happy with how the day went”.
Toni Cuquerella, Technical Director: “The minor upgrades which we’ve brought to Monaco have helped us to achieve the best qualifying result in the history of HRT Formula 1 Team by finishing Q1 103.6% off the best time. Besides, we also managed to finish much closer to our main rivals, which is very important. The red flag forced us to alter our strategy; with Pedro we decided to switch to two short runs, whilst with Narain we continued with our original plan and did one run. We got our timing right since we were on the track at the right time and you could consider Pedro’s lap to be perfect. It’s a shame that Narain was unable to set a similar time but tomorrow he should have a good pace in the race. It will be an open race and I’m sure that we will be competitive and will fight to gain positions”.
Sahara Force India Qualification Report:
P11 (will start P10) Nico Hulkenberg (VJM05/03)
Q1: 1:15.418
Q2: 1:15.421
Nico: “I had a pretty good run in both Q1 and Q2 – managing to avoid the traffic and my quick lap in Q2 was pretty neat so I don’t think I could have found more time. In fact, I almost set identical laptimes in Q1 and Q2. So I’m pretty happy with where I’m starting and hopefully we can come away with some points tomorrow. It’s always a fun race, a special place to be and we will be pushing hard to maximise the strategy and get a strong result.”
P15 (will start P14) Paul Di Resta (VJM05/02)
Q1: 1:16.062
Q2: 1:15.718
Paul: “I felt pretty happy with the balance of the car during FP2 on Thursday, but unfortunately it didn’t carry over for qualifying. We haven’t changed much on the car, but I was struggling with the rear and with traction. So I’m not as far up the grid as I would like to be and it leaves us with a hard task tomorrow, especially because it’s so difficult to overtake here. But we also know that Monaco can be an unpredictable race and I hope the strategy can help us fight back tomorrow.”
Dr Vijay Mallya, Team Principal & Managing Director
“It’s well known that the qualifying hour in Monaco is the most important of the season, so we worked hard to make sure we had optimised the set-up for qualifying. Nico did an excellent job and only missed out on making Q3 by a tenth of a second. In fact, he was only half a second off the quickest time in Q2, which shows once again how closely-matched all the teams are. Paul didn’t feel totally comfortable with his car, but I’m confident he can bounce back and have a strong race starting from P14. I always enjoy the Monaco Grand Prix and we’ve seen in the past that anything can happen here, so we will be targeting points finishes with both cars.”
ends
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Monaco, 26 May 2012: Some races stand out on the calendar. Every single one is unique and has something that makes them special, but if there’s one that everyone wants to go to that’s Monaco. An atypical weekend where everything is beyond normal, superlative, extravagant and yes, we might as well say it, very glamorous.
On a setting like this it’s a complicated task once more, because there are certain standards we have to reach. And Monaco deserves a pintxo which is almost a sin for the taste buds. Because not everyone is capable of grabbing some funghi, cheese and sunflower seeds and turning it into a delicacy worthy of the most exclusive Grand Prix of the season. Thankfully Arzak-Bokado’s professionalism makes our pintxos a safe bet every time. On the streets of Monaco tomorrow people will not only talk about the race but also about HRT Formula 1 Team, because we’re continuing to have pintxos around the world and, everyday, we’re proudly consolidating Spanish cuisine’s reputation everywhere we go.
There’s not much else to say. Stop by our hospitality unit, like every race Sunday and share a pleasant moment with us in a beautiful setting by the sea. We will feel privileged if you join us. And remember that units are limited so better sooner rather than later.
Monaco, 26 May 2012: Post qualification press conference by FIA saw the following drivers interact with the media: 1 – Michael SCHUMACHER (Mercedes), 2 – Mark WEBBER (Red Bull Racing) and 3 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes).
TV UNILATERAL to begin with:
Michael, many congratulations, a great lap. I guess the only shame is that you have to move five places back on the grid, so a bittersweet feeling is it?
Michael SCHUMACHER: First of all, I am more than thrilled and excited about making a pole here in Monaco. Monaco to all of us is the track of the year, which has a very prestigious position, and to manage pole position here after what I have gone through in the past two-and-a-half years is just fabulous. That’s what sticks in my mind. I told you guys already in the press conference, my situation is going to be pole, start the race in sixth and I’m going to win it. That’s what I’m here for and what I’m going to aim for. That’s all I gave in min mind and the past doesn’t matter at all.
Mark, you were on pole here in 2010 and you’re going to inherit it tomorrow from Michael, what do you think about that?
Mark WEBBER: Pretty amazing session wasn’t it. It was very, very close. Q3 was tight between the first few rows. Obviously there were some different tyre strategies going on with different people getting through different parts of qualifying with different sets of tyres and in the end it was a good little battle. Michael did a good lap, fair play to him, but it’s nice to move up a position. Of all places, it’s good to start definitely towards the front here. The guys have done a good job, they worked hard on the rest day, they pushed very, very hard. We weren’t too strong on Thursday and obviously didn’t get much running, though everyone’s the same. But the car on Sunday is generally pretty good, so looking forward to tomorrow.
Nico, you’re only a tenth off pole position. You had provisional pole for quite a long time. I guess you thought you’d done enough. Nevertheless, a chance to win the race tomorrow from where you start.
Nico ROSBERG: Yeah, I wasn’t too aware of the situation. I knew I had done a pretty good lap time but at the same time I knew that I would have to improve on that time to be able to get pole. But in general it was a good qualifying for me too. Everything went to plan. I didn’t optimise my car perfectly in the end, bit too much understeer, but as such, front row is a great place to start tomorrow.
Back to you Michael. Obviously it’s been a tough couple of years since you decided to make your Formula One comeback. What does this pole say about you and how do you feel?
MS: Well, I’ll leave it up to the others to say what it means or doesn’t mean. For me, I’m obviously excited, very happy. It confirms what I have felt for a long time. It’s just sometimes you have put everything at the right moment together. Here it worked out. I have to say a great thanks to all the team, in particular to some of the guys who work very close to me. We had a special session earlier this week that, yeah, it sort of uniforms and unites us even further and those are the result that come together with it. I’m grateful for all the trust that Mercedes, the team had in me and [they] supported me. I’m able to give back a little and I hope I give even further and more back tomorrow.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Michael, your feelings about this pole position? Admittedly, it will be sixth on the grid.
MS: Obviously I saw my time on the dashboard and thought, ‘well, it shouldn’t be too bad’. But then you don’t know – as I was one of the earlier ones on track for the lap – what is going to come behind. So I was watching all of these monitors around the track and at one point I saw with a little sign, number one. And that was the moment I started slowly to believe and got confirmation on the radio. Yeah, just beautiful.
Is this a good Mercedes track? Obviously you’re first and third in qualifying.
MS: I mentioned before the weekend that here and probably Canada are tracks that are probably going to suit us. We shouldn’t look too bad. I told in the round of media after this one down at the TV stations, I said the plan is to be pole here, start the race from sixth and do whatever is possible – may even win – and here we are. It is not a complete surprise that we are able to fight for the front position. But after Thursday free practice and even this morning I wasn’t at all confident to be able to fight for pole position. Then everything seemed to work together. We just dialled the car in to perfection and it’s… yeah… it’s just a result. It’s a result of team effort and team work and getting everything sorted and being ready for it.
The statistics say that the highest winning grid position is third on the grid here. What can you do from sixth?
MS: Well, what can I say? I’ve finished fifth from being last; I won from I don’t know what positions. I will do as good as I can. It’s most likely to be a one-stop strategy here, that’s what you have to live with so in terms of strategy there’s only a very small window to play with. Overtaking we know is tough but we have DRS and KERS so you might as well try – and be sure I will.
Mark, as we mentioned the other day, you had your first podium here, you won from pole in 2010, you’ll be starting on pole tomorrow, you’ve been in the top five for the last four years. It all looks good, doesn’t it?
MW: First of all, I think it’s Michael’s day. It’s a good lap for him so obviously it was a tight session for us. Lots of different people arrived in the back part of the important session in quali with different situations with tyres. Quali went quite smooth for me. It’s the first time of the weekend where you put everything on the line – within reason – so it started to feel pretty good for me and I knew it was aiming for the first few rows for sure. And then it became very, very tight between us and I thought, OK, well, after the first run in Q3, it wasn’t too bad a lap, I thought, we can still go for pole for sure on the last run. And yeah, it was a pretty good lap, I’m pretty happy with it. Very, very good position to be starting tomorrow and we have a very, very good car, the guys have done a good job and I’m very happy with today’s effort.
How well prepared are all the teams, would you say, after losing most of Thursday?
MW: Everyone’s in the same boat. I think that we don’t have a huge amount of experience with the supersoft around here on long runs, but everyone’s going to be in the ballpark I would imagine.
Michael says he feels it’s a one-stop race. Is that pretty much the strategy?
MW: 24 hours mate, we’ll see!
Nico, obviously you’re starting on the front row. What does it mean here at what is your home circuit?
NR: I can also be pleased with today. Generally it’s all gone well, the whole weekend until now. It’s especially great to see how we, as a team, have managed to turn things around from a difficult time the last two races and now be right at the front again. It’s just nice to follow all the progress we’re making, moving forward and really fighting hard to improve the car and get the best of the situation – and that’s why today to really be on top as a team in qualifying is great and I’m very pleased, obviously, to start on the front row in Monaco. That is a great place to start to have a good race.
You needed two laps on the first set of tyres in Q3. We didn’t see what happened at the end of the lap.
NR: Two things: mainly the front warm-up on the tyres was an issue but also I did some setup changes from Q2 to Q3 and I had to find my way around those first, because it was quite a different strategy so that’s why it took me two laps.
And, as was the question to Mark, is the team perfectly happy with the preparation, given that you lost most of Thursday afternoon?
NR: Yes. It’s not going to be easy, the race, definitely, you know a long race and tyre degradation is going to definitely be an issue but I think we’ve prepared well and done the best we can to make sure we have a strong race car.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Vincent Marre – Sports Zeitung) Michael, you set a fantastic pole position; I would like to know how you rate this one among all the others?
MS: May I just say that you have to see two different chapters of life and this is the second one, which stands by itself, because in this Silver Arrow time, in terms of qualifying is the best position I have been in and luckily I’m able to give back, in that way, all the trust that has been shown in me over the last two and a half years.
Q: (Leonid Novozhilov– F1 Life) Michael, is this pole position the best of your life and secondly, how many poles do you think you can set for the team this season?
MS: Similar answer to what I just said before, because how I rate this pole to others… it’s the first one of the second part of my career and naturally that’s the better one, because it’s the first one. It’s just sweet and a good feeling after you have come back and have hoped for better results in all circumstances at the end of the day, after why and what has happened, but to finally get it together and being able to prove it – that’s much more important and therefore I’m certainly delighted.
Q: (Dan Knutson – Honorary) Mark, on Thursday you were not very optimistic about getting on the front row. What did the team change to make the car so much better today?
MW: We certainly pulled the balance together a lot more. Obviously there are no real fast corners here but there are a few where you need to be able to keep the car in the line, especially into Casino but also through the Swimming Pool. You need to have a very good rhythm and pace through there, which we didn’t really have on Thursday, so the car, between low and high speed wasn’t great. We really really pulled that together. Also I think the track helped as well, the rubber on the circuit helped pull it together. The driver always brakes a little bit later on Saturday, so that helps a bit as well. Altogether the guys have done a great job and I think we got the maximum, actually, from what we could do today.
Q: (Andrew Frankel – Forza) Mark, with all the hoopla, all the sponsors, everybody here, do you sleep just as well, starting tomorrow from pole position? Are you a bit twitchy, nervous or whatever?
MW: That’s Formula One around here. It is unique, it is a special event. In some cases I used to like Magny Cours because we could go there and just drive the cars and leave, but here, getting around and the people… always being close and demanding things and all that sort of stuff is not always ideal, but that’s the way it is. Sponsors, they come to a lot of different races. They are great for our programme but they are not in the cockpit with me and that’s why they trust in us to get the job done.
Q: (Marco Giachi– Paddock) Michael and Nico, do you think the special device that you have in the front wing helped you get this very very good performance, to keep the car more balanced?
MS: First of all, it is obviously only available in qualifying and only if we can overtake in the race, otherwise it’s not available. Monte Carlo… you almost get no effect from it. There’s a very small advantage because of the nature of the track, so I don’t think you see any particular advantage in this one. For sure there is some advantage – that’s why we have it, otherwise we wouldn’t have built it, but certainly not enough to discuss it.
Q: (Cedric Voisard – Le Figaro) Question regarding penalties : would you say that it would be better and clearer for the public to apply penalties on site instead of at the next race ?
MW: After qualifying, I thought I had the penalty because my engineer said ‘well done, great lap, de-de-de, penalty’ and I thought ‘shit, what for? I’ve done nothing.’ Yeah, then I was slightly relieved to hear it wasn’t me who had got the penalty. When you have an incident in a Grand Prix, that’s obviously the tricky thing, because it’s people’s decisions after the previous race… When incidents happen I suppose that apart from fines, what else can you do? Sunday’s indiscretions. How do you enforce any regulation on driver behaviour or team behaviour or whatever after that? Do you have any ideas? I don’t know.
Q: (Malcolm Folley – Mail on Sunday) Michael, with your rich history round here, can you tell us what it was like to put that lap together today. The world watches this qualifying session perhaps more so than anywhere else; it was the ideal time to remind everybody that you still do have it.
MS: You have probably already put my answer into your question. Monaco, being so special… we call it a bit more of a driver track than some other tracks we run on through the year, but particularly because of the prestigious atmosphere and what it all means to us, it is super-fantastic if you manage to do such a lap. I knew that I was on a lap but then you can never be sure because we have seen how close and how tight today qualifying has been and I just managed to get it together perfectly, because everything was prepared and that is the nature of Formula One. It is very tricky these days and it’s not always possible to have everything together at all times but here and now we did, and we hopefully learn more and more in order to do that more often. But reminding people that I’m still around, yup, that’s a good point.
Q: (Frank Schneider – Bild) Michael, how come that you were able to predict this pole position last week when you were in Le Mans?
MS: Yip, not only did I say it on Wednesday here but I did so at Le Mans as well, that’s true. I sort of felt that our car could be strong here, so it wasn’t out of the blue, and it wasn’t just a funny comment. There was quite a bit of optimism in there but I guess that’s my nature.
Q: (Kate Walker – Girl Racer) We’ve had some particularly variable weather over the last three days and we were expecting a wet qualifying session; are you expecting or afraid of a wet race or do you think it’s going to stay dry?
MS: I’m expecting, at my pit stop, that it will start raining.
NR: Local knowledge hasn’t really helped the last few days. It’s been very unusual, that’s not the normal weather here, that in the morning we have sunshine and then in the afternoon everything goes dark. It’s very strange.
MW: I just do whatever Jenson does!
Q: (Livio Oricchio – O Estado de Sao Paul) Michael, does a result like this – the maximum, pole position – have weight in your decision whether to continue or not in Formula One?
MS: You imagine that just because of one result I’ve done at this moment I’m suddenly restarting or opening a different subject. No, that’s not the case. I’m focused on what I’m doing right now. There will come a time when I will make summary of everything and then I will sit down with the team to see what we’re going to do.
Q: (Rodrigo Franca – VIP Magazine) Michael, in the first chapter of your life, when you were on pole, you had two or three cars trying to win, like Ferrari or McLaren, and now we have 10 or 12 cars potential winners here. How do you see the race tomorrow from pole position?
MS: Naturally there are more contenders for winning this race than maybe there used to be in the past, that’s true and that is why it’s also so tight. I don’t know what the time gap is between positions one and ten today but I guess it’s much less than it used to be in the past. But that’s how Formula One has evolved and there are particular reasons for this. Being up front, I like it but being on the other side you may disagree.
Q: (Olivier de Wilde – Le Derniere Heure) Michael, it’s a pity you have this penalty, especially here. Do you think it was justified?
MS: I’m not thinking about two weeks ago. I’m just thinking about the now and what will happen. That’s it. I’m focused forward.
Monaco, 26 May 2012: Mark Webber reckons he has a “very good car” with which to aim for his second Monaco win from pole position after he inherited the front-of-grid slot thanks to pole winner Michael Schumacher’s five-place penalty, says an FIA press release.
Webber, who won here in 2010, was in provisional pole position today as the clock ran out in the Q3 top-ten shoot-out in Monaco, but Michael Schumacher was still on track and the German quickly notched his first pole position since the French Grand Prix of 2006. However, the seven-time champion’s joy was tempered by the knowledge that he will start from sixth tomorrow, having been hit with a grid penalty after the Spanish Grand Prix where he crashed into Bruno Senna.
The German’s misfortune was a bonus for Webber though as he now moves up to the front of the grid for the first time since he took pole position in Germany last year. “Pretty amazing session wasn’t it,” he smiled afterwards. “It was very close. Q3 was tight between the first few rows. Michael did a good lap, fair play to him, but it’s nice to move up a position. Of all places, it’s good to start definitely towards the front here.
“We weren’t too strong on Thursday and obviously didn’t get much running, though everyone’s the same, but the car on Sunday is generally pretty good, so looking forward to tomorrow. [It’s] a very good position to be starting tomorrow and we have a very, very good car. The guys have done a good job and I’m very happy with today’s effort.”
Webber added that the team had worked hard to recover from Thursday’s poor showing and admitted that he too had played his part it he improved performance. “We certainly pulled the balance together a lot more,” he said. “Obviously, there are no real fast corners here but there are a few where you need to be able to keep the car in the line, especially into Casino but also through the Swimming Pool. You need to have a very good rhythm and pace through there, which we didn’t really have on Thursday, so the car, between low and high speed wasn’t great. We really really pulled that together.
“Also I think the track helped as well, the rubber on the circuit helped pull it together,” he said. “The driver always brakes a little bit later on Saturday, so that helps a bit as well. Altogether the guys have done a great job and I think we got the maximum, actually, from what we could do today.”
Team-mate Sebastian Vettel was less pleased with his Saturday afternoon efforts, the defending champion admitting he had taken a wrong turn on set-up. “It was looking very good this morning, but then I think we took a step in the wrong direction and ended up with a difficult car for qualifying,” he said after qualifying 10th. “It’s a bit of a disappointment, as Mark showed what the car can do around here, so we’ll see what we can do tomorrow.” Vettel will start ninth tomorrow thanks to Maldonado’s penalty.
There was an adrenaline rush today at the German national football team’s training camp in Tourrettes: with around two weeks to go before the start of the European Championships, Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg paid Joachim Löw’s team a short visit. Like good guests should, the two Silver Arrow drivers brought along a nice surprise, namely, two brand new examples of the Mercedes-Benz A-Class. Lukas Podolski, Marco Reus, Andre Schürrle and Tim Wiese didn’t need asking twice to complete a 18-kilometre tour of the Haute-Provence with the two drivers. __ A release from news2use on behalf of Mercedes F1 team.
