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Tag: F1
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Rosberg takes third victory of the season in Austria; Hamilton 2nd but keeps championship lead
Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg took his third victory of the season at the Austrian Grand Prix to close the gap to Drivers’ Championship leading team-mate Lewis Hamilton to just 10 points as the Briton finished second ahead of Williams Felipe Massa. It was Mercedes fourth one-two victory of the season.
At the race start Rosberg got the jump on the slower starting Hamilton, who sought to protect his line on the run to the first corner. Rosberg drew alongside the champion and managed to force his way past and into the lead as the pair went through turn one.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel tucked into third ahead of Massa and Nico Hulkenberg but towards t
Hamilton congratulates winner Rosberg after taking second in the Austrian GP on Sunday. A Mercedes AMG Petronas team image he back of the field there was drama as Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen, who had started 14th, tangled with a hard-charging Fernando Alonso, who had started 19th for McLaren. The collision pitched both cars into the barriers, with Alonso’s car squeezed onto the top of the Ferrari. Both drivers, however, emerged unscathed.
The Safety Car was immediately deployed and that allowed Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat, who had sustained some damage at the start, to pit for a new nose cone and to swap his starting supersoft tyres for soft rubber. He rejoined in P15, directly behind team-mate Daniel Ricciardo. McLaren’s Jenson Button and Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson also pitted in this period.
The race restarted on lap seven and Rosberg held his lead over Hamilton, with Vettel holding third ahead of Massa, Hulkenberg, Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen and Williams’ Valtteri Bottas. Sauber’s Felipe Nasr was eighth ahead of Carlos Sainz in the second Toro Rosso and Sergio Perez, who had risen to P13 after a 13th-place start. The Mexican was on the soft tyres and defending well ahead of the supersoft-shod Romain Grosjean who had slipped back from P9 at the start.
After Alonso’s accident, McLaren’s tough Austrian Grand Prix weekend was completed when Button was asked to return to the pit lane on lap nine to retire his car. Elsewhere, Marcus Ericsson was handed a drive-through penalty for jumping the start.
At the front, the race was fast becoming a battle between the two Mercedes drivers. After 16 laps Rosberg led Hamilton by 1.7s but Vettel had dropped back to just over seven seconds adrift of his countryman.
Grosjean was the first to make a scheduled stop for tyres on lap 23, taking on soft rubber. He was followed a lap later by Nasr. On track, Bottas made more progress by passing Hulkenberg for P5. The Finn then made his first visit to the pit lane on lap 26, taking on soft tyres.
Hulkenberg too made his first stop and when he emerged it was in front of Bottas, leaving the Williams man to do all the work of passing him again, though the Finn eventually managed the task.
Sainz, meanwhile, had pitted for soft compound Pirellis but a problem with the front-right wheel meant a long stop that dropped him down the order. His race was further compromised by a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane and then ended when he was forced to retire with technical issues.
Rosberg pitted from the lead on lap 33, taking on soft tyres in a 2.7-second stop. Hamilton followed a lap later but his in-lap hadn’t yielded a significant gain and his stop took four tenths longer than the German’s, so he again slotted in behind Rosberg. Hamilton was then handed a five-second time penalty for crossing the white line on the pit exit. It would be added to his race time following the chequered flag.
Vettel made his stop on lap 36 but he too had a troubled visit to the pit lane. A problem with the wheel gun on the right rear left the German rooted to the sport and when he finally rejoined it was behind Massa.
Ricciardo was the last man to pit, swapping his starting soft tyres for supersoft rubber on lap 51. That dropped the Red Bull driver to back to P11, though on a tyre that he could attack with.
At the front, with all the stops complete and 20 laps to remaining, Rosberg now led Hamilton by a comfortable 6.5s margin with Massa a further 16 seconds back. Vettel was just two seconds adrift of the Williams, while Bottas was fifth but 20 seconds down on the Ferrari. Hulkenberg was a lonely sixth, six seconds behind Bottas and seven ahead of Verstappen, while Maldonado was eighth ahead of Perez and Nasr.
Ricciardo, though, on news supersofts was on a charge and running up to 1.5s a lap quicker than Nasr and by lap 61 he had slimmed an eight-second gap after his stop to half a second, within DRS range. He swept past the Sauber into turn three and reclaimed a points scoring position.
At the front, the leading positions remained unchanged, however. Rosberg took his 11th career victory 8.8s ahead of Hamilton, who completed Mercedes’ fourth one-two win of the season with enough time in hand over Massa for his post-race penalty not to affect the result. Vettel was fourth ahead of Bottas, while Le Mans winner Hulkenberg enjoyed another good race with sixth place. Maldonado meanwhile finally got past Verstappen, while Perez held off Ricciardo to claim two points.
Rosberg’s win means he climbs to 159 points for the season so far, 10 behind Hamilton, with Vettel third on 120 points.
2015 Austrian Grand Prix – Race
1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:30:16.930 71
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +0:08.800 71
3 Felipe Massa Williams +0:17.573 71
4 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari +0:18.181 71
5 Valtteri Bottas Williams +0:53.604 71
6 Nico Hulkenberg Force India +1:04.075 71
7 Pastor Maldonado Lotus +1 Lap 70
8 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso +1 Lap 70
9 Sergio Perez Force India +1 Lap 70
10 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing +1 Lap 70
11 Felipe Nasr Sauber +1 Lap 70
12 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull Racing +1 Lap 70
13 Marcus Ericsson Sauber +2 Lap 69
14 Roberto Merhi Manor +3 Lap 68
15 Romain Grosjean Lotus DNF 35
16 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso DNF 35
17 Jenson Button McLaren DNF 8
18 Will Stevens Manor DNF 1
19 Fernando Alonso McLaren DNF 0
20 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari DNF 0ends/FIA release
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Hamilton extends championship lead over Rosberg with Canadian win
Lewis Hamilton extended his championship lead over team-mate Nico Rosberg to 17 points as he took his fourth win of the season in a closely-fought Canadian Grand Prix.
Valtteri Bottas scored Williams’ first podium finish since last year’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix with third place, while Kimi Räikkönen took fourth ahead of hard-charging team-mate Sebastian Vettel who took 10 points after a P16 start.
When the lights went out, Hamilton made a good start and held his advantage over Rosberg into the first corner. Behind them Räikkönen briefly came under pressure from Bottas but the Ferrari driver held on to stay third, with Lotus’ Romain Grosjean fifth behind Bottas. Hulkenberg, meanwhile, passed Maldonado for sixth.
Unsurprisingly, with Massa, Vettel out of place, most of the action happened at the rear of the field. By lap four Vettel was up to 14th place from P16 on the grid and then passed Fernando Alonso into the chicane to claim P13. Massa, who had started 15th was already up to P12. At the very back Jenson Button, who had suffered a 15-place grid drop due to power unite parts replacement and thus had take a time penalty due to not taking part in qualifying, served a drive through and set off after P19 man Will Stevens.
Vettel’s progress through the order was hampered, however by a bungled first pit stop on lap seven. The German spent 6.6s waiting for his opening new supersofts to be exchanged for another set of the red-banded tyres and rejoined in last position.
By contrast, Massa was prospering. On starting soft tyres he worked a superb overtaking move on the supersoft-shod Marcus Ericsson on lap 10 to take 11th place.
At the front, by lap 12, Hamilton led Rosberg by three seconds, with Räikkönen a further 2.4 seconds back. The Ferrari driver was being shadowed by Bottas who was now two seconds behind in fourth. Grosjean held fifth ahead of Hulkenberg and Maldonado. Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat was 4.7s off the back of the Lotus but was inside DRS range of Force India’s Sergio Perez who had earlier passed Daniel Ricciardo for ninth.
Meanwhile, Massa’s charge continued. He dismissed Ricciardo with ease and then halted Perez’ pursuit of Kvyat by brushing past the Mexican to take eighth place. He then claimed the scalp of Kvyat, who was struggling with his supersoft tyres, on lap 21.
Vettel, too, was making progress after his poor stop. By lap 20 he was chasing down Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz and within two laps he had effortlessly dismissed the power-limited Toro Rossos to rise to P1. And as those around him pitted he was soon into the top 10 and harrying Maldonado, who had pitted for soft tyres.
At the front Hamilton pitted from the lead on lap 28 and in 2.8s had taken on soft tyres. Behind him on track, Rosberg pushed to make up ground during the stop but made a mistake and went wide at the hairpin. The German then made his stop on lap 29 stop for soft tyres and behind him Hamilton too outbraked himself as he tried to maintain the gap to his team-mate. When the pair crossed the line again Rosberg now found himself 2.3s adrift of his team-mate.
Behind them Bottas had risen to third place ahead of Räikkönen after the Ferrari man spun badly at the hairpin on cold tyres after his first pit stop. Massa, who had on lap 32 yet to stop, was now fifth ahead of Grosjean and the hard-charging Vettel.
After the Mercedes drivers’ stops, Rosberg immediately looked more comfortably on the soft tyres and closed the gap to 1.1s. Hamilton responded, however, and pulled out four tenths of a second on lap 34 to make his advantage more comfortable. Rosberg was then told that his brakes wear was “critical” and that he needed to fall back for 10 laps before attacking his team-mate.
Vettel made his second and final stop on lap 35,taking on more soft tyres. The visit to the pit lane dropped him to P9, from where he began his next assault.
Massa meanwhile made his sole visit to the pit lane, for supersoft tyres on lap 38 and rejoined behind Vettel.
On his way to seventh place, Vettel then clashed with Hulkenberg. The Ferrari man pulled alongside the Force India into the final chicane and Hulkenberg spun. Vettel was quickly on the radio insisting that there had been no contact and following investigation the race stewards ruled that no further action was necessary.
A more visible collision occurred moments later when Grosjean sustained a puncture when he closed the door to sharply on Will Stevens after passing the Manor backmarker. Grosjean was quickly handed a five-second penalty for his transgression.
Vettel’s charge continued and on lap 55 he passed Maldonado under braking into the final chicane. The German was now in fifth place and 12.8s behind team-mate Räikkönen, with the Finn now almost 10s adrift of Bottas was comfortable in third. At the front Hamilton had stabilised his advantage over his team-mate at 1.5s.
Further back, Massa passed Maldonado on lap 62, while Grosjean was told that he would have his time penalty added after the flag and that he needed to pass Kvyat for P9 and then gap the Russian sufficiently to claim the two points on offer.
The Frenchman could find no way past the young Red Bull driver, however, with the Russian having an excellent afternoon despite the power deficiency his Renault engine had at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
The order elsewhere also remained static and despite Rosberg’s best attempts Hamilton took his fourth Canadian Grand Prix win comfortably. Rosberg crossed the line just over three seconds afterwards and Bottas took his seventh career podium finish.
Räikkönen claimed fourth ahead of Vettel, with Massa sixth and Maldonado scored his first points of the year in seventh. He was followed to the flag by Hulkenberg, while Kvyat held off Grosjean who took the final point on offer.
2015 Canadian Grand Prix – Race
1 L Hamilton Mercedes 1:31’53.145 25
2 N Rosberg Mercedes +2.285 18
3 V Bottas Williams +40.666 15
4 K Räikkönen Ferrari +45.625 12
5 S Vettel Ferrari +49.903 10
6 F Massa Williams +56.381 8
7 P Maldonado Lotus +1:06.664 6
8 N Hülkenberg Force India +1 Lap 4
9 D Kvyat Red Bull +1 Lap 2
10 R Grosjean Lotus +1 Lap 1
|11 S Pérez Force India +1 Lap
12 C Sainz Toro Rosso +1 Lap
13 D Ricciardo Red Bull +1 Lap
14 M Ericsson Sauber +1 Lap
15 M Verstappen Toro Rosso +1 Lap
16 F Nasr Sauber +2 Laps
17 W Stevens Manor +4 Laps
18 R Merhi Manor
19 J Button McLaren
20 F Alonso McLareneom/
Hamilton file photo by Mercedes AMG Petronas -
Hamilton on pole for Canadian GP
Lewis Hamilton claimed his sixth pole position of 2015 in Montreal beating out Nico Rosberg by three tenths of a second in qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix.
Kimi Räikkönen will start third for Ferrari after team-mate Sebastian Vettel was dumped out early in the session due to power unit issues with his car. Fourth place went to Williams’ Valtteri Bottas.
Q1 began with Ferrari encountering problems as Sebastian Vettel radioed through that he was having power difficulties. The team told him there was an issue with his car’s MGU-H and asked him to return to the pit lane.
As expected the Mercedes drivers set the pace, with Rosberg heading Hamilton but only by the tiny margin of 0.002s.
As the first qualifying segment drew to a close it was Vettel and Massa who were in most trouble.
Vettel still had to set a time and seemed to be struggling. His first lap netted him P16 and he scraped across the line just in time for another last-ditch charge. However, without the power to perform he was also chasing a distant target and in the end the best lap of his single run of two hot laps netted him a time of 1:17.344, some 1.5s adrift off the segment’s best lap.
Massa also suffered power problems and like Vettel he could find no way to bridge the gap to the P15 time of 1:17.012 set by Fernando Alonso. Massa’s best time of 1:17.886 was only good enough for P17 ahead of the Manors of Roberto Mehri and Will Stevens and the McLaren of Jenson Button who did not take part in the session owing to power unit problems encountered in final practice.
Q1’s best lap came from Lotus’ Romain Grosjean, who late in the segment popped up with a time of 1:15.833 to finish ahead of Rosberg and Hamilton.
Grosjean’s time, like those of most of his rivals, was set on the supersoft tyre. The only drivers to make it through to Q2 on the soft tyre were the Mercedes of Rosberg and Hamilton, the Ferrari of Kimi Räikkonen in P6 and Williams’ Valtteri Bottas in P10.
Q2 saw Hamilton take control of P1, the defending champion recovering from a difficult final practice session in which he failed to a get a clean run to register a time of 1:14.661, ahead of Rosberg, while this time out Grosjean was pushed back to third place, four tenths of a second back from Rosberg.
Just a hundredth of a second separated Hamilton from his team-mate and the margins were similarly tight in the battle to make it through to Q3.
Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo was the man to claim the final place in the last segment, his time of 1:16.006 beating out Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz by a mere three hundredths of a second.
Sainz was eliminated ahead of team-mate Max Verstappen, who will drop down the grid thanks to a five-place penalty imposed after his Monaco crash and a 10-place sanction for an overnight engine change in Montreal. Thirteenth place in qualifying went to Marcus Ericsson, which will translate to 12th on the grid as Verstappen moves back. Fernando Alonso qualified 14th, while Sauber’s Felipe Nasr was eliminated in P15.
In the opening runs of Q3 Hamilton drew first blood, setting a first-run time of 1:14.393. That was just over three tenths ahead of Rosberg, whose opening effort was a lap of 1:14.702. The German was quickly on the radio complaining that he had no rear grip. His team responded that the tyres were likely to be his worst set and that he could expect better on his final run.
Räikkönen was third, eight tenths of a second down on Hamilton, while fourth place went to Grosjean, who was seven hundredths of a second off the back of the Finn. They were followed by Maldonado, Bottas, Nico Hulkenberg, Daniil Kvyat, Sergio Perez and Ricciardo, with the Australian Red Bull driver opting to stay in his garage during the first runs.
There was no improvement for Rosberg on his final run, however. Despite personal bests in the final two sectors a scrappy opening third left him in P2. Hamilton too failed to improve but his opening lap was enough to secure his sixth pole position from seven attempts this season.
Räikkönen held third with a marginal improvement but Grosjean was pipped for fourth by Bottas whose final run was good enough to beat the Lotus man by eight hundredths of a second.
Maldonado will line up at the back of row three ahead of Hulkenberg, Kvyat, Ricciardo and Perez.
Vettel’s woes were compounded following the session when he was summoned to the stewards’ room, suspected of passing under red flags in FP3. Vettel admitted to overtaking Manor’s Roberto Mehri between Turns 12 and 13 while the flags were out. He was handed a five-place grid penalty and three penalty points on his superlicence.
2015 Canadian Grand Prix – Qualifying
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:14.393s –
2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:14.702s 0.309s
3 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:15.014s 0.621s
4 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:15.102s 0.709s
5 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:15.194s 0.801s
6 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1:15.329s 0.936s
7 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:15.614s 1.221s
8 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull 1:16.079s 1.686s
9 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:16.114s 1.721s
10 Sergio Perez Force India 1:16.338s 1.945s
11 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1:16.042s –
12 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:16.262s –
13 Fernando Alonso McLaren 1:16.276s –
14 Felipe Nasr Sauber 1:16.620s –
15 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:17.344s –
16 Felipe Massa Williams 1:17.886s –
17 Roberto Merhi Marussia 1:19.133s –
18 Will Stevens Marussia 1:19.157s –
19 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso 1:16.245s –
20 Jenson Button McLaren – –eom/FIA press release
Hamilton takes P1. A Mercedes AMG Petronas image -
Rosberg wins Monaco GP; Hamilton displays mature behaviour after team’s blunder costs him dearly
Monaco, 24 May 2015: After dominating for most of the race, reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton suffered a severe jolt due to a blunder by his Mercedes team which wrongly called him into the pits towards the end, during the Safety Car period, thus handing over the Monaco GP win to teammate and championship rival, Nico Rosberg. Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari squeezed into the second position and Hamilton was stuck in the third place despite a faster pace, at the street circuit notorious for its lack of overtaking possibilities.
Hamilton was deeply disappointed and was visibly dow
Nico Rosberg celebrates after winning the Monaco GP on Sunday. A Mercedes AMG Petronas team image n but showed a mature behaviour and refused to drag the team into controversy. He repeatedly held his cool and did not criticise the team and said that he would come back with a win. He shook hands with Rosberg and congratulated him on the podium and said “the team have done an amazing job. We win and lose together,” he said. With his cool handling of the situation despite the emotional blow, he won the hearts of thousands of fans, who reserved the best applause for him today. Mercedes Head Toto Wolff apologised profusely: “What a crazy day. I don’t think there has ever been a more bittersweet feeling than this one. We have won the Monaco Grand Prix and we have lost the Monaco Grand Prix all at the same time. First of all, we must apologise to Lewis. We win and we lose together and what I am proud of in this team is that we take collective responsibility. But this is a day when we simply have to say sorry to our driver, because our mistake cost him the victory here.”
Rosberg has won the Monaco Grand Prix for the third successive time joining the elite club of Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Graham Hill. He used a one-stop strategy, starting on the P Zero Red supersoft tyre and then switched to the P Zero Yellow soft. The German now becomes only the fourth driver in history to win the Monaco Grand Prix for three consecutive years. He also claimed his second consecutive victory of the 2015 season to close up the fight for the championship to 10 points.
The race was turned on its head by a safety car period close to the finish, during which Lewis Hamilton lost the lead that he had held from pole position, after making an extra pit stop to change to the supersoft.
The majority of drivers stopped just once after starting on the supersoft tyre, although Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg, McLaren’s Fernando Alonso, Williams driver Valtteri Bottas and both Manors started on the soft tyre.
Temperatures were generally cool throughout practice and qualifying but warmed up during race day, peaking at 42 degrees centigrade on track, which improved the grip from both compounds. As usual, wear and degradation was minimal on the least abrasive and slowest circuit of the year. This made maintaining tyre temperature crucial after five laps of the safety car.
A particularly impressive drive came from the Toro Rosso of Carlos Sainz, which started from last place following a penalty post-qualifying. The Spaniard got up to a points-scoring 10th on his Monaco debut, using a one-stop strategy. Crucial to his strategy was a 66-lap stint on the soft tyre at the end of the race.
Rosberg set his fastest lap of the race just two laps from the finish, when his final set of soft tyres were already 39 laps old.
eom/with inputs from Mercedes and Pirelli Motorsports
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The team has done a good job, we win and we lose together; I will come back to win the next one: Hamilton
Monaco, 24 May 2015: Nico Rosberg of Mercedes, who took a surprise win, along with Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari (second) and Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) at the FIA Press Conference of the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday. The transcript:
PODIUM INTERVIEWS (Conducted by Martin Brundle)
Nico Rosberg (centre) flanked by Vettel (left) and teammate Hamilton at the FIA Sunday press conference after winning the Monaco GP. An FIA image Nico, congratulations, the first time in your career you’ve won two races on the bounce but more importantly three consecutive races here in Monaco. The last man to do that was the great Ayrton Senna. That was quite a race.
Nico ROSBERG: Yeah, for sure, very, very happy of course. But I know also that it was just a lot of luck today. Lewis drove brilliantly and he would have also deserved the win for sure. But that’s the way it is in racing and definitely I’m extremely happy and going to make the most of it.
Yeah, you spent most of your time looking in your rear view mirrors because Sebastian was coming at you and Lewis was down the road. Can you explain to us why your car wasn’t brought in for a pit stop and Lewis’ was under the safety car?
NR: I have no idea, sorry. As always, we’re in the car and it’s very difficult to judge what decisions are being made and things like that. Of course it was extremely difficult to do the restart with those hard tyres and them being very cold but it worked out and I’m ecstatic.
Sebastian, well, suddenly you were looking for and fighting for a victory when you had been struggling with Nico for the whole race. You must be pretty satisfied; it was a strong race for you.
Sebastian VETTEL: Yeah, obviously a bit of a turnaround in the end, which was a bit of a surprise, but we were there in the moment when it mattered obviously we were able just to pip Lewis when we he came out of the pits. I think it was pretty close but I was pretty confident I was ahead. Yeah, I think we tried all race to put pressure on Nico but I think, first of all, he had the speed to respond and second, when we decided to pit we were probably a little bit too far back and the undercut didn’t really work. Nevertheless, P2 is a great result for the team, thanks for the hard work. It’s good to be always there and I think we were a lot closer in the race than in qualifying so hopefully we can keep up this trend.
And you were saying on the radio ‘look, this is like swimming with weights on my legs and feet’. You were expecting a lot of trouble on the restart with cold tyres?
SV: It was, it was. The thing is these tyres are not made for cooling down and then going again. I think Nico and myself we both kind of saved the tyre; we knew that it was difficult to catch Lewis and difficult to really attack each other. So I think we didn’t get it all out of the tyre before, which helped at the restart but it was incredibly difficult to warm the tyres up and obviously Lewis behind with a fresh set of supersoft was in much better shape. But I think for all of us it was, you know, like being handicapped for two or three laps. After it was starting to be OK, but Nico drove very well after the restart. No chance for me to stay close, so I had to make sure that I keep the guys behind.
And the man you had to keep behind was Lewis Hamilton. I’m sure I speak for millions of people when I say I’m sorry for you Lewis, that didn’t work out today.
Lewis HAMILTON: Yeah, it was not the easiest of races. But, you know, the team has done amazing all year long and we win and we lose together, so I’m just grateful for the job that I did and congratulations to Nico and Sebastian.
Can you tell us why your car was brought in? You had quite a big gap didn’t you and then the safety car picked you up. Your car was pitted and your team-mate’s wasn’t.
LH: I’m sure we’ll sit down afterwards and try and think of ways we can improve.
How bad is it? How bad do you feel now? You’ve lost the Monaco Grand Prix, it has been taken away from you. What’s going through your mind?
LH: Come back to win the next one.
Some positive thoughts there from Lewis Hamilton. Finally, back to the man who won the race. You must love safety cars now and that’s helped you in the world championship and very much game on.
NR: Yeah, but at the same time, you know, I know that I got lucky today. I’ll just enjoy the moment now but I need to work hard because Lewis was a little bit stronger this weekend, so I need to work hard for the next race for sure.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Nico, many congratulations, your third consecutive Monaco Grand Prix victory, a feat equalled before by Prost, Senna and Graham Hill, so you join a very elite group in having done that. I guess you take them how they come – but did you discuss a late pitstop behind the Virtual Safety Car that became then, obviously, a Safety Car? And how do you feel for Lewis now?
NR: For sure that’s the best words to describe it: take it as it comes, y’know? So, just very, very happy to have won the race. On the other side though, of course, Lewis was stronger this weekend. He deserved it for sure and I got lucky in the end there. I don’t even know what happened. But, yeah, ecstatic about that anyways. No, we didn’t discuss pitting in the end. It was quite treacherous out there with those hard tyres because they were really stone cold. They were telling me the temperatures, we’ve never ever had those temperatures before I think in those tyres – but did the best I could and managed to bring them back up and push, so that worked out well in the end.
Q: Sebastian, a couple of talking points for you really. Obviously you tried the undercut on Nico, it didn’t quite work out. Maybe you could tell us a bit about that. And also, behind the Safety Car you were on the radio saying that, exactly what Nico’s just said, that you were really concerned about how low the tyre temperatures were getting.
SV: First of all, for the undercut, it was a shame. I had to lap a Manor, I think, and I lost about one second, otherwise I think we would have been closer to Nico. Whether it would have been enough, I don’t know. Probably not. Obviously we were trying everything to jump him but they reacted straight away. My approach to the pitbox, as well, was not spot on, so I lost a bit of time there as well. So, not perfect in terms of lining everything up. And then at the end there, it was quite clear on the radio it was… I mean the rules are the rules but it was ridiculous how slow we were going. Trying to let the lapped cars go. In the end they are, I don’t know, racing nowhere when we restart because they’re just 30 seconds down the road but nowhere near the back of the field. So, I don’t know what’s the point. And then obviously we go so slow the tyres cool down a lot. And for Nico, myself, we were on the harder compound. Extremely difficult to get them up to temperature and it’s just… yeah, you need to understand the tyres are not made for that. That’s why its extremely slippery and obviously I was under huge pressure at the restart. I think Nico was a bit more comfortable with the warm-up but for us it took two, three laps just to bring them up again. It was very much on the limit I would say.
Q: Lewis, coming to you, obviously we all understand how difficult this must be for you. The crowd clearly sympathised with you, you got a huge cheer when you collected your trophy. Can you just tell us what part, if any, you played in the decision to make that late pitstop and how that unfolded.
LH: To be honest it happened so fast I don’t really remember but it was a good race up until then and, still, we got good points there.
Q: Did you think you had it won, obviously, at that point? Did you come into the pits full of confidence that you were doing the right thing at that time?
LH: As I said, we will probably analyse and try to figure out what we did wrong – but we’ll collectively – together as a team – try to rectify it in the future.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Ian Parkes – Autosport) Question for Lewis. First of all, can you gives us just some idea as to how you’re feeling right now. Obviously we see you’re very low, very down but just express in your own words how you’re feeling. And, secondly, when that Safety Car situation unfolded, did you not at all question whether to come in or not? Bearing in mind, regardless of the situation with the tyres, track position is ultimately king in Monaco.
LH: I can’t really express the way I feel at the moment. So I won’t even attempt to. You rely on the team. I saw a screen, it looked like the team was out and I thought that Nico had pitted. Obviously I couldn’t see the guys behind so I thought the guys behind were pitting. The team said to stay out, I said “these tyres are going to drop in temperature,” and what I was assuming was that these guys would be on Options and I was on the harder tyre. So, they said to pit. Without thinking I came in with full confidence that the others had done the same.
Q: (Barna Zsoldos – Nemzeti Sport) Lewis, after what happened today, will you have 100 per cent confidence in the team’s strategy decisions in the future?
LH: Yes.
Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport) Lewis, can you imagine that maybe the strange situation of first having a virtual safety car and then all of a sudden a safety car could have added or contributed to the confusion?
LH: I’ve no idea. I was just driving.
Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action and Speedsport Magazines) Nico and Seb, this has probably happened to you in your past careers as well. Can you remember a time when you had the race won and it all went bad?
NR: Not now, immediately, no but for sure it is an awful feeling, definitely, but that’s for sure, yeah.
SV: Well, I think it’s normal that you have ups and downs. Probably the lowest low was in 2010 in Korea when I was in the lead and the engine blew up. Fernando, at the time, the biggest rival, three races to the end of the championship, won the race. That was pretty bad. We didn’t finish at all. I would have been happy at that time to finish third but I think today the circumstances for Lewis were totally different.
Q: (Livio Oricchio – Globosport.com) Lewis, did you know the gap between you and Nico at that moment?
LH: Before the safety car came out I knew the gap. It didn’t worry me when we got behind the safety car. I didn’t know once we got behind the safety car.
Q: (Livio Oricchio – Globosport.com) Sebastian, what did you think when you were climbing up to the Casino and you had Lewis side-by-side with you?
SV: Well, it was very close. I had something very similar back in 2008 here also, coming out of the pits with Jarno Trulli at the time. I was pretty confident that I was just ahead – thanks for the design office for the long nose, it helped today. And obviously… you’re quite emotional, I gestured to Lewis straight away to say I was ahead, you go back, but that’s the heat of the moment. I think we both waited for confirmation who ultimately was ahead. I think at the time we probably both thought we were in front.
Q: Lewis, do you want to share your side of that story, coming out of the pits side-by-side with Seb after the pit stop?
LH: I was behind.
Q: (Ottavio Daviddi – Tuttosport) Sebastian, your race pace today was good, I think. Do you think that the Barcelona problem has been solved or it was due to the particularities of the track here in Monte Carlo?
SV: Well, I think it’s natural that the gaps are smaller on this track. It’s a shorter track so that’s normal. I think in the race we were a lot closer than yesterday. Obviously there’s a lot of things that we still need to learn and understand. Taking the restart is similar more or less to what caught us out yesterday, so that’s something we need to work on quickly to try and understand, but in the race itself I think for the majority of the race we were on a very good pace. Obviously I knew that it was pointless really to put Nico under pressure too much, because I would just burn my tyres. You don’t know what might be coming at the end, a safety car etc, and at the end there was a safety car. There was a point when I was driving around thinking ‘we can’t be at Monaco without a safety car’ and then I think four or five laps later there was a safety car. Yuh, you obviously have to prepare a bit for the unknown, but I think the pace was good today. I was happy.
Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport) Sebastian, did you discuss with your engineers to go on supersoft for the last few laps when the safety car was out?
SV: Not for the safety car. Obviously depending on the gaps behind to the car behind, we spoke about some things, some options, should the safety car come at various times but at that time it was clear that we stay out.
Q: (Ian Parkes – Autosport) Lewis, you’ve suffered loads before, I can think of Monaco and Belgium last year, obviously, to name but two. When you’re involved in situations like this, when you walk away at the end of the Grand Prix, do you still think ‘well, I’ve got a ten point lead, I’ve still got the best car in the field?’ Are they the kind of positives that you have to cling to?
LH: Sure, yeah. At the moment I can’t really think of anything else at the moment. Yeah, this is a race that has been very special… close to my heart for many years and so it was very important, it was a great feeling leading the race. I had so much pace as I have for many many years, including last year. I could have easily had that gap last year as well. Today, I didn’t really have to push too much, I could have doubled the lead if I needed it so on the one hand it’s a good thing that I had that pace and I’m grateful for that. You live to fight another day.
Q: (Heikki Kulta- Turun Sanomat) Nico, how does it feel to win two races in a row for the first time in your career?
NR: It’s not something I think about at all. I’m just thinking about today. I told you the emotions from today and that’s it, sorry, so I don’t think about two races in a row or three times here in Monaco. It’s not something that’s at the top of my mind.
Q: (Luigi Perna – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Seb, there is a big difference in the performance of the car between qualifying and race; have you had some problems with tyre temperatures and the performance of the tyres in qualifying? In your opinion, is that due to the particular nature of your car or do you just have to adjust something in your set-up to try to improve in the next races?
SV: Well, first of all, you are making a good point. If I had the answer than I would go down straight away and tell everyone what to do, so obviously it’s something we need to try and understand, whether there is something we can change with the approach we are taking with the set-up or there’s something we need to change with the approach of how the car is made. As I said, obviously there’s a key to understanding it, because some part of the race is decided on Saturday and if we struggle in cooler conditions it can happen once, twice but we need to make sure we get on top of it, so if it keeps happening it’s not an excuse, it’s a mistake and it’s bad for us so we need to work hard and make sure we fix it.
eom/FIA transcript of the Press Conference
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Hamilton pushes Rosberg down for first Monaco pole, and 5th of the season
Monaco, 23 May 2015: Lewis Hamilton claimed his first Monaco pole position and his fifth of the season, beating team-mate Nico Rosberg by over three tenths of a second after the German made a mistake on his final run. Sebastian Vettel was third for Ferrari ahead of Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo.
After the initial runs in Q3, Hamilton held an advantage of just over a tenth of a second over Rosberg, but when the pair when out for their final flying laps Rosberg, pushing to recover, locked up into turn one and his chance was gone. Hamilton improved on his first run to log a time of 1:15.098 and claim pole.
Lewis Hamilton said: “My first Monaco pole position; it’s felt a long time coming! Today, bringing the tyres in was tricky. We had to do an out-lap, warm up lap then fast lap. We had to do that for both tyres. It’s an important day for me, looking back through every year at Monaco generally it’s been quite poor. Sometimes I’ve had the car, sometimes I haven’t. I’ve lived here for the last few years so it makes this pole position even more special. There’s still a long way to go, it’s only half the job. It’s going to be mentally and physically challenging tomorrow but I’m looking forward to it. A big thank you to the team; the performance we have in the car is outstanding and they’ve been working very hard. I think the last pole position for me here was in GP2 in 2006 so I hope I can take advantage of it tomorrow in the race.”
Hamilton seen with a team personnel before taking pole on Saturday at Monaco. A Mercedes AMG Petronas image The Mercedes pair opened Q1 with Hamilton taking P1 with his first lap and then refining that to a lap of 1:16.588 as his soft tyres began to perform. Rosberg quickly eclipsed that benchmark with his second flying lap, finding six hundredths of a second over his team-mate to take top spot.
Behind them Sebastian Vettel put in a lap of 1:17.502 to claim P3, almost a full second behind Rosberg. Pastor Maldonado was fourth for Lotus ahead of Red Bull Racing’s Daniil Kvyat and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen.
Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg meanwhile hit trouble 10 minutes in when he lost control going into Mirabeau and clipped the wall with the rear of his car. He headed back to the pits in P10. There was no real damage, however, and he was soon back out on track.
With three minutes left Max Verstappen had climbed to P3 with a lap of 1:16.750, ahead of Kvyat, Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz, Force India’s Sergio Perez and McLaren’s Jenson Button, while Vettel remained in P8.
In the drop zone with a minute left on the clock were Sauber’s Felipe Nasr, Williams’ Valtteri Bottas, Sauber’s Marcus Ericcson and the Manors of Roberto Merhi and Will Stevens.
And it was Bottas who was the session’s major casualty. On his final lap the Finn was six tenths down on the best first sector time and a second off the pace in S2. As the chequered flag came out he abandoned his lap and headed to the pit lane to exit the session in P17. Nasr also failed to improve in P16, though Stevens managed to leapfrog team-mate Merhi to claim P19 behind Ericsson.
At the top Rosberg held P1 ahead of Hamilton, while Verstappen remained in P3 ahead of Kvyat, Sainz, Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, Perez, Button, Vettel and Hulkenberg. Only the Mercedes and Ferrari drivers managed to get through to Q2 on the soft tyre alone.
The first casualty of Q2 was McLaren’s Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard ground to a halt at Sainte Devote but he was swiftly brought through a gap in the barriers and the session continued uninterrupted.
Vettel set the early pace with a lap of 1:16.224 but with eight minutes left he was usurped by Rosberg who beat his time by more than seven tenths of second. Hamilton slotted into P3 with an identical time to Vettel, while Raikkonen took fourth place ahead of Sainz and Verstappen.
By the time the final flying laps were starting the drop zone featured Ricciardo in P11, backed up by Button, Williams’ Felipe Massa and Hulkenberg. Alonso would occupy P15.
Ricciardo began his final lap five hundredths of a second adriftt of the P10 time of 1:17.007 set by Grosjean but the Australian found space on the crowded track and comfortably bypassed that mark. He improved by three tenths to make it through to Q3 in seventh place, dumping Grosjean out of the session.
Behind the Lotus driver, Button was eliminated in P12, with the Briton being told that yellow flags that had come out when Rosberg used the escape road at Sainte Devote had cost him the time he need. The Briton responded that the result was “painful” and that otherwise passage to Q3 would have been “easy”. Hulkenberg, meanwhile, jumped ahead of Massa to claim P13.
At the top of the order Rosberg still held P1 with his best lap of 1:15.471. Hamilton finished just under four tenths behind in P2, with Vettel third just over two tenths further back. Raikkonen was fourth ahead of Kvyat, Verstappen, Ricciardo, Sainz, Lotus’ Pastor Maldonado and Perez, who made it into Q3 for the first time this season.
As teams prepared for the top-10 shootout, spots of rain began to fall and the Mercedes drivers were quickly out of the pit lane, with Hamilton ahead, to begin the bid for pole.
Hamilton’s first timed lap was a 1:20.611, with Rosberg crossing the line right behind in 1:21.058. They were both passed by Perez whose first lap yielded a time of 1:17.912 and then by Raikkonen.
Hamilton, though, was only winding up and next time round he logged a time of 1:15.304, to which Rosberg had no response. The German crossing the line just under 1400ths of a second adrift of his team-mate, with Vettel taking third, four tenths behind Rosberg. Ricciardo was fourth after the first runs with Kvyat fifth ahead of Perez, Verstappen, Sainz, Raikkonen, who brushed the wall at Portier, and Maldonado.
And Rosberg again failed to find a reponse in the final run. The German had a big lock-up into turn one and his lap was over. He aborted his run and headed for the pit lane as Hamilton improved to a pole-securing lap of 1:15.098.
Vettel was third, the Ferrari driver also locking up at turn one, while Ricciardo held fourth with a lap of 1:16.041. Raikkonen finished fifth ahead of Perez, who with no fresh sets of option tyres left opted to sit out the final run. Sainz took an excellent eighth position, with Maldonado ninth ahead of Verstappen.
2015 Monaco Grand Prix – Qualifying
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:15.098
2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:15.440 0.342
3 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:15.849 0.751
4 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull/Renault 1:16.041 0.943
5 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull/Renault 1:16.182 1.084
6 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:16.427 1.329
7 Sergio Perez Force India/Mercedes 1:16.808 1.710
8 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso/Renault 1:16.931 1.833
9 Pastor Maldonado Lotus/Mercedes 1:16.946 1.848
10 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso/Renault 1:16.957 1.859
11 Jenson Button McLaren/Honda 1:17.093 1.995
12 Nico Hulkenberg Force India/Mercedes 1:17.193 2.095
13 Felipe Massa Williams/Mercedes 1:17.278 2.180
14 Fernando Alonso McLaren/Honda 1:26.632 11.534
15 Felipe Nasr Sauber/Ferrari 1:18.101 3.003
16 Romain Grosjean * Lotus/Mercedes 1:17.007 1.909
17 Valtteri Bottas Williams/Mercedes 1:18.434 3.336
18 Marcus Ericsson Sauber/Ferrari 1:18.513 3.415
19 Will Stevens Marussia/Ferrari 1:20.655 5.557
20 Roberto Merhi Marussia/Ferrari 1:20.904 5.806eom/FIA press release
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Hamilton feels happy to take pole at his adopted home
DRIVERS
1 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)
2 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)
3 – Sebastian VETTEL (Ferrari)
TV UNILATERAL
Lewis, it’s seems to strange that it’s your first pole at Monaco, what does it mean to you?
Lewis HAMILTON: It does, it’s been a long, long time. I can’t express to you just how happy I am. It wasn’t the easiest session. I had a lot of things that kind of [would easily] throw you off your rhythm. Which it did. I didn’t have the rhythm until the last two laps. So I was really, really happy with it and coming across the line just hoping for once that you’ve got it. This is incredibly special for me and for my guys who have worked so hard this weekend, so I’m very, very happy.
At one point, as you say, you weren’t terribly happy and you said to your engineer, and to yourself it seemed as well, ‘OK guys, we all just need to calm down here and refocus’. Can you just tell us a bit about what was going on and what was going on in your mind?
LH: At this track it’s so hard. It’s difficult to express just how difficult this track is. We do it because we’ve been racing for years, but getting your head around it and improving… it’s important to get into a rhythm and it’s really important to continue to improve. It’s like climbing a ladder and every time you’ve got to be taking one step and if you slide back down it’s sometimes harder to get back up. In our session we had some problems with tyres and we had some problem with some wing and traffic, so, you know, it wasn’t easy. It makes it even more special, because normally if you just back-to-back good laps, good laps, good laps you can kind of expect it but we had some really bad laps, didn’t get the quickest laps in Q1 or Q2. So, anyways, I’m blabbing on, it was great; I’m really happy.
Well done. Coming to you Nico, not your year this year, as far as qualifying is concerned anyway. A couple of lock-ups in Q2 at the end there and also it seemed at the end in Q3. What was going today?
Nico ROSBERG: Yeah, probably a bit the opposite to Lewis. I had a good rhythm starting off qualifying, which I didn’t have all weekend, so it was good to get into it in qualifying and then just lost touch a little bit towards the end. Of course going for it, because I have to, because I know Lewis is going to be quick. So I needed to go for it and it didn’t work out. That’s it.
That banker lap, that first run in Q3 is the important one isn’t it? You had it last year and obviously Lewis got it this time. How hard is the recovery if you don’t have it after that first run in Q3?
NR: Recovery? I didn’t really see it as too much of a problem because it was very close and I was confident that I could improve on my lap time. I changed my balance also, because on the first run I had too much understeer so I went up on the front flap by a good step. I was confident it was going to come my way, but it didn’t.
Well done anyway. Sebastian, coming to you, back up the front again in qualifying, third again. Did you get the most out of the car today?
Sebastian VETTEL: Not really. Generally happy with the result but I think it was a bit too cool for us today. I think everyone was struggling a little bit with warming up the tyres. It sounds surprising because it’s the supersoft. It was a shame the sun was hiding behind the clouds. Nevertheless, I think it was a good session for us and P3 is a good place to start from tomorrow. Hopefully we can split the Mercedes and therefore have an exciting race tomorrow.
Some of the midfield and backmarker cars were doing some quick laps on the supersoft in Q1, yet you and Kimi both chose to stay in the garage. Were you completely calm for those final few moments of Q1?
SV: No, not completely calm! Obviously I knew roughly that the time should be fine with what we thought will be enough. But it was close and then when you see yourself dropping down and the time ticking away from you and you can’t really react and go out and have another run it’s not nice but in the end it was OK for both of us. So we did the right thing and targeted to prepare for the last part of qualifying. Unfortunately it was not enough to get really, really close to them and put them under pressure, but tomorrow is another day.
Well done. Back to you Lewis, what percentage of the job is now done do you think, given the nature of this circuit and the way the race unfolds and how do you see the race unfolding tomorrow?
LH: Oh, this is… not even half the job is done. There’s so much to do tomorrow. There’s a long, long way to go, many, many laps here. It’s going to be mentally and physically challenging. Again just so happy; nothing was able to get in my way today in this. I’m just sitting here thinking about all the previous years and things that kind of got in the way or that I wasn’t good enough or whatever it may be. I’m looking forward to tomorrow. I think 2006 in GP2 was the last time I started on pole here. It’s a very special day and again just a big thank you to the team. The performance we have with our car is outstanding and the guys have been perfect all weekend, so I hope we can get a real result for them tomorrow.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Lewis, can you tell us a little about bringing the tyres in and what was the ideal lap for these supersoft tyres. Because obviously you hadn’t done any running on them prior to this morning due to the rain on Thursday etcetera. There was various different teams with various messages about which was the ideal lap, how many timed laps etcetera. How did you find your way to the ideal moment to use them?
LH: Well, I guess I’m going to have to choose my words carefully. These tyres, they take a quite a long time to bring in. We have to push quite a lot to get the tyres to start working. They’re very hard. Considering they’re the soft and supersoft, they’re incredibly hard. When I looked at the wear life yesterday, there’s a lot of laps you can do. A lot of laps, and so to bring the tyres in you… this morning was OK. The track was a bit grippier at one point so the tyres came in really nicely, quite soon. But this afternoon, being a little cooler perhaps, we had to do the two… kind of an out-lap, a warm-up lap and then the fast lap. Even on that fast lap, they were so-so. It’s interesting that you have to do that with both tyres.
Q: Nico, Lewis just said a moment ago in the Unilateral that he doesn’t consider even half of the job is done yet with this pole position. What’s your view on what you can do from where you are? He feels there’s clearly a threat from you and from Sebastian. Can strategy help you?
NR: I am very glad to hear Lewis’ opinion on that! Yeah, I’m going to try and keep the pressure up, of course. That’s all I can do tomorrow. Well, that’s what I need to do tomorrow. And I’ll do it.
Q: Sebastian, the gap is again that stubborn three-quarters of a second between you and the Mercedes. It doesn’t seem to be changing too much at the moment. Obviously Lewis won from third on the grid, I think back in 2008, so it can be done. Drawing some encouragement from that?
SV: Definitely. I think, y’know, so far nobody has scored any points so everything is possible tomorrow for sure. We know it’s Monaco, we know it’s difficult to pass, so if you start on pole you have a good chance of winning the race – but there’s 78 laps to do. The start will be important. I start on the inside which obviously gives me the possibility with a good start, yeah, to split them, and then we’ll see what happens. In terms of strategy it’s pretty straightforward: it’s statistically not the most exciting race but if you take 2008 as an example it was very exciting. I think there was some rain, I remember it was very slippery. I don’t know the forecast for tomorrow but who knows? Anything can happen around here.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Ottavio Daviddi – Tuttosport) For Sebastian, you mentioned the weather forecast – do you prefer a wet race tomorrow or not?
SV: Well, it’s very easy to look at it: if it’s wet there’s a lot more chances. Also, there’s higher risk. So, y’know, if you’re on the good side, you take the chance, if you get it wrong and hit the risk the wrong way then it goes, y’know, in the wrong direction. So, in the end the weather, thanks God, is something we cannot influence and we have to deal with it. Sometimes it makes things a lot more exciting. But we see tomorrow. I think nonetheless we should have a good car in the race. Obviously we weren’t really able to have a look in long runs, no-one was. But the car feels good around here and hopefully we can put some pressure onto these two guys tomorrow.
Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto Motor und Sport) Question to Sebastian. Do you think that today’s performance is confirmation of what we have seen in Barcelona or are you now back to where you have been in the first four races?
SV: No, I don’t think you can compare this race to Barcelona. It’s a completely different track. I think today was significantly cooler. Probably it’s true with a little bit higher temperatures we could have been a little bit closer. As it stands today, obviously we were quite far away again but tomorrow we should be a bit closer to them.
Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Lewis, you finally achieved this pole position; you are a fan of Ayrton Senna. How did you miss this pole position? Do you feel that this is an important milestone in your career, to get this pole position on this track?
LH: I don’t feel like it’s a milestone, but I definitely feel like it’s an important day for me because, as I was saying, since 2007 it wasn’t great, 2008 wasn’t great again, and every year, generally, it’s been quite poor. Some years I’ve had the car to do it, sometimes – at least once or twice – some things have got in the way. Sometimes I’ve not actually had the car to do so and if I have, I have not executed it. So yeah, I’ve got a long way to go to get anywhere near what Ayrton achieved here but this is kind of… maybe this is the first step in the sense of Monte Carlo. And as this is now my home for the past three or four years, it makes it even more special. I wake up here, I’ve never been so happy living here with the views and the way of life here. You get to drive the track every day when I’m here so it’s a very special day.
Q: (Rodrigo Franca – VIP Magazine) Lewis, here in Monaco, we know that fans are really close to the drivers and sometimes maybe movie actors and even athletes don’t like this proximity. How do you feel about it, very close to the fans here in Monaco?
LH: This is probably the best track… for me, this is the best track not only to drive on but because the fans get close. There’s a lot of races where we go to and the grandstand is 100 meters away from the side of the track. People are having to use binoculars to watch the cars. It’s so much more exciting when you can get close up. I was watching the Renault cars going round – the V6 is it, World series – and I was watching at Rascasse and I was standing right by the barrier and I’ve seen them come by and I’m thinking this is how racing should be, this is how spectating should be. Not that I can change anything but as a spectator, I think this is the best place to come and watch.
Q: (Livio Oricchio – Globosport.com) Nico, I’m sorry to put it this way, but you have a first problem to start behind Lewis. The second is, two sets of tyres on which you’ve locked the front left tyre. Will it be a problem for the race condition?
NR: First problem, you are right, to start behind Lewis. Second problem is not a problem because it’s one stop so I don’t have to use those tyres because we just start on soft(er) and then one stop and then the hard(er) tyre, so I don’t have to use the soft tyres that I flat-spotted. And the set that I’m starting the race with is my Q2 set which I did my lap time with in Q2 and there was no blocking there. That one’s fine.
Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Nico, in the last part of Q2 you had an exit at Ste Devote. Did you have any psychological handicap about it in Q3?
NR: Well, of course it’s not ideal: better not to have such a thing of course in the middle of qualifying, but I had two shots in Q3 afterwards, so with two solid runs, it doesn’t have an influence, eventually then, so not really, no.
eom/FIA press conference transcript
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The fundamentals of F1 were not addressed at all: Bob Fernley rubbishes Strategy Group
TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Paul HEMBERY (Pirelli), Cyril ABITEBOUL (Renault Sport F1), Franz TOST (Toro Rosso), Robert FERNLEY (Force India) Toto WOLFF (Mercedes), Christian HORNER (Red Bull Racing)
PRESS CONFERENCE
Let’s start with a general question to all of you. What did you think of what came out of last week’s F1 Strategy Group, some of the proposals that have been put forward for 2017 and if we could start, perhaps, with Christian?
Christian HORNER: Well, as you know, we’re not supposed to talk about the content of these meetings and referring to the press release it was a very positive meeting and lots of good things talked about for 2017. There was obviously a large amount of discussion about the future and about current issues. I think there is positive work going on regarding the 2017 chassis. There were debates about refueling, whether that should be reintroduced or not. Differing opinions on that. It was a constructive meeting. I wouldn’t say that we nailed down a whole load of decisions out of it, but certainly a lot of discussion about the relevant topics at this point in time.
Toto?
Toto WOLFF: There’s not a lot to add to what Christian said. It was a good meeting in relation to the 2017 regs. We all agree that we want to reintroduce quicker cars, get the lap times down by five to six seconds. Make it more of a driver formula, maybe get rid of the electronic start procedures, go back to more conventional clutches. Refuelling was discussed, with many various opinions. But we all agreed that this is what should be happening, so it was good.
Robert?
Robert FERNLEY: I must have been at a different meeting. I don’t think it was a good meeting at all. After 18 months I think we failed totally to agree on any form of cost control. There’s absolutely no way there is going to be any equitable distribution of income. Power units are going to remain the same. And whilst I agree that there were some good discussions on 2017, the fundamentals of Formula One weren’t addressed at all.
Paul?
Paul HEMBERY: Yeah, I guess there were a couple of points that came out that relate to tyres. One was regarding the choice of compounds made by the teams and we’re working in that regard with Charlie [Whiting] and the FIA to come up with a proposal that meets that requirements, that gives us a level of safety in the choices made and also to provide something interesting for the fans. That’s ongoing but it looks positive, what we’ve seen so far. Then 2017, obviously we don’t know whether we will be here or not but the idea of going to wider, 420 width tyres, was something we feel is a good idea.
Franz?
Franz TOST: I wasn’t involved in the meeting; therefore it’s difficult to evaluate the contents. What I miss is the discussion how we can come down with the costs and how we will find a way to create an interesting – apart from the technical side for the future – but we will see then the 2017 regulation is being discussed and then we will see what will come the result.
And Cyril, what did you glean from it about 2017?
Cyril ABITEBOUL: Well, 2017 seems a bit far away. But we’ll get back to that a bit later. I think it was an interesting meeting, as always. Formula One is a very sophisticated and complex environment, so it’s very difficult to agree on one single set of measures that can address the issues. I think to a certain degree everyone agrees on what has to be done, what has to be delivered by Formula One in the future. So I think it’s good that we share a vision. It’s very much how we get from where we are today to that vision that is now the topic for discussion.
OK, I’m sure that others will come back this point later in the session, but let’s just move on to individual questions. Franz if we could start with you. Obviously today the running was a bit truncated by the weather but in the first session and the beginning of the second, it looked like your two drivers, Verstappen and Sainz, were up to speed very quickly, with Verstappen setting the second fastest time this morning. How impressed were you with what they did?
FT: I think we have the ingredients together that both cars have to be in qualifying three and we have to finish in the points. We have a good car, a competitive car. Both drivers do a very good job. The team is also improving. Therefore I don’t see why we should not score a lot of points, so I’m quite optimistic.
Well, the car obviously looked good in Spain as well. Is the car more consistent? Because that is certainly is something you needed coming from last year, right?
FT: The car is more consistent. The car is more controllable, especially under braking and in acceleration. The car is easier to drive as was the case in the years before and as a result of this of course the drivers have a good chance to get the most out of the car without making any mistakes.
Paul, coming to you, we didn’t get the chance to see the revised supersoft tyres today, they stayed in their blankets in the second half of FP2. Obviously they are going to be run at the next few races. A bit frustrated by that and how do you expect it go here over the next couple of days?
PH: Well, it was probably more frustration for the teams. The only thing we gained was the resurfacing. It doesn’t seem to have changed very much. It’s a very low-impact circuit from our point of view, so we don’t envisage any issues.
Going back to the meeting last week. One of the things that was proposed was that the teams should be able to tell you which two tyre compounds they want you to bring for them for grand prix weekends. How do you feel about that suggestion and also the whole notion of making the cars, as Toto said, five to six seconds a lap faster?
PH: Well, it touches on what I’ve already mentioned that we’ve taken on board those comments and we’re working on a solution with the FIA that meets that requirement but also guarantees that we have a level of security over the choices made but also giving the sport itself some interesting elements. So, we’re confident and I think from initial discussions we’re on a good road to finding a solution for that. Going quicker? It depends on how you achieve that. Wider tyres would certainly help that. From a tyremakers point of view you’d want to know how you can contest that. We have limitations on testing today and if the cars are going to change dramatically you wouldn’t really want to end up in Jerez in February, in the winter trying to find out if it’s going to be workable solution or not. The principal is fine, there needs to be a little bit of work I’m sure done on the practicalities.
Thank you. Robert, you were one of the ones proposing this free tyre choice idea, what do you like about the concept?
RF: I like the fact that it brings the decision-making down to the teams and I think it will bring variability in terms of the racing tactics of what goes on and I’m really pleased that Pirelli have embraced the idea and are coming up with a solution that will give them the safety as well as the team a little bit more choice.
On a Force India-specific note, what’s the latest on your revised 2015 package? What’s the forecast on when it’s going to be out and the latest forecast on the performance gain it’s going to give you?
RF: Well, they’re encouraged by performance gain, I think that’s [what] I’m getting through from the engineers. Hopefully it’s still on target for us for Austria. I would like to think we could do it for the race but it’s most likely going to be the test.
Cyril, coming to you and going back to the Strategy Group meeting, one of the things that was voted was not to have a fifth engine this season, what’s your reaction to that?
CA: Obviously I regret it, because that’s something that would have facilitated a bit the situation of our two customer teams given the different reliability issues we’ve had so far this season. Having said that, we knew the rules, it’s four engines for everyone, so that’s what we have to comply with. The only comment I would make is that we don’t that as something that is a huge penalty. I know there is a lot of frustration but ten places penalty – maybe I should not say that because maybe the FIA will make it worse in the future – but ten places penalty in tracks when you can overtake, assuming you have the power, the right set-up and so on, basically a car that out of place at the start can quite easily make it during the race, which are long races. So, I’m sorry for my customer teams but I don’t think it’s a big game changer to the championship.
Monaco is always an important race for Renault on a number of levels, what sort of shape are you in this weekend?
CA: Honestly, we want an easy weekend. We want a trouble-free weekend. I’m not going to say that we have more power, more performance because it would be an unfair misrepresentation. Right now what we want to have under control is the particular reliability crisis that we suffered for the start of the season and then be back to resume the performance plan that we had on the shelf for the remainder of the season.
Toto, obviously Nico got some momentum into his championship with the win in Spain last time out. Lewis Hamilton said he’s very keen to take pole and win here after two years of being on the wrong side of things from Nico. How does the rivalry look from inside the team? How’s this heading towards Saturday’s final runs in Q3 and the race on Sunday?
TW: The rivalry has always been intense on track and we’ve seen it from the start of the day. They were both out there in anger, pretty competitive lap times straight from the beginning. And it’s good for the team because it pushes the team, it pushes the two to new levels, competing against each other, so for Thursday, we can be pretty satisfied.
Obviously the news this weekend is the new contract with Lewis Hamilton. Why did you chose to declare… to announce that it is a three year term and are the values that are circulating around in the media vaguely accurate as to the value of the contract?
TW: You know the discussions around the contract have been out there for quite a while. We had the terms already a couple of weeks ago and declaring that it was a three year term seemed reasonable to us, in order to show that it’s a long term relationship and stability is important for us. On the figures out there, I can’t really comment. The only thing I can say is that there have been lots of nonsense out there as well.
Christian, congratulations first of all on your marriage. Here in Monaco, Daniel Ricciardo has said that this weekend should see Red Bull Racing’s best result of the season. Do you share his optimism?
CH: Well, first of all thank you, I’m technically on honeymoon with all of you! Daniel Ricciardo, he’s always excelled at this circuit, always in the lower categories as well. Of course the power unit plays a smaller role at this circuit of all the circuits that we go to in the year, so hopefully, as Cyril’s pointed out, if we can have a reliable troublefree weekend… already in free practice, both drivers have fared pretty decently so far.
There’s been some pressure from your director, Dr Marko, on Daniil Kvyat recently. What’s your view on what Kvyat’s done so far and what he needs to do?
CH: I think… Helmut’s comments… I’ll come back to that in a minute. He’s always called things as they are and I think that Daniil Kvyat’s had a tough run so far. Things haven’t gone cleanly on his side of the garage, he’s had some good races and he’s had some times that he’s struggled with. But he’s young, he’s developing all the time. We can see a great deal of potential in him, you can see it even in that last wet run at the end of P2. He’s going to mature and develop. Helmut’s always had a habit of calling things as they are. I recall going back to Mark Webber’s time… After this race in 2010 we went to Turkey. As we know, Mark and Helmut didn’t always see eye to eye and they (Mark and Sebastian) had that crash in Turkey. We ended up back in my office and it was an opportunity, I said to Mark, to get everything out, address your issues with Helmut. And I said to Helmut before the meeting, whatever he says, take it on the chin and agree. And so Mark went through all the issues that he had, told him what had pissed him off about Helmut, blah, blah blah, and Helmut took it on board and said ‘yes, OK, I agree, OK’ and then he said ‘anyway, the next race in Valencia is very important to us and you’ve always been shit in Valencia!’ And Mark, thankfully, saw the funny side but it explains some of the straight talking that Helmut tends to have.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Louis Dekker – NOS) Question for Mr Tost, Mr Horner and Mr Wolff. How do you rate P2 this morning by a driver who never drove here before? How should we evaluate it?
CH: I thought it was super. For a guy that can’t rent a hire car yet, I mean it’s enormously impressive. 17 years of age… I think the two Toro Rosso drivers actually have done a wonderful job this year and, you know, I think it’s one of the positive stories in Formula One at the moment is those two young rookies that Red Bull have given a chance. They’re here on merit and it shows that the junior programme is most definitely working.
And Toto? You were in a bit of a tug-of-love with Red Bull over his services. Are you beginning to regret you missed out?
TW: No, I think it was clear that what Vestappen was offered was a deal he had to go for. You can see that, in the right car, with the right team-mate, they push each other. It’s two of the best boys, young boys, out there. And clearly for Max, finishing P2 on a track he has never been to, in these conditions, is good – but as Christian said, I wouldn’t underestimate Carlos’ performances either. I think it shows, if you have two team-mates who compete on a similar level, they push each other and the rivalry is very good – but obviously Franz will know much more about it.
Franz, do you want to add a bit more?
FT: Yeah, we all know that Max is very, very high-skilled driver, therefore Red Bull took him into the programme and bought him into Toro Rosso, and what I was impressed, how he achieved this really, really good time in P1. He went out in the morning and from run to run he improved his lap time without making any mistake. No locking, nothing. His car control and his feedback during the run was really, really extraordinary. I’m really, really happy he is in the team and I’m convinced he will show some other great runs – hopefully in qualifying, because this counts – and also in the race. I think that we will have some success with him also this year – and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him – earlier or later – within the first five.
Q: (Pierre Van Vliet – F1i Magazine) Question for Cyril. What is the deadline for Renault to decide about its future in Formula One, knowing that your current contract runs to the end of 2016, if I’m right?
CA: Yeah, we have contracts that run with those two gentlemen until the end of 2016. I guess the deadline is 31st December 2016. No, joke apart. We have no deadline, no rush. I think right now the deadline and the big target is to get engine under control, both from reliability and performance perspectives. Once this is done we can secure some longer-term stuff. And I’m sure right now this is a concern for our customer – will we be capable of dealing with the regulation, with dealing with the trouble that we have right now? So, I think this is a concern for them, this is a concern also for us, so this is what we have to address in priority before thinking about anything else.
Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Christian, I’d like to come back to something you said, and also something you said Toto, namely that you can’t really discuss the Strategy Group and you can’t really talk about things. Autosport and F1 Racing have just started a fan survey, they’ve had 25,000 responses in 24 hours – which tells me that there’s an awful lot of fans out there that actually want to be heard. Yet, this 21st Century sport with 500million followers is actually living up to 15th Century Masonic Society levels of secrecy. Is this really the way to go forward?
Toto, do you want to start?
CH: Are you in the Masons?
TW: What are the Masons?
CH: I couldn’t tell you that…
TW: You know, whatever we discuss in the Strategy Group, bizarrely ends up in the media ten minutes later – or even earlier – during the discussions. Sometimes we need to make up our mind in there and discuss. We don’t have always the same opinion but it’s a matter of pushing the sport forward. And for the sake of the sport. And whatever solutions we come up with, it’s all shit. We are discussing making the cars faster, five or six seconds, wider tyres, more spectacular cars, more g-forces, the things we have mentioned before and the topic of refuelling. The only thing I can read after the meeting is that refuelling doesn’t make any sense. Interestingly, you asked the drivers yesterday on the very same podium and they all love it. So I think we must stop talking the sport down. I’ve mentioned that a couple of times in here. And one of the rules we have established – and Bob is new to the group so maybe we have to reemphasise this is that we shouldn’t talk the sport down. We should push the sport up. We need all of you, plus us, to re-emphasise on the good points, on the attractive bits of the sport and try to make it better. It’s not always an easy exercise.
Robert?
RF: Well, to a certain degree I agree with Toto. I think that the problem I have is that I don’t think the Strategy Group is fit for purpose and we should be looking at something where we have a clear programme that delivers results. We’ve have 18 months or two years of Strategy Group work with nothing coming out of it. I think we need to look at the system in a better way. In days gone by, with Max and Bernie in charge, there would be none of that. We would know exactly where we’re going. I don’t think you should have the teams making decisions on where Formula One should go. The teams should be told where Formula One is going.
OK. Maybe offer that one to you Christian – because you did say, didn’t you, at one point before the meeting that it should be taken out of the teams?
CH: Well yeah. I mean it’s rather predictable. Bob’s going to ask for more money, Toto’s going to not want to change anything and we want to change engines. So every team has got its own agenda and it’s going to fight its own corner. I think that the sport is governed by the FIA and it’s promoted by FOM. It’s those guys that need to get together and say ‘what do we want Formula One to be?’ Yes, we want it to go quicker, we want cars to be more aggressive to drive – but you’re never going to keep everybody happy. I think that Bernie and Jean need to get together and say “this is what we want the product to be, this is how it needs to be governed,” and then give us the entry form and see if we want to enter or not. Because I think putting it in the team’s environment to try and agree a set of regulations – you’re never going to get everybody on the same piece of paper.
Cyril, you were nodding…
CA: I think it’s right – except the bit on the engine – I fully agree with what Christian just said, obviously. I think it needs a very strong leadership with a very small group of people. I have to say that I was invited to that Strategy Group and I obviously enjoyed that for Renault because Renault is spending a lot of money in the sport. I mean we were as an observer. But one thing that struck me is that there is actually lot of people in this Strategy Group. One comment about the transparency – I don’t think this type of meeting would be broadcasted or communicated on in other sports, so I don’t think that we are that old-fashioned in that respect. And again, also people underestimate the complexity of Formula One and the knock-on effect of every single thing that you change. The things that you are doing something for one positive and actually the knock-on effects are huge. And sometimes I think it’s good that you trust us and Formula One Management in general, that we are doing the right things in general. We are in the same boat, we should not criticise each other.
Franz – do you have anything to add to this?
FT: Well, first of all I think the contents of a strategy meeting discussion should not be immediately published because it’s just a discussion. It’s not that anything has been decided so far and once a decision has been made, of course this has to be announced and therefore it’s not necessary to write and talk about everything what is being taken into consideration. I think that the Strategy Group itself, as Christian mentioned before, with this constellation, never will come up with a proper solution. It should be Bernie and Jean together, they should decide what we have to do. They even should not ask the teams because the teams never will come up with an agreement.
And final word on this from Paul.
PH: I think Christian and Franz put that very well. That in any sport it shouldn’t be the competitors that are involved in deciding changes. As Christian said, defining between the FIA and FOM how the sport is going to be, and then the teams can decide whether they want to adhere to those guidelines. So, I’m fully with the two points made by Franz and Christian.
Q: (Jerome Pugmire – AP) Question for Franz. You seem to be… obviously you know all about Max’s potential but he even seemed to surprise you today with his drive. You say he could finish top five before the end of the season. How long to you think is realistic before he’s challenging for a podium?
FT: Depends how many cars not finishing in front of us. The smaller, the better the chance he will be on the podium. We must be realistic. There are teams and cars in front of us. They have double of the budget than us. They have fantastic, good competitive package and it’s not easy to compete against them – but nevertheless we have two drivers and, as I have explained before, we have also a car which is quite competitive and once – maybe special whether conditions, maybe it’s raining or whatever – will help us to bring one of the drivers to the podium.
Q: (Ian Parkes – Autosport) Just getting back to the previous question regarding the Strategy Group. Bearing in mind some of the comments that we’ve just heard, is it time now to disband that group because it’s had its day, it’s had its time, it’s had its opportunity and quite clearly it just isn’t working?
RF: Well, I don’t think it every had its day. End of story.
Toto?
TW: You need… this is a professional sport. It’s a global platform. It needs to have a proper governance. And I think if we wish for dictatorship, I can see us sitting here in two years and complaining that it’s going in the wrong direction. It is always tricky to find the right government. You vote for one government, you wish for the other one to rule, and the other way around.
CH: I think it’s difficult. It’s a forum where strategic things are discussed about the future. It’s not a decision-making forum. That should go either up to the Formula One Commission or down to the working groups. I think, you know, it’s difficult. If you pick up on Bob’s comments, then yeah, the only thing the Strategy Group has unanimously agreed on and implemented this year is the fact that the drivers should wear the same crash helmet for the entire season. Is that a success of the group? Not really. Is it a worthwhile forum? I think it is – but I think the structure of how regulations are implemented, that’s what we need to look at. As I say, I think the promoter, he’s promoting the show, he’s got to sell a product and that product’s got to be appealing to the fans. And he needs to be listening to the 25,000 people writing in. The people around the world: what do they want? What do they want Formula One to be? And then as teams, as competitors, we have to abide by a set of regulations that the FIA should write. Sporting and technical. And at that point you have a choice: whether you want to be in or be out. But every year, the entry form comes out and we all sign on the dotted line.
Franz.
FT: Formula One is entertainment. What the fans want to see: they want to see entertaining races; they want to see overtaking manoeuvres and so on. If, for example, one, two, three cars or whatever are one-and-a-half, two seconds ahead of the rest of the field, this cannot be in the interests neither of the other teams not – and this is more important – of the fans. The fans want to see fights. If this is not the case. If this we cannot deliver, then let me say, the responsible people should sit around the table and say, “look, we have to chance the regulation in this way, that we can improve the show,” or whatever. This doesn’t happen because we are discussing too much and we have too many useless meetings.
Paul – presumably you have data on the number of overtakes now compared to the times when there was refuelling, for example, in the background, that kind of stuff?
PH: Yeah, of course. I think if you talk enough to enough people, you’re just going in circles. That’s always the case in most forms of business. So, there’s a clear need for direction and strategy. Coming from a sponsors point of view, we obviously would like to see what the plans are going forward to grow in markets where our business is important – so in Asia, in the USA, Latin America is always very important, even Russia. We look forward always to understanding the results of these meeting groups to see what impact it could have on the sport and the interests of the sport worldwide. So, as long as the direction of the sport is clear, we’re happy. But clear there is a number of people not so happy clear, we’re happy. But clear there is a number of people not so happy at the moment and they maybe need a change.
Q: (Daniel Johnson – The Telegraph) Christian and Toto, on the subject of surveys, the drivers are launching their own through the GPDA. How do you view that? Do you take it as a sign that the strategy group seems to have not been able to agree much more than helmets not changing? That the drivers feel the need to step in to this space where they haven’t really before, especially not from a GPDA point of view?
CH: Well, I’m not sure that it’s the drivers’ specialist area. The GPDA was essential set up as a safety group, to look at circuit safety, drivers’ safety, drivers’ protection. It’s great that they feel that they want to engage with the fans. I’m sure they’ll be willing to put a lot more time in and get out there and meet them.
TW: I think that Alex was very innovative always and pushing this, and having the idea of a survey is a great thing. It’s going to give us additional input, maybe some interesting findings, that it’s not that easy to actually draw the right conclusions. But the drivers are the essential part of the show so for them to be involved and get engaged is a good thing.
Q: (Joe van Burik – NU. NL) Question for the front row: there was no driving for 60 minutes in the second practice session because of the rain, this while many concerns are voiced about declining viewership and spectator numbers. Isn’t this a strange situation then?
RF: I think it’s very unfortunate from the point of view of all the fans that are here and obviously for the TV companies but it’s also very difficult from a team point of view. There’s a high risk of incident in Monaco and it’s unlikely that we’re going to have any rain on Saturday or Sunday. I think you tend to push the limits a little bit too far sometimes. There’s nothing to learn, particularly, if it’s a dry Saturday and Sunday, in going out in the wet and there’s everything to lose, so while my sympathies are hugely there with the fans and the TV companies to fill the time, there is a reason why that’s done, because the drivers want to be out on every lap that they possibly can be, and as a team we want to be out on every lap so it’s not done in any way to be negative to the show.
TW: Bob said pretty much everything. There is a risk of putting the car in the wall and that makes things complicated for the weekend. The forecast at the moment is much better than what we saw today and it’s Thursday afternoon. Maybe the real impact for spectators and fans starts Saturday.
CH: Well, we’ve only got four engines so if we’ve had a few more engines maybe we’d do a few more laps. No, I think Bob’s point… you have to make a decision. The first thing is ask the spares guy how many spares we’ve got: not many, OK, so we’re not going to do many laps then in conditions like this, particularly as the forecast is hopefully to get better for the rest of the weekend. It’s a tactic towards your Grand Prix weekend unfortunately.
Q: (Sebastian Scott – racedepartment.com) Paul, you don’t know if you’re going to be here in 2017. Would you welcome a tyre war with rival tyre manufacturers or even multiple tyre manufacturers, or would you prefer to offer teams four compounds a race?
PH: Well, we don’t write the rules for Formula One. We’re involved in over 250 championships of which about 90 are open competition, so it depends what the sport wants and then you’ve got to understand the rules, what the cost implications would be so you can’t really have an answer until you know the parameters. At the moment the tender will be for a single supplier so 2017, I might be here or I might be sat on a boat having some champagne and watching it. Probably better to be sat on the boat actually. Yeah, it’s a phase that you go through with various championships so there would be a phase of where the FIA will evaluate the technical competences of people who want to supply and then there’s an aspect that is the important bit which is the commercial aspect with the promoter. So there’s a timetable set out and we will obviously know before the end of the year.
Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Toto, based on the numbers that are going around about Lewis’s stipend for the next three years, by my estimation he will be earning about five times as much as Dieter Zetsche for working ten per cent of the time. Will he really sell fifty times as many cars as your CEO?
TW: Dieter, I can’t even comment on that question. This is a market and in that market you have a value or you don’t. Lewis is one of the best racing drivers out there, maybe the best at the moment and he has a huge value for the brand and fundamentally this is what drives his value and this is a classical win-win situation for the team and for himself.
Q: (Ian Parkes – Autosport) Just following on to the question to Paul earlier about a tyre war; to the four team principals, is that something that would appeal to you, to have a choice of tyre manufacturer? Fernando Alonso spoke very strongly in favour of it, bearing in mind he recalls the Michelin-Bridgestone days of the early 2000s.
FT: I just hope that no tyre war will come, that means no other tyre manufacturer, because this means that two teams will get the good tyres and the rest will just get this crap, because like it was before, when Michelin was in, it was Renault therefore Alonso has good memories and Bridgestone with Ferrari, therefore Michael was so successful, one of the reasons, yeah? If this comes back, it’s the same story: the two tyre manufacturers, two teams which get good tyres; three tyre manufacturers three teams and the rest just get what the others don’t like. That means the complete competition would drive in a completely different direction. Then we would have, after now the power unit Formula One, we would have the tyre Formula One. Once the power units are stabilised, we open the next problem.
CH: I think Franz summed it up splendidly, that one make tyre is equality for all of the teams. I think that in the times of tyre wars then of course effort does have to go behind your leading charge and it will drive costs up immeasurably as you have to develop your car around a specific tyre so I think it’s been one of the successes in having a sole tyre and I think that that’s one of the reasons for example that Red Bull has been able to achieve the success that it’s been able to achieve as an independent team, which we perhaps would never have been able to enjoy in the event that there was open competition with tyre manufacturers aligned to automotive manufacturers, which is of course is where their core income comes from.
TW: We (Franz and I) are both Austrians therefore we use the same words.
RF: Yeah, I think putting on the positive side of what Formula One has done well and I think the single tyre choice is one of the things that it has done very well and we shouldn’t change.
Q: (Graham Harris – Motorsport Monday) Question for Cyril, Christian and possibly Franz: it’s now pretty obvious you’re not going to get any more than four engines. You’ve openly said that you’re going to expect to take more than four engines; when do you expect to take the first grid penalties? Will it be done strategically? And how will you handle it through the year?
CH: I think it’s inevitable that we’re not going to do the rest of the season on one power unit so hopefully it will do another couple of races and then of course you try and introduce your additional engines strategically – you may not have the choice to do that. But we’ll deal with it as and when it arrives and of course if you replace the whole engine, that’s a differ
ent scenario to replacing just the combustion part of the engine for example, so different penalties for different elements of the engine that you have to replace.CA: Nothing to add, that’s exactly what we unfortunately have to take into account when we elaborate one plan when we elaborate an engine allocation plan. We try to mitigate the damage to our customer teams from a sporting perspective. It will happen, maybe twice per car unfortunately. Now we have to deal with that just like an extra parameter, just like an extra constraint.
FT: Everything has been explained by Christian and by Cyril. We wait and see how long the different parts are reliable and then we have to go for it anyway. I just hope that it’s not here for Monaco and for Budapest. The rest, I’m quite open.
eom/FIA transcript
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Hamilton sets the quickest lap of Free Practice 1: Monaco GP
Hamilton tops FP1 at Monaco on Thursday. An FIA image Monaco, 21 May 2015: Lewis Hamilton set the quickest lap of first practice in Monaco as rookie teenager Max Verstappen claimed a surprise second place with the time just under 1500ths of a second off the Mercedes: driver’s time. Third place in the opening session went to Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo.
Hamilton was the busiest man on track, getting through 49 laps for a best time of 1:18.750, set relatively early in the session, as the initially damp track began to improve. It was Verstappen who most caught the eye though. Despite having no experience of the Monaco circuit the Dutch teenager go to grips with its demands in double quick time and he quickly rose through the order as his confidence grew. A late flying lap of 1:18.899 eventually netted him P2 on the time sheet, just 0.149 adrift of Hamilton’s benchmark.
The Toro Rosso driver’s late lap put him ahead of Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian driver has targeted Monaco as Red Bull’s best chance of a podium finish this season and as if to prove his credentials Ricciardo set the fastest first sector during the session. In the end his best time was 0.336 down on Hamilton’s.
Sebastian Vettel was fourth for Ferrari, ending up 0.384s slower than Hamilton, while Carlos Sainz completed a good morning for Toro Rosso by setting the session’s fifth fastest time.
Pastor Maldonado finished sixth for Lotus, though the Venezuelan’s session wasn’t without incident. He was among a number of drivers forced to use the escape road at Sainte Devote, Maldonado twice overcooking it into turn one. Williams: Valtteri Bottas also made two trips off circuit at the corner.
Seventh place went to Daniil Kvyat in the second Red Bull, while Kimi Räikkönen was eighth in the second Ferrari.
Nico Rosberg might have been expected to join Mercedes team-mate Hamilton at the top of the order but the German, who claimed pole and victory in 2013 and last year, hit the barriers at Tabac early in the session and though there appeared to minimal damage he ended the session in ninth place and over a second behind Hamilton.
Felipe Massa rounded out the top ten for Williams ahead of the McLaren pair of Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button.
2015 Monaco Grand Prix – Free Practice 1
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:18.750 49
2 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso 1:18.899 0.149 42
3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:19.086 0.336 27
4 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:19.134 0.384 31
5 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1:19.245 0.495 40
6 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1:19.454 0.704 35
7 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull 1:19.520 0.770 33
8 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:19.679 0.929 31
9 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:19.762 1.012 47
10 Felipe Massa Williams 1:19.766 1.016 32
11 Fernando Alonso McLaren 1:19.791 1.041 28
12 Jenson Button McLaren 1:20.202 1.452 15
13 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:20.274 1.524 34
14 Sergio Perez Force India 1:20.619 1.869 35
15 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:20.784 2.034 34
16 Felipe Nasr Sauber 1:20.857 2.107 24
17 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:20.917 2.167 36
18 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:21.219 2.469 25
19 Will Stevens Manor 1:23.234 4.484 28
20 Roberto Merhi Manor 1:23.404 4.654 31eom
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The car has been awesome all weekend, thanks to the team: Nico Rosberg
DRIVERS: 1 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes); 2 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)
2 – Sebastian VETTEL (Ferrari); PODIUM INTERVIEWS;
(Conducted by Maria Serrat)
Well, Nico, first win here in Barcelona and first win of the season.
Nico ROSBERG: It was a prefect weekend. Great to be on
Sunday FIA press conference. FIA image pole and great to win the race like this. Very, very happy. Also thanks to the team, the car has been awesome, all weekend perfect, so yeah, really great.
You looked very strong, especially strong in the first stint and at the start, where you held onto [the lead].
NR: Yeah, finally I got a great start as well. It’s been a while coming but today it worked out really well.
Congratulations. Lewis, the biggest chance was at the start, what happened there?
Lewis HAMILTON: I just clearly got a bad start. I had lots of wheelspin. But as Nico said, it was a good race, he did a fantastic job and I’m grateful that I could get back up to the podium for the team.
You’re on the podium, your 75th podium, and also looking at the championship you’re still leading the championship.
LH: Yeah, but there’s a long, long way to go. This was a difficult weekend for me, I’ll definitely take it… looking forward to Monaco. It’s going to be a very tough race for sure but I’m looking forward to it.
Congratulations. Moving on to third. Sebastian, once again on the podium this season. Was the second position and option?
Sebastian VETTEL: I think it was. Obviously we were hanging in there pretty well. We had a good start, we were able to get past Lewis and then we did the right thing, covering him at the first stop. But then unfortunately they switched to a three-stop and they were just too quick. So we couldn’t really keep up with the pace they had today, third is the best we could do and very happy. The car is great and it’s great to see the fans, all the Ferrari flags, so very happy.
You didn’t mirror their strategy and also you were complaining a little bit about traffic. Do you think that maybe a three-stopper would have given you a chance?
SV: I think as a racing driver you always complain about something, especially if you’re German! I think we tried everything we could. Obviously going through traffic is never easy but in the end it’s the same for all of us – sometimes you’re a bit luckier and other times you lose a little bit more.
Thanks and congratulations. Nico, last question for yourself. Now you’re bouncing back. Turning point here in Barcelona and we’re going to Monaco. Home race, pole last year and victory last year.
NR: Yeah, but I’m just enjoying the day today, you know. Winning here in Barcelona was great and just enjoy that with the team tonight and then we look towards the next race.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Nico, many congratulations on this first victory of 2015 and just tell us what this win means to you really and where you go from here?
NR: Just a fantastic weekend. Everything worked out on Saturday and Sunday. It all came together. I’m very happy and that’s it.
Closing in a bit on the points?
NR: Yeah, of course, seven points. At one point I thought maybe, who knows, maybe Sebastian can keep Lewis behind, which on the one side isn’t good for the team, but in terms of my points… it’s always a compromise, for my points that would have been better. But that’s the way it is. Seven points is better than nothing and a fantastic team result today to be first and second, especially after the two-and-a half-week break. Everybody brought upgrades here but still we’re dominating in such a way and that’s fantastic to see and more than at the last race.
A 45-second margin between you and Sebastian at the end there.
Lewis, coming to you, a lot of talking points from your afternoon. Essentially you ended up where you started but the work you had to put in to get back to that second place was pretty phenomenal. Tell us about your race, your start and then the decision to switch to a three-stop strategy.
LH: Yeah, obviously I had quite a poor start. It’s been a long time since I’ve had such a poor start. I tried my best to recover – I nearly dropped back to fourth at the start so I was very fortunate to keep third – and then it was just trying to fight… Unfortunately, this track isn’t very good for overtaking. Actually it’s the worst for overtaking. It’s impossible to follow here, which is a shame. I don’t know how it was further back but for the guys at the front it’s just… it doesn’t matter what you do you cannot get close enough even with the DRS, which is a shame. Nonetheless, I did everything I could behind Sebastian and did enough, I think, in the first stint but then I had a very long pit stop and then had to kind of do it all again. But fortunately towards the end it was enough to get it done on a three-stopper, I was able to get by. Yeah, if I was behind him in traffic I wouldn’t have got past. I’m grateful I could gain those points for the team and it’s kind of damage limitation for me, so it’s not bad.
Very well done. Coming to you Sebastian, obviously the good: you’re on the podium again. The bad: the 45-second margin back to the race winner, which I’m sure you didn’t probably expect through here. Did you think it was on to keep Lewis behind you or did you feel that once he started to gain pace on those harder tyres that it was getting away from you?
SV: To be honest I thought it would be tricky to keep him behind because they were a fair amount quicker, as we saw, at the end of the race. Obviously we were a bit lucky with the first pit stop – Lewis had a problem – so we were able to stay ahead, I think we reacted well and we did everything we could. Then obviously they decided to pit very early, go for a three-stop. I think it was our best chance to stay out, which is what we did. Unfortunately then I came out a bit in traffic after the second stop and lost maybe a couple of second, maybe two or three seconds, which would have been maybe just enough to stay in front but arguably with the speed they had you have to be fair and accept that they deserved to finish in front of us today, so well done to both of them. For us I’m pretty confident we will get closer again pretty soon, so hopefully in two weeks’ time it’s a different picture. I think we have done a step forward as a team in terms of performance. Obviously it doesn’t really show here but I’m quite confident that in the next couple of race we’ll be stepping up our game again and I’m looking forward to that.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Livio Oricchio – GloboSport.com) Sebastian, you think the big gap you have, for example, to Nico, you have on the same strategy, is it related to the characteristics of the track or maybe the reality now between Ferrari and Mercedes?
SV: I don’t think it’s the reality. If you take the average of the first five races, then you have your reality. I think you have to be fair and except that on some tracks you’re a bit more competitive than on others. It seems that for some reason we were not that competitive here – even though I think we have improved our car. So, not happy with the gap, to be honest. Not happy at all. Obviously they had a pretty easy race at the front, controlling the gaps, controlling the tyres, which then obviously allows you to push when you need to. Whereas for us, we are pushing as hard as we could and that’s where we were at the end. So, not happy with today’s result in terms of the gap to the front – but in terms of points scored and global result, I think we can be very happy. It’s nice to be back on the podium.
Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Nico, congratulations. Is this the best Mothers’ Day gift you have given to your mother – and all in all, was this a so-called ‘perfect weekend’ for you?
NR: Well, I hope my Mum is happy – that would be great. And I’m sure she is, and I’m sure they’re having a good time at home now. So that’s nice. And then, perfect weekend? Yeah, it was a perfect weekend. Everything worked out: the car was great, nailed the setup for the race, for qualifying. Everything came together so very happy with that.
Q: (Peter Farkas – Auto Motor) Sebastian, do you think it would have been worth to cover Lewis when he went in for his second stop? It was a bit strange that you went in about seven or eight laps later. And, considering this gap, which is pretty big, do you still think you’re fighting in the championship?
SV: The fact that we stayed seven- or something laps longer is obviously due to the fact we were on a different strategy: we were on two stops, Lewis was on three stops, so I think covering him would have been difficult. Obviously in the first stop, I guess we reacted because Lewis has such a poor stop – I don’t know what happened to him – so we were able to cover him. That was a nice invitation and we took it. After that, as I said earlier, him pulling in so early was clear he’s diverting, or going on a three stop, which was not our plan today, so we stayed out. All in all, they were probably a little bit too quick to really put more pressure on them.
Yes, I think I’m in the fight. We are able to improve our car. I think there’s some good steps coming. Obviously our opponent is the favourite for the whole year and was untouchable last year to be fair, so I think the way you need to look at it is not that Mercedes is so strong, the way you need to look at it is that Ferrari was able to close the gap more than anyone else. I think we can be proud of that and we are very much willing to take our chance. Obviously we need to start turning things around very soon – but we are pushing to our maximum, trying to beat them soon.
Q: (Barna Zsoldos – Nemzeti Sport) Nico, in terms of preparation, is there anything significant that you did otherwise in the past period – because in the whole weekend you were so much more dominant than in the past few weeks.
NR: No, no, nothing different. Sorry. Just the same approach, keep on going, and this weekend it all came good. That’s all.
Q: (Andrea Cremonesi, La Gazzetta dello Sport) Question for Nico. How important is it to break the domination of Lewis until now – and how did you manage the situation after Bahrain? In Bahrain you seemed a little bit upset. And how do you think now in having Monaco next race… you won last year and were quite strong.
NR: So, Bahrain was a long time ago and I’m not really thinking about the past too much. Bahrain was an exciting race, which gave me a boost and the only thing that was wrong as the result – and I wanted to change that for this weekend. Now the result came as well so I’m very happy with that today. We’re just going to enjoy this win as an individual race. It’s great to close up seven points to Lewis, great to go to Monaco next – I really like that track – that’s it. Early days.
Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport) Lewis, what exactly happened at the start? Was it just the worse line you were standing on, that left you out to Sebastian? And then, theoretically, would it have been possible to finish the race on the third set of tyres – the hard one – if you wanted?
LH: Wheelspin off the start – nothing different just wheelspin. I don’t know if the inside line got worse but mine definitely wasn’t good. And it wouldn’t have been good to stay out, no. We choose to do a three stop quite early on.
Q: (Luigi Perna – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Seb, at the end of the weekend, can you judge the updates you’ve had on the car as really a step forward or in your opinion do you have to reconsider them or change them a little bit?
SV: It’s a good question. Obviously, if you look at the gap in the race it was the biggest gap we’ve had so far so your conclusion might be that it’s not so good, but I think we’re quite confident that we’re going in the right direction. For some reason, I don’t think we were so competitive here which explains the gap. Now we’re obviously trying to understand and find the reasons. Either this track didn’t suit us or the conditions really suited Mercedes. I think it’s more likely to be one of the two, because if you take the average, obviously we’ve been closer in the last couple of races, so I’m looking forward to Monaco and looking forward to being closer to them again.Q: (Chris Eichenberger – Motorsport Aktuell) Nico, what exactly did you change on the clutch?
NR: I just went to a different spec, back to last year’s one.
Q: (Sebastian Scott – racedepartment) To you all: the next race is Monaco – Nico your home race – what do you particularly look forward to for this Grand Prix?
NR: It’s the most legendary race in the calendar and it’s the most exciting track to drive on and the most challenging track. The whole weekend, the atmosphere is very very special, everything very unusual, so all these things come together. And of course, sleeping at home is an awesome thing also, and also very strange to be home and then walking or taking the scooter to the racetrack. It’s very cool. Those are the things
LH: The girls!
SV: He stole my answer, there. Just really the event as a whole, I think, mostly enjoying the track, as Nico says, it’s quite challenging and you have to be quite brave and take low risks to get the reward. I hope that we are able to have a very very good qualifying, otherwise it could be quite a boring race if you’re stuck behind another car, it’s not so exciting, because overtaking is not really… it’s not the best track for overtaking, let’s put it that way.
Q: (Peter Farkas – Auto Motor) Lewis, when did it become clear to you that you were in fact not racing Nico but only Sebastian and did you think in the last stint that it was still possible to catch Nico?
LH: Well actually, I think Nico was quite far up ahead. He was 22 seconds ahead by the time I got onto my last stint and I had 15 laps to go so that was a huge amount of time for me to try and catch up. I pushed very hard to see if I could have the pace on him in order to close it but it was than less than a second really – on occasions sometimes a second so I think I pushed right until there was like six laps to go and I still had 13 seconds to go so after that I kind of realised that I should bring the car home and live to fight another day.
Q: (Peter Farkas – Auto Motor) Nico, did you fear that you had to push or even before Lewis’s last stop, you were just cruising for the victory?
NR: From the team, it was pretty clear that my position was very safe because the gap was so big so it was comfortable but of course you never know, so I still tried to keep my pace up in some way and then I could see the gap, that it was under control so it was good.
Q: (Flavio Vanetti – Corriere della Serra) To both Mercedes drivers: we know you are running a dominant car but in some ways the advantage you had today is surprising you or not?
NR: Well yes, because it’s much more than we’ve seen recently, much more than Bahrain, much more than Shanghai, Malaysia, so it’s really a big step in the right direction for us. That is a bit of a surprise but it just shows that we have an awesome team at the moment, everybody’s doing a fantastic job and in the development race, again we won the development race this weekend, compared to Ferrari so that’s an important indication for the rest of the season.
LH: Nothing to add, really. Good question, good answer.
Q: On that subject, they always say the final sector here is a good indicator for the Monaco Grand Prix. Looking at yesterday’s qualifying, you were half a second faster than the Ferraris. Is that giving you a lot of encouragement, the performance in that final sector?
NR: I don’t know how… well, yeah, for sure it’s not a bad thing definitely. I don’t know if it’s 100 percent representative but it’s definitely looking good, yeah.
Q: (Christopher Joseph – Chicane) Lewis, you spoke yesterday about tinkering quite a lot with the set-up of the car for qualifying. Are you now very conscious that you have to do something like that in qualifying for the rest of the season? Is it something that you approach differently?
LH: Well, you can’t change the car in qualifying but throughout practice I was tinkering, trying to get it ready for qualifying and ultimately it wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t bad in the race but yeah, today was a very very tough day, obviously, because I had to make up from the bad start and perhaps my true pace… I wasn’t really able to show it compared to Nico, as I was further behind.
Q: (Christopher Joseph – Chicane) So are you then, in Monaco, looking at practice to aggressively…
LH: No, I’m just going to do what I did in the previous times. This is just a hiccup, I guess, this weekend.
Q: (Vanessa H Rado – Revista Enki) Hamilton, I wanted to know if you have been able to adapt to all the changes that have been made this year in the regulations?
LH: Well, not very much changed in the regulations. The things that we have… the front nose changed and the rear tyres. What else? Otherwise it’s pretty similar to last year so this year is really trying to improve on last year. We had such an amazing year, kind of record-breaking as a team. For us it was hard to imagine trying to do that again or trying to beat it and that’s our goal this year and I think we’re definitely on the right route to doing that so I’m proud of everyone and very much enjoying the car.
