INDIA in F1

Tag: FIA Press Conference

  • The race is what counts, I need to focus: Poleman Nico Roseberg

    DRIVERS

    1 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)

    2 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)

    3 – Valtteri BOTTAS (Williams)

    TV UNILATERAL

    Nico, a very strong pole position, a big margin for you. How do you feel about that? And hings are really hotting up, I guess now, with just three races to go?

    Nico ROSBERG: Yeah, great day, very happy. It worked out really well, you know. Together with my engineers I really arrived at a car in the end in qualifying that I was happy with, the balance was good. Because it was quite a challenge, because the wind was changing and then this morning the conditions were quite different, a lot colder, so the track was changing all the time and it wasn’t that easy to get everything right but in the end we got to a great set-up, a great car, so I’m pleased with that. So first place of course today is awesome but you know the race is what counts, so I still need to focus fully on tomorrow and to to bring it home.

    Well done. Coming to you Lewis, fastest in practice, fastest in Q1, but from Q2 onwards it seemed to be a bit of a troubled session for you, particularly with braking, in Q2 and again in Q3 I think?

    Lewis HAMILTON: Yeah, absolutely. Obviously, Nico did a great job today. I really struggled with braking, yeah. When you look at the brake temperatures, the left brake was always around 100 degrees less than the right front brake. It just kept catching. No matter what I did, even if I braked earlier and tried to save it, it would still lock. So that was perhaps where I was losing a lot of the time. But even if that wasn’t the case I think Nico was perhaps too quick today.

    Is that an issue for you for the race, with that set of tyres?

    LH: Potentially, yeah, so I need to try to see… maybe they can scrub them down or something and try to fix it overnight.

    OK, thank you for that. Coming to you Valtteri: your sixth time in the last eight grands prix that you’ve qualified in the top three. That’s some run of form.

    Valtteri BOTTAS: yeah, a pretty god qualifying again. I’m really pleased with the couple of good laps I got in Q3 today actually. It’s been a difficult weekend from my side for some reason, to get to a good rhythm and then finally during the qualifying I could really trust the car, like you should do. Really happy for us as a team, again, we locked the second row. It’s a good starting position for tomorrow’s race because we have still important three races to try to keep a good position in the constructors’ championship.

    Very well done. Coming back to you again Nico, this track, particularly from the start, one of the characteristics here at the Circuit of the Americas has been the difference between the clean side and the dirty side off the grid. You must be pleased you’re on the right side of that tomorrow?

    NR: I haven’t thought that far yet, but if you say it then yes, that’s great, another extra advantage for the clean side of the grid, you know, starting first. Of course the start is going to be important, need to make the most of that and stay ahead.

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Q: So Nico, that, I think, is the sixth Mercedes front row lock-out in a row, which is certainly a statement about the dominance you’ve got in the car and the way you continue to stay ahead of everybody. Margin of nine-tenths to Valtteri today, it was four-tenths in Sochi – but you too haven’t been immune from brake problems this weekend, have you? Is this something worrying you at all going into the race?

    NR: We’ve had a few issues in general on the car this weekend, on both cars and so yeah, we need to try to get it all right for tomorrow – but personally I’m not worried about that at all because if I would start worrying about that, it’s not going to be good for performance. So I’m very confident the team’s going to get the job done and just concentrate on what I can influence on my driving. I’m not worried.

    Q: Lewis, I don’t know if you know but tomorrow is six years to the day since you won your world championship: November 2nd 2008. So I’m sure you’ll be hoping to channel the Interlagos spirit into tomorrow’s grand prix – but how much is that vibration on those tyres going to cause you a problem? Can you drill down a little bit more into that for us?

    LH: Well the vibration isn’t that bad. It’s a minor flat spot. They’ll rebalance it and hopefully won’t feel too much with it. The issue is just locking. If I can’t fix that left brake, then that will be a continuing issue throughout the race. And obviously flat spots lead to blistering so I’ve got try and make sure we can fix that this evening.

    Q: Coming to you Valtteri, you got your first points in Formula One here 12 months ago. Tell us about the race in prospect for you and also why you were behind Felipe pretty much the whole of today and how you managed to nail him when it got to the business end of qualifying.

    VB: Yeah, it should be an interesting race. I think especially the guys behind us are going to be really quick and we’re now in a good position in the team’s championship and it’s going to be an important race for us to get good points with both cars. It’s not going to be easy. So we will really need to try to get everything right tomorrow. Really look forward to the race here, it’s always good fun. In qualifying and in general from the practice, I managed to improve myself a lot during every session and really got the car to a good setup only just before the qualifying and for the qualifying – so I could really trust the car a bit better in the qualifying and get those lines right and get every corner right. I knew that Q3 is the one which is going to matter, and I needed to get everything right and be on the limit and then that’s when I tried to squeeze everything that there was – and I feel I managed to do so.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Nico, where did you also find those tenths that you found in your Q3? Quite impressive pace after always being behind Lewis during the practice.

    NR: What was the reason? I finally got there on setup, together with my team. We just continued to improve the car all the time and just got it right and I felt comfortable in the end. I was able to push and it felt good balance. Nailed the lap, got the lap really well, so it all worked out.

    Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action / National Speedsport News) To the two Mercedes guys, when you have troubles like you did today, little troubles, does it frustrate you or does it motivate you in a way, to say ‘I’m going to beat this and get on top of it and go even faster’.?

    NR: Neither of the two really. It’s always a bit frustrating to have something like that in the moment but then, I’ve learned to move on to just accept and concentrate on the things that I can influence and just keep on it. That’s what I tried to do today and it worked out well.

    Lewis?

    LH: The same.

    Q: (Ian Parkes – Press Association) To all three of you, you may or may not be aware that there is a very real threat tomorrow – It’s not speculation, it’s not hearsay – of three teams, Force India, Sauber and Lotus, opting to boycott this race. What impact do you feel that would have on Formula One?

    Nico?

    NR: No comment. Because I have not heard anything about this and it would not be the right thing for me to even comment on something like that.

    Lewis?

    LH: Same.

    Valtteri?

    VB: Same. No comment really. I don’t know anything about this situation so I can’t really say much.

    Nico Roseberg of Mercedes takes pole and is flanked by Hamilton on his right (P2) and Bottas in Austin on Saturday. An AMG Mercedes Petronas team photo
    Nico Roseberg of Mercedes takes pole and is flanked by Hamilton on his right (P2) and Bottas in Austin on Saturday. An AMG Mercedes Petronas team photo

  • FIA and the commercial rights holder must both work closely to ensure F1 is viable and sustainable: Vijay Mallya

    TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Eric BOULLIER (McLaren), Monisha KALTENBORN (Sauber), Toto WOLFF (Mercedes), Vijay MALLYA (Force India), Gerard LOPEZ (Lotus)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Let me start with a general question to all of you if I may, about Formula One and the United States. Many of your teams have been involved in activities in the build up to this event. How do you assess the growth of Formula One here and what’s the potential for Formula One in the USA? Eric, maybe you would start? 

    Eric BOULLIER: Well, good question. We have seen, obviously, after the first year, which was very well attended and crowded, you could see the interest in Austin went through the roof. We obviously have some American partners on our shirts but it is true that all the fans here… I mean, it’s been fully crowded. You can see the activation and the activities as well in the city. It’s just unbelievable how the weekend is built around F1 and it became one of the major events in the F1 season. It’s very promising to see the interest massively growing around this race in Austin and obviously we all know that F1 is maybe looking at having another race in the US. It’s very promising for F1, for the fans and I think F1 needs the US market.

    Thank you for that. Toto, your thoughts on that and the possibility of other races here in the US? 

    Toto WOLFF: It’s a great place and it feels almost like it has been on the calendar, at least for me, since a long time. It’s part of Formula One. They’ve done a really awesome job over here. We’ve had some events before coming to Austin. We’ve had Lewis and the Formula One car in New York. We’ve been with NBC and you can see there is a momentum in the US behind Formula One and that’s great. Next year… 2016, we have an American team joining us and the interest in the US has grown. We have a new shareholder in Williams, who is an American entrepreneur and it’s nice to see that Formula One is starting to make an impact in the US.

    Vijay, your thoughts?

    Vijay MALLYA: Well, you know the United States is a large continent and could have more than one Formula One race. The motor racing culture and passion exists in this country, in terms of NASCAR, in terms of Daytona, in terms of the Indy 500, I mean motor sport is basically a very, very popular sport here in the United States and there is no reason why Formula One should not be equally entertaining and gather a lot of fans in this continent. I mean, if we can have as many races [as we do] in the geographical region of Europe then one or maybe even two races in the United States would hardly be enough. But more significantly given the overall financial situation of Formula One, I mean a market as huge as the United States can help revenues on one side and help those teams that need more and more sponsorships on the other hand.

    What about you Monisha? Do you think that more races in this region would be the secret to growth? 

    Monisha KALTENBORN: Well, definitely that’s something we are going to have to have a look at. If you look at the race here, the first race we had here was an excellent event and then we were concerned if next year is going to stay like this or maybe it will decline but the opposite happened and you still see it’s a fantastic atmosphere, so many fans coming over. You look at the synergies which you can create with the race coming up in Mexico as well, so you see it’s starting to grow on the continent itself. It’s interesting to see when we came here earlier on, you landed usually at some other airport when you came in and then when they asked you why you were here and you said Formula One, people didn’t really know much about it. This time when I landed the person said “well, that’s taking place in Austin isn’t it?” That tells you how it is expanding and the interest is growing in this country.

    Gerard, a final words on this? 

    Gerard LOPEZ: I think everything has been said, but I would just say the US is the largest professional sports market in general and any sport that succeeds here tends to be economically viable, so I think it’s a key market and indeed having one or two more races wouldn’t be bad.

    Okay, secondly, again to all of you, with the events of the last two weeks, with two teams going into administration, where should the initiative come from for controlling costs and is there a sense now amongst your peer group that this time effective measures must be achieved? Toto maybe you’d like to start with that? 

    TW: Why don’t you start with Gerard – the other way round this time?

    Okay, we’ll start with Vijay in fact!

    VM: I have been very vocal about this. I have said that you can’t have Formula One with only manufacturer teams. You need smaller teams, it’s part of the DNA of Formula One for several decades and the Force India dummy photo Mar2014 David pic going forwards. We’ve talked about cost caps a number of times and finally I think the large teams or the manufacturer teams were opposed to it. But I think that was a good initiative that didn’t quite see the light of day to make any meaningful difference. On the other hand, as far as the revenue share is concerned, I think it’s probably a unique sport, where the participating teams get the least amount of revenue as compared to the income. When you compare it to any other sporting activity globally, we unfortunately are at the rough end. I am very sad that two teams are no longer with us on the grid here in Austin and I think such a thing should not be allowed to happen and that’s my firm view.

    Gerard? 

    GL: Toto mentioned, because I tend to have a pretty brutal view on things, but I think the disappearance of two teams is pretty unfortunate but it actually… probably now is the time to say things as they are. Number one: the distribution model of revenues is completely wrong. Whether the size of what is distributed or not is right or wrong is debatable and Vijay has mentioned one side of the thing. But then, you know, when you’ve got teams showing up to the championship that get more money just for showing up than teams spending a whole season then something is entirely wrong with the whole system and so that cannot be allowed to happen, number one. And now is the time to not be talking about it but the time to be acting about it, so we will see what’s going to happen in the next couple of weeks. The second thing is the cost cap. We always find excuses not to have a cost cap. There are reasons why certain areas should not be capped but there are also reasons why certain areas should be. And, again, now is the time to be acting rather than talking about it. And finally, this is an odd sport. We say things and then we tend to do the opposite. I’ll just give one example. The birth of the new engines happened when we started talking about cutting costs and so forth. The fact is that the new engine, which from a technology perspective is a great thing, the costs were passed on to all the teams. In our case this year, between the engine and development we probably spent something like US$50-60 million. That’s not cost cutting in our books, that’s essentially throwing money out the window. So we tend to also do completely the wrong things in terms of… if we unfreeze the engines now, which is the next topic that is coming up. All we are going to do is again essentially force everybody to keep developing and so on and so forth. At the end of the day, the revenue split, the capping of costs, have an immediate impact on the sport and not taking decisions has had an immediate impact on the sport in the last couple of weeks with two teams disappearing. So, as far as I am concerned… it’s really interesting to have the press conference but it’s going to be really interesting to find out what’s going to happen in the next couple of weeks around this topic.

    Okay, thanks. Monisha? 

    MK: Well, I mean, if we don’t act now together then you have to ask yourself what else needs to still happen? You look at simply the facts: we are sport here, in my view still one of the best global sporting platforms, we have turnovers of billions of dollars and the sport as such, together with the stakeholders, are not in a position to actually maintain 11 teams. And we’ve often enough discussed what it means to have a third car, where that can go to, and we could probably sit very long, arguing the pros and cons about it but that’s not what we should do in this sport. It’s time that we focus on reducing the costs. We’ve discussed that enough times, what we can do. Like Gerard has said, if you don’t want to do something, you’ll never get to a point where you agree. But you really have to ask yourself what is being done to the sport here? We are sending out messages where fans are being involved in topics they really don’t want to talk about. They should be talking about the excellent races we have, what a great experience it is to come here but yet they are discussing financials, costs, teams going into administration. That is a very bad image we are creating to the outside where new partners are going out and saying “do we really want to enter this kind of a sport with all these troubles, which are normally not meant to be in sport but into other economic areas”. So we really need to react, look at that, we need to look at the equitable sharing of the income we have, so that you can really maintain more teams than just the big ones. We also need to see on the technical side that there is a certain stability and continuity there, because you often hear from bigger teams that whatever we have agreed has always led to more cost but you should first of all see who has agreed to it – it’s usually the high end. So everything is lying there but it is high time we take some action now.

    Well, there you go Toto, you’ve heard the views. Is it time to act or is it just two of 135 teams that have come and gone in the history of the sport? 

    TW: It’s probably a longer answer now! You know I read an article in the Financial Times two months where they had exactly the same topic in the English Premier League. How can you – and they have the Financial Fair Play – how can you bridge the gap between the very top and the very bottom and if you look at the budgets of Marussia and then you compare the highest spender, whoever it is, Ferrari or Red Bull, you are talking about a gap from US$70 million to US$250 million, so if you want to start with a cost cap, how do that? Where do you cap it? And if you cap it on the lower end, well, do you make two thirds of the people redundant in the big teams. How does it function? That’s one point. The other point is: how do you control it? The competition is so fierce at the very top that the cost cap… the cost cap was never implemented because there was no way of policing it and controlling it. Some of the teams have various set-ups, various companies all around the world, multi-nationals behind them in Japan, in Germany, in Italy. If you look at Ferrari, they have a severe issue of being transparent enough to cope with a cost cap. If you have everything in one entity and you are building road car and you are building engines and you are building race cars, various race cars from GT to Formula One, well, how does it function? Because it is so competitive, we need to have clarity, how do you control that. So this is the problem I see on the cost cutting side. Obviously two teams disappearing, I have an emotional and a pragmatic view. The emotional view is that there is personal drama behind it. There are families who need to pay mortgages, there are kids going to school and these people don’t have any jobs today anymore and that is a drama and it is painful and I am sorry for that. The rational side of things is that we have seen in the past that teams come and go. We have seen great teams who have folded, went into liquidation or administration. Great names: Brabham, Arrows, Ligier, Prost, Larousse, Leyton House… I mean there are 20 others. That was part of Formula One. Now, is that something that should happen? No, of course it shouldn’t. But when Formula One was opened up for new teams to join, you can’t compare the agenda of the teams. You know in our case we are representing a multi-national car company. This is a branding exercise, we are showcasing our technology. And on the other side if you look at Marussia and Caterham when they joined the sport it was an entrepreneur deciding to join Formula One and maybe underestimating what it meant joining that field. You have other examples, such as Vijay, who is extremely successful in his business and who had stamina and size enough to cope with the challenges until today. I have great respect for what Tony Fernandes and Andrey Cheglakov have done in their businesses but maybe Formula One is just a different ball game, because you have these various agendas. So I think it is time to sit down and reflect and think what can we do? Because the remaining nine teams are part of the DNA of Formula One, they are heart and soul, names like Sauber, Force India and Lotus need to stay in the business. I think we all need to sit down, not with our own little narrow agenda of wanting to win the championship – and this is why I am paid, and why Eric is paid – but by looking at the whole of Formula One. But I think there are… like in any other sport, like in any other industry, this is the pinnacle. This is the pinnacle of motor racing and if you want to complete at the pinnacle of motor racing then you need to have the resources of competing there. This is a high entry barrier sport. I’m getting overboard now, but if you want to set up an airline tomorrow, it’s going to be difficult, because Lufthansa is going to eat you up. If you want to go motor racing and you want to do Formula One like the new teams decided four or five years ago, you need to understand that this is the very top. So it’s a very difficult topic, I could go on for another two hours.

    Well, I’m sure we’ll be here for a little while longer. Eric, you’ve gone from a team that very much supports the idea of a cost cap to one of the grandee teams – McLaren. Do you feel you have a responsibility to ensure the sustainability and the depth of the grid or do you have a different perspective now that you are in the situation you are in? 

    EB: Definitely maybe a different perspective, yes! But back to the comments that have been said before. Obviously we are all sad to not see our colleagues in the paddock this weekend. I think there is a common sense to say, yes, we need maybe to definitely get to actions now to make sure the sustainability of the existing teams in the pit lane is assured or guaranteed in the future. At the same time, talking about the cost cap, yes my perspective has changed a little bit, for the same reason Toto said. Marussia and Caterham were joining as part of an entrepreneur scenario and was told in these days that there would be a US$40m or something like this budget cap in these days. So their business model was built around, I guess, these kind of figures. But when you see teams, especially teams like McLaren, that have been in Formula One more than 50 years, invested heavily in terms of image and whatever technology there is and participating to make Formula One is today, you can’t accept to run such a budget cap. As you said we lost two teams today and this is very sad for the families and the people working there because they were all friends but if you start to cut by two thirds in the top teams it’s going to hurt Formula One much more. We need to be emotionless but we need to be rational in what we need to do. Is it a question of how the money is shared? Is it a question of how the business is growing, fast or not? There are many questions that still need to be answered. What is sure today is I think we all have a common sense to regroup and to make sure we want a sustainable business, even for the teams.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Ian Parkes – PA) I think I’d politely like to suggest that we’ve just witnessed over the past few minutes the perfect example of where Formula One stands at the moment. We have three teams on the back row pleading for cost cuts, pleading for any kind of restrictions. We have two teams on the front row ready to argue against it. How on Earth do you ever propose to ever come together when over the past few minutes we can see that you don’t agree at the moment?

    EB: It’s a very good question but, once again, I guess this is the wrong forum. Each of us wants to beat everybody. We are competitors. If we compete with a bottle of water, if we compete with a Formula One team, we want to beat the others – and we will do it by any means. So, this is normal. Even, actually, as you say in the back row, they want to still compete and actually beat everybody. So, this is not… we can… I’m pretty sure we can sit down and agree drastic decisions altogether – but this has to be led by the governance body and by the people who are running the show. Not the competitors. Do you ask football players about the Fair Play problems in Premier League? No. Ask the clubs or ask the people who own or who run Premier League.

    Vijay – you were smiling…

    VM: Well, if you work for a team, you have a different view, if you own a team you have a radically different view. That’s also pretty obvious. If you own a team, you’re writing the cheque. If you run a team, you’re receiving a cheque so… there’s got to be a divergence of opinion.  I respectfully disagree with what Toto said about a cost-cap leading to redundancies of workman of the big teams. The same thing applies if small teams shut down. The same redundancies occur then as well. I don’t think there’s rocket science involved in people sitting down together to find a mechanism. It doesn’t necessarily have to be policing. It can be self-certification of what they spend. I agree that when one team spends $60million or less and another team spends $250million or more, then it’s perhaps difficult to bridge the gap. We have to find some viable medium here – but what is actually compounding the problem is that the revenue-share model is skewed completely towards the teams who can afford to race at the pinnacle of sport at the direct expense of those who perhaps are marginal. And that’s why two of the smaller teams have disappeared. I would also like to take this opportunity of saying that sustainability in F1 is necessary for the sport but when large corporations like Toyota and Honda decide, for corporate reasons, that they want to walk out, they go. At the end of the day there has to be a fine balance. The DNA of F1 – I repeat myself – is to include big and small teams and to provide as level a playing field as is practically possible. I think that if all the stakeholder sit together we can find a solution. It doesn’t have to be a radical solution that would dent the hopes, aspirations and passion of the big teams – but equally it could make sure that everybody survives and the sport continues to be enjoyed with the same level and a growing fan following globally as well.

    Gerard?

    GL: I’d like to comment on the numbers a little bit because they tend to give some fun reading, y’know? Because people in F1 actually do care about racing, some of them forget some economic realities – and there’s something called the Law of Diminishing Returns. I take a GP2 team, or a GP2 car, and I make it race around this track. It’s not going to be ridiculous. It’s going to be down by a couple of seconds, four, five, six, maybe seven seconds. The whole GP2 team for the whole season is going to cost €4million. Are we really that much better? I mean are we really better to the point that a team needs to spend €300 million to be six seconds faster? We’re not. I wouldn’t accept that argument from anybody. We’re not €300 million better if you take the top teams compared to a GP2 team. So it’s a bit ridiculous to say that you need to spend that kind of money to have that kind of performance – because that makes us the worst managers in the world. If I took a financial view of this sport, comparing GP2 to F1, and the so-called Law of Diminishing Returns, we are most probably the worst managers there are. And we pride ourselves of not being. So, if  we’re not, we really need to think about… and I’m not saying that suddenly Mercedes needs to cut down because I understand that for Mercedes it’s a small portion of their overall budget but a very important budget in terms of image. So, nobody’s saying Mercedes suddenly need to spend 20 per cent more than the cheapest team in F1, if I may say so, but what we’re saying is, where the money goes – which is essentially developing the cars and so on and so forth, if we need to spend €300 million more than a GP2 team to make the car go six or seven seconds faster, that’s not a very efficient use of capital – and so that’s where the issue is. So nobody – certainly I am not saying – that we should take the budgets down to a fixed amount. What I’m saying is we should take the budgets down to an amount where everybody can spend whatever they want on whatever they want – as long as the technological development, the development of the car [unintelligible] is done within a framework that makes financial sense – and that can be measured. Because it doesn’t have to be measured in dollars, euros or pounds, but it can be measured in wind tunnel, number of packages, updates, so on and so forth. That’s the difference. I’m not going to argue with… and I love Eric to bits, so I’m not going to argue with his joining the dark forces but the fact is that there is a certain issue with the way we see money in F1, compared to the performance we’re getting out of that capital – and it’s not very efficient.

    Monisha, do you have a comment on this? And perhaps where the initiative is going to come from, getting back to that point.

    MK: Well, first maybe saying a few things about what’s been said earlier. We’ve been around in times when nobody really spoke about costs. You had at that time private teams, you had manufacturers in there but this was never really a topic because the whole setting was so different. And that’s what we need to realise, that today we don’t live in those times. Through manufacturers coming in, bigger companies coming in, costs have just gone sky-high. We experienced that ourselves not too long ago when we were a manufacturer team ourselves. This is where, like Gerard says, we have to start right there and bring it down to decent levels. We can endlessly argue about if you can control it or not – and I could probably give you five reasons you could – but it’s not really going to get us anywhere. We have to realise that the sport has gone into a direction that can no longer be kept up like this for the entire group of participants, not just for single ones out there. The other thing which was asked earlier was how you think we can agree. I don’t think there’s any basis at all. And that’s again a big difference to not too long ago. We had more manufacturers in the sport not too long ago and yet I do remember and incident from that time where there was a team which was in a difficult situation and the manufacturers got together to support that team. They were willing to even support that team financially. I’m not saying now that we expect this – not at all – but this is just to tell you what the thinking was at that time, even from five or six teams which could easily have afforded to spend double the amount they were at that time – which didn’t even need money probably from the commercial rights holder because it took long ‘til we got it when we signed our deals. Even there, we realised that you do have to have all teams in there. And this kind of common basis is not there at the moment because, if as a small team you go and say something out there you immediately get the response that we’re just scrabbling around because we’re not getting enough. And that thinking is so wrong. We have a right to be in the sport. We are not expecting that we get that much that we can be a world champion, we know we have to do that on our merits like Mercedes has done. But at least we should be getting enough share that we should be to live decently and not to always think ‘are we going to make it to the next season or not’. In our case, we’ve been now more than 22 years in the sport and there’s nothing you can just wipe out because things have gone in the wrong direction. And about the initiative, I think it doesn’t really get us very far if we start pinpointing at each other and saying ‘it’s this side or that side’. We really have to all sit together. We teams sent a letter to the FIA as our federation, which should be in charge of the sport, the reputation of the sport and the FIA had actually agreed that they will take measures to reduce the costs – so I don’t know what more it takes for them to react that two teams are now not also on the grid.

    Final word on this question Toto. Would you accept the idea of Gerard, of a framework of a reduced number of packages, things that can be audited, things that can be controlled?

    TW:  I think many of the arguments we have heard are valid arguments. For us, again, you could probably reduce it to a very brutal reality. Gerard mentioned the words ‘economic reality.’ If today you run a team, it’s like running a company. And this shouldn’t be sounding arrogant in any way – but you’re not obliged to spend more than you have. There are different agendas. If you run a company today and you own it, you should probably run it in a sensible way. And that means spending what you have. And if you decide to invest or to go into debt because you believe that there is a sound business case behind it, this is what you should do. Now, I find it disturbing as well that you need to spend one hundred million, or you want to spend one hundred million if your income is only 60 or 70 million. In my time back at Williams that was the philosophy. You spent what you have. And if you decide to follow a more aggressive strategy, you need to know what happens tomorrow. I have a lot of respect for everybody sitting on the stage, from an entrepreneurial view, but that is the economic reality and the economic reality is valid for any company out there and for any sports team.

    Q: (Kate Walker – Crash.net) I have a general question for everybody. The one thing that you do seem to agree upon is the fact that you can’t agree. You all have competing interests. Given that it’s impossible for your competing interests to see you all on the same page, would any of you, particularly you two in the front row, support the disbanding of the F1 Strategy Group? Because you shouldn’t really have a say in the regulations. And also, would either of you be interested in refusing any constructors’ bonus payments that you receive before you even start racing – just to level-up the playing field and give everyone else a chance?

    EB: No.

    Toto?

    TW: We laugh about Eric’s answer but this is why he’s paid. He’s paid to bring performance to the team, sporting performance and financial performance. And, again, this is like it is out there in any other businesses. Now, I think we are all… and here we are having good relationships and we understand that we need to look at Formula One in total and overall… but would you… I wouldn’t know any entrepreneur out there  – and I’m getting a cheque and I’m writing one actually so I’m in a different role – any entrepreneur giving up on an upside… would you let a client go, would you not accept the income. The answer is no. None of us, none of the five of use would.

    Gerard would like to make a point…

    GL: I would like to make a point, which is very simple. If you take… I take the example of Marussia, of Caterham. I kinda guess what they must have paid for the engine this year and what they have paid for developing around that engine and I guarantee that in the budgets that they have, there was not a whole lot left – so it’s not like they had a choice. And the choice of the engine was not made by these guys – and this is one of the examples I gave before. It’s all good and fun and so on to say that you shouldn’t spend more than what you what you have or not. But at the end of the day, certain decisions on budget are forced up on you. Just by the fact that that’s what the market is giving you. If I went to Pastor or Romain, I told them that next year they’re pedalling their car, they’re not going to be particularly excited. It would be way cheaper for us, and financially for me, as an entrepreneur it makes a lot of sense for me ‘cos I might actually make money – but it’s not going to be very competitive. So if you want to stay competitive at a minimum level, you are forced to spend at a certain level. And again, nobody is sat here – and Monisha made a point that we should get the same amount of money, that, y’know whatever other teams get – and I’ve said it before, there are teams that get 160-170 million just for showing up – but what I have said is that the amounts need to be given should allow a team to perform at a basic level, given the costs that are forced onto that team which have nothing to do with any luxury. I mean, taking an engine today, I guarantee you that of the teams, let’s say the back row teams, if there was an engine manufacturer out there that could offer an engine for five million, or six or seven, that would have decent performance, I guarantee you that everybody would take that engine. Now, we’ve in the lucky position, we took a Mercedes engine for next year. Seems to be the better engine – it clearly is – but the fact is we still have to pay. And I’m not finger-pointing because they’re the same price, all of them, but the fact is there’s a minimum budget that is required today to even exist in Formula One. And that minimum budget has actually killed two teams. And they did not decide to spend their money on the kind of things that they had to spend it on.

    Monisha?

    MK: Well, most of it has already been said, before we start repeating ourselves there. But, it’s been mentioned often that entrepreneurship and thinking like that and ideas coming from there… and entrepreneur should also think a bit long term at least. If you do that, it would be interesting where that strategy leads to. We just go on the way we are and too bad for some teams that can’t make it because they’re not investing enough and it’s such a high motorsport level that you really have to have maybe three-digit million figures of budget that then in F1 are normal, for the outside world, not really. Let’s see where that will lead us to. Eventually you’ll have four – probably – participants with endless amount of cars. Let’s see where that show will gets you. How much of income you have there. And amongst the four participants, you probably all have big names, so you’ll have three losers every year. So, it’ll result into that. As a big name – and we’ve experienced that again – if you lose, you have to invest more. But a big corporation does that maybe for one year, for two years but the third year, it definitely gets too much for them. Because, surprisingly, those corporations do have budgets they control, they can control, and they have ways to measure what they are doing – and that system will just collapse at some point in time. So, I think, we probably could, most of us, agree on that kind of development happening. I don’t think anybody can say this could change Formula One in such a way that it would be far more exciting than it is with the nine or the 11 teams today. And that’s where I think we really should realise that we have to change something in the system now. Which is about all what’s been said before.

    Vijay, anything to add?

    VM: No, I think it’s all been said.

    Q: (Daniel Ortelli – Agence France Presse) Since the cost cap is impossible to put in place – obviously, since there is a very big gap between the small teams and the big teams – do you think the sport is now ready to face a change in its organisation with two leagues instead of one: one for the manufacturers who wish to spend as much money as possible and one for the smaller teams who are likely to agree on the cost cap or all of them? And these two leagues would participate in the same races, on the same tracks as opposed to other major sports where you have a Pro A and Pro B or league one, league two. Do you think the time is right to now make that decision all together? And the second question is: do you think it’s about time, since the Concorde Agreement has not been validated in its new version, to decide on a radical change about the revenue share, which is at the core of the problem, because you have been discussing it for ages? 

    So that’s two questions: two leagues instead of one, and revenue share modified radically to allow the smaller teams to survive?

    TW: I think it (two leagues) could be a concept which needs to be explored. It’s the first time I’ve heard about it. You see that in sports car racing and other series. Is that the way forward for Formula One? I think Formula One should stick to its roots somehow. That’s my gut feeling. Obviously if that doesn’t get us any further and you see more teams leaving the sport, then maybe it’s one of the paths to explore. I don’t know.

    MK: I would like to say that if you compare to another championship, for example you have three big car manufacturers like in DTM. We see where that’s led to. They have similar problems in competitiveness. They don’t have the problem of money which some teams have here in Formula One and we’re seeing where that concept is going to. DTM also had to react, because there was suddenly a big gap and if one of those big names, like I told you before, is not doing so well, then you have to find other ways so maybe look at the technical side there because again, money is no issue. So I don’t think that that’s the way Formula One should go. It would totally distort the sport.

    Q: About the Concorde Agreement revenues? Is it contractually bound for the future? Is that it?

    GL: Yeah, it is. A lot of people like to criticise CVC for instance and unfortunately sometimes I have to take their side because in my real life that’s where I work, that’s the type of business I do, and the fact is that close after taking over the business, I think the sport was distributing about around $300m to the teams, something like that – three, three-forty. Today it’s almost $900m but it’s not distributed equally otherwise we would all be smiling here and saying there is no issue. So the amount might be an issue but certainly the distribution is a huge issue because – I’m not going to say it’s pareto rule,  it’s not like 80% goes to 20% but close enough. A lot of the money goes to the top teams and it’s almost like – how can I say this? – it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, essentially, that the ones that have more, get more and as a result want more and want to spend more and so on, and the ones that have less, get less. There is something entirely wrong with the distribution model right now.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) A question primarily aimed at Eric and Toto: were there to be a more equitable distribution of wealth, of income, then one of your major concerns is the fact that your employees would actually have to be reduced  but is it not logical that if the teams in the back row, they could afford to pay more people and therefore whatever people you would lose would actually still be employed and therefore the sport wouldn’t lose anyone whatsoever, if there was an equal distribution of wealth?

    TW: I think that is a nice idea but it doesn’t work in reality. As I said before, I think the gaps and the agenda are completely different. The gaps are huge, the agenda is different. I think it is very difficult to close that gap and you see us arguing, discussing, there is lots of frustration in the room. I don’t know how to solve it.

    EB: Well it’s a discussion we’ve had since the beginning. The real problem, in fact, is nothing as… to be competitive, you need to spend a minimum amount of money and today this level of money spent is too high with the economic. You can blame the distribution model, you can blame the revenue, you can blame anything, but the reality is that to be competitive, you have to spend a minimum. Because we are all competitors, we all want to spend this money to be competitive. We all want to be competitive and we have to spend this money. At the end, there is so much emotion this weekend because of the absence of these two teams. It’s true that maybe by making the revenue higher for the poorer teams, yes, the first thing they will do is to hire people, they will be going to big numbers because they want to be competitive. You don’t fix the problem by doing this. So yes, you save jobs but nothing else.

    Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Moto und Sport) Question mainly to Toto and Eric Boullier: we now have only nine teams, so P8 and P9 are last and last but one. Three weeks ago it was P10 and P11. Next year it might be P6 and P7, last and last but one. If only big teams are left, are you not afraid that one day you might be among them and then your whole business model doesn’t pay off any more because you’ve spent much more money to lose than the current teams are spending to lose, which are at the bottom of the field? 

    TW: We are nine teams today, 18 cars and we have lost two teams which is not nice and I’ve said that before. I think the teams who are in Formula One today should stay in Formula One and we should all look at the situation and come up with a short term plan: how to have a healthy grid, and a long term plan. We are talking about money distribution that is an issue for the commercial rights holder, and I don’t have a solution. I can come up with many ideas which can be short term solutions but it comes back to the principle and what’s been said before: whatever you give to the teams, they are going to spend it.

    EB: Not much to add, to be honest. It’s always the same story: either you get more revenue or you spend less, so at the end it’s a question of… as you said, distribution should be discussed with the commercial rights holder and then, as we also said before, I think there is a wake-up call maybe, for everybody, to make sure we can act all together. We will try in the best effort for Formula One.

    Q: ( Agustino Fontevecchia – Forbes Magazine) The sport generated an estimated $1.7bn in revenue in 2013. We said distribution was something like $900m. Maybe isn’t the problem that not enough is being distributed and then there should be the issue of – speaking of distribution –  shouldn’t maybe that increase?

    VM: I’ve always said that the model has to be more equitable. The commercial rights holder is entitled to make its profit by owning the commercial rights for the sport, and as far as the distribution is concerned, I think Gerard very clearly explained that it was skewed mainly towards the big teams which is basically what is causing the problem with the smaller teams. I think what I’ve heard in the last few minutes is that if the smaller teams got more by way of income, that they would necessarily spend a lot more. I disagree with that completely  because I think that the three of us sat here in the back row are smart enough to know how much to spend without going the Marussia and Caterham way. And as Toto said, if I can use his expressions as an indicator of how the big teams think, well if you can afford to be in Formula One, you’re welcome. If you can’t, get out. Fine. I think the FIA must decide this, not the participants because after all it is the FIA Formula One World Championship and if it is to be designed to be affordable to those big boys in the business, who of course benefit hugely in terms of their regular core businesses. That’s one way of looking at it and if it is meant to be racing in sportsmanlike terms, with big teams, small teams that compete with each other… Look at Williams: I’m sure Williams doesn’t spend a fraction of what the big teams are spending and look at their performance this year. Until the last race, Force India and McLaren were competing head-to-head. So money doesn’t necessarily buy performance. Equally, spending is discretionary and if the big teams want to spend $300m, it’s discretionary. That cannot be used against the smaller teams. The smaller teams must get a revenue share that makes it financially viable or sustainable. That’s the point.

    Q: (Pablo Juanarena – Marca) I want to ask about sport but I don’t know if it’s the day. In this building we are talking about money and Eric, Toto, don’t you think it’s a mistake for all the sport to talk about money for one hour in this room? Money, the drivers have to pay, the tracks are losing money, small teams disappear, big teams lose money too. Do you think it’s a big mistake for this sport to talk so much time about money? 

    EB: If you ask me… obviously we are sitting here and we have to answer your questions so we are not leading the show, if I may say this. So if you ask questions about money it’s because there is obviously some concern and we know why, this weekend. As we always say, I guess, there was too much negative said about the sport and I think this is another wake-up call we should all have, to stop being negative about our sport because there are also some positives. We don’t want to hide, obviously, we have to raise and to act and to fix all the issues but we also need to  be positive about our sport and we have spent one hour, as you’ve said, talking about money where we should have talked about the big show which has been set up outside and what happened on the track today.

    TW: Yes, I agree, it’s an absolutely valid question. We haven’t heard the names of Hamilton, Ricciardo, Vettel, Rosberg – none of the drivers today. We haven’t talked about McLaren’s performance today. What we are talking… we are using this as a panel to express our frustration and how everything is bad and we are talking the whole thing down. It’s like a vicious circle, so I tend to agree with your question.

    Q: (Graham Harris – Motorsport Monday) On the question of drivers, Eric, have you made a decision yet for next year? What’s going to happen? You’re the only leading team yet to announce some definitive plans for either driver. 

    EB: No. Sorry, no, I’m just joking. Your first question: no, we have not made our decision yet so obviously we have nothing to announce or to decide.

    Q: (Graham Harris – Motorsport Monday) When do you plan to?

    EB: Before the end of the season, as we said.

    Q: (Daniel Ortelli – Agence France Presse) Toto, there’s a big debate about third cars. You said recently that a third car would cost twenty or thirty million dollars or euros per year.. Don’t you think it could be exciting for the fans if the third car in the big teams, allowed by the budget, was given to a younger driver and whether it scores points or not, do you think it would be more exciting to see a guy – it could have Jules Bianchi in a Ferrari or anybody else – and we in this room are also moved because of what happened to Jules, so that’s why everybody is so emotional – but don’t you think it would be more exciting for the fans to see a promising talent in a third Ferrari or a third Mercedes instead of in a Caterham or Marussia that goes as fast as a GP2 car? 

    TW: I think, first of all, I’m not a big fan of third cars. I think if there is money left over, it should be distributed to the smaller teams to secure the grid. That’s my personal opinion. If a third car is needed, because the level of cars on the grid drops to a critical number, now we could discuss what the critical number is, and the big teams are being asked to fill in a third car then we should make it exciting and the ideas which have been discussed is giving it to a young driver like you say, to somebody who hasn’t had an awful lot of experience in Formula One. It would be exciting to see how he performs against the superstars. Definitely some interesting ideas around that, making it a rookie championship.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) A question to the three at the back: much has been made now and I fully understand your concerns about the distribution of income etc, but why did you people then sign contracts that allowed this situation to happen? 

    GL: As I’ve said before: there’s a number of things that have changed, even in a very short period of time. I’m one of those who complains about the distribution of amount. I wish the pot was bigger but I’m not necessarily complaining about that but we haven’t seen in the last 24 months, we haven’t seen any major sponsors trying this sport. We’ve said that 135 teams have come and gone. Well, I can tell with the current cost hurdle to enter Formula One, you’ve got to have a lot of courage to come and try to compete at whatever level, even to be dead last. That’s why, when there was an opening for teams to actually participate there wasn’t a whole lot of teams that appeared. It was not that there was a waiting line of teams to actually enter the sport, so what might have been true, what seemed OK on an individual basis a couple of years ago is not OK today. The other thing is the leverage that we would have, for instance, compared to other teams that received much more, is very limited, so that at the end of the day, that if your leverage is no big amount, smaller amount of nothing, guess which one you’re going to take, right? So there are a number of components there, it’s not just black and white, there’s a lot of greys in there. As I said, one of them is… the world has probably not developed in the way we all expected but secondly, I’ll be very frank, there wasn’t a whole lot of leverage to get a whole lot more. At the end of the day, if I had gone to Bernie, for instance, and said you know what, I just don’t want to do this any more, he might have been sad – maybe – to see me go, but he might have thought OK, that’s the way it is. If somebody wearing red had done the same thing, that’s a whole different leverage effect.

    MK: I think that’s exactly the point. You have to make sure that your team is going to be there, that you can have stability from that perspective and then you simply have so much that you can do  and you just have to accept things. Of course, all of us expected other things to happen. When you look at the last Concorde, it even said teams have to actually sign up to cost control. That’s no longer there today. So much changed but at the end of the day, you have the responsibility towards your team and your employees.

    VM: I think I agree with what Monisha and Gerard said. There’s been many game changes that have happened in the last two years but nevertheless, as every sensible organisation or any group of stakeholders must necessarily do every so often, is review and update the situation and to make it workable and pragmatic for all stakeholders involved. Just because we signed something, based on a certain set of assumptions and things have changed, doesn’t mean that we’re stuck in the sands of time. We need to move on, we need to review, we need to correct things so that the show can become bigger and better.

    eom

  • To get first Constructors’ title for Mercedes Benz is amazing, so it a wonderful day!: Hamilton

    Sochi Stadium through a fish eye. A Mercedes AMG Petronas image
    Sochi Stadium through a fish eye. A Mercedes AMG Petronas image

    1 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)

    2 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)

    3 – Valtteri BOTTAS (Williams)

    PODIUM INTERVIEWS

    (Conducted by Alex Popov)

    What a wonderful race guys. Thank you very much? I know Lewis you are a real fan of Russia, Russian racing. You were back in Moscow sometime and now you’ve won first ever Russian Grand Prix since 100 years exactly. How do you feel?

    Lewis HAMILTON: So happy to be here. We’ve had an amazing week. The fans and really the organisers… Russia’s been so good to me and to the team. I’m so grateful for all the support and I’m really looking forward to coming here many, many more times. It’s not very far from where I live so I’m going to be hopping over for some holidays for sure.

    I know you’re impressed by the ski resorts here. Look, 17 points now, you have. Seventeen points in front of Nico. You think it’s enough or not?

    LH: Obviously Nico did a great job to recover from his mistake earlier on today but the car was performing really well. We did a great job as a team. It’s history for us, so I feel very proud to be a part of it – me and Nico and all the team members. To get the first Constructors’ Championship for Mercedes Benz is amazing, so it’s a beautiful day.

    Nico, it was a really wonderful fight with Valtteri and you won it. Do you really think the tyres were gone or was it a bluff, like in poker?

    Nico ROSBERG: No, it was a great strategy from the team. The thing is that our car is unbelievable. It’s so good; everybody has done such a great job building this car. That’s why half of me of course is extremely disappointed that I messed up today but the other half, I’m really, really happy, because everybody in the team deserves it so much. For them the most important title of the year is the Constructors’ Championship, that’s why I can even smile a bit, because I’m happy for everybody to have achieved that.

    Ladies and gentlemen, 52 laps on the same set of tyres, what a great race.

    Valtteri, on the last lap of the race, this man set the first ever in the history of Formula One fastest lap of the Russian Grand Prix. But you lost the fight with Nico, so are you happy or not?

    Valtteri BOTTAS: Well, I need to be happy for us as a team. You know, what we have been doing since last year is amazing. Again on the podium, so a good amount of points. We were today ‘best of the rest’. Unfortunately, Mercedes is still quite a bit ahead but, you know, we did the best we could from where we started, so we need to be happy as a team.

    This man is still in the fight for third [in the Drivers’ Championship] with Daniel Ricciardo. But we are back for one quick question [with Lewis] because we all know the Russian story: the evening after the race, we must celebrate. And you have three weeks…

    LH: Is there vodka?

    It’s OK for you?

    LH: Yeah, I don’t mind. Thank you.

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Q: Lewis, congratulations, tremendous win there. We could see you were pushing very hard by the number of fastest laps you did – but you seemed to have virtually no problems. Any problems with fuel consumption? Any problems with tyres? Just one little lock-up we saw from you.

    LH: Yeah, it was a good, good day and an amazing weekend. Firstly, I’m just so proud to have contributed to have worked with this great team, to get the first Constructors’ Championship for Mercedes-Benz. I could have only dreamed of that when I joined this team. So, a great day for that. Huge congratulations to all the guys that are here and back home in the UK and also in Germany. But yeah, today, once I was out in the lead I was really just having to control, just looking after the tyres, managing the fuel was quite straightforward. And then, towards the end of the race the car felt great so I could push or not push. I wasn’t really having to push much and even when I was having to pick up the pace a little bit when I eventually found Nico was behind, it was easy to match the times. And the car’s been amazing this weekend and I really, really enjoyed the track. I tell you, Russia’s been one of my favourite places so far this year, so it’s very cool to have won the first race here.

    Q: Nico, a fantastic drive through the field really – but what happened on the first lap? We heard you say you had a vibration. Did that go with the change of tyres? Tell us about that because that really governed your whole race.

    NR: Yeah, of course. It was just a mistake on my side, braked too late and that’s it. Very unnecessary because it was my corner and should have been in the lead after that. So, obviously very disappointed with that. After that my tyres were just square. They were vibrating so much I couldn’t see where I was going so I knew that I had to pit. For me, I thought that was it. I thought that was the end of the day – but then of course, partly happy to get back all the way to second, passing Valtteri along the way and then… yeah, it’s just thanks to my car. My car was just unbelievable today and that’s what allowed me to come back through the field. That’s the main thing really. In hindsight really, even if it was a bit… I could have pushed more during the race, y’know? But it’s always easy to know afterwards but even at the end my tyres were fine. So, yeah, that’s a pity but anyway, it’s difficult to know that during the race.

    Q: Valtteri, at one point the pace seemed to be really close to Mercedes, perhaps closer than we’ve seen in any race so far this year.

    VB: Yeah, the beginning seemed to be very good and I was not far off from Lewis and everything was going into the plan. The tyres were feeling good and suddenly the rear tyres started to go, started to lose pace and was struggling more and more and Lewis was getting far a way. Then we stopped for the Prime and it took just a really long time to get the Prime tyre to work. It was just getting better towards the end. I did my best lap in the last lap of the race. It was really weird. And as it took so long to get the tyres to work, Nico got me in Turn One. It was a bit of a surprise for me, didn’t expect him to come inside. Luckily I saw him in time so there was no contact. Yeah, as a team I think we again did a good job. We’ve come so much forward from last season so it’s again, really good to be on the podium.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport) Nico, when you tried to overtake Lewis at the first corner, you were on the inside line; is it because it’s not the racing line, is that line, let’s say, that you normally have to brake a little bit earlier to compensate?

    NR: No, I don’t think so. It was definitely do-able and I just messed up, very simple, no explanation. Just braked too late and too hard.

    Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Valtteri, last year you had your best result in Austin. Is it going to happen this year also?

    VB: I really hope so. I got my first points in Formula One in Austin last year so it would be nice to have a good weekend there. I think the track should be OK for us so let’s aim for that.

    Q: (Frederic Ferret – L’Equipe) Nico and Lewis: now that the Constructors’ title has been won, will you change your way of racing together or will it be the same?

    LH: Same.

    NR: It’s the same, you know. Up until now, it’s always been we can fight and it continues to be like that. We can fight, it doesn’t change.

    Q: (Haoran Zhou – F1 Express) Lewis, can you describe your experience on the podium and especially when you were handed the trophy? Be as specific as possible.

    LH: Well, it was kind of normal really. Kind of surreal for the president to be presenting the award. That was a great experience. The crowd have been amazing this weekend. I don’t know, I just never… I didn’t know that Formula One was something that people followed here in Russia. I didn’t know that there was actually a real love for it. To see the people turn out in their thousands yesterday and the grandstands full and then again today… They’re really enthusiastic, it looks like they’re really excited that we’re here and on top of that they did an amazing job with the track, the layout, with the surface, with the actual event. You would have thought they’d had this event many many times. I take my hat off to them.

    Q: (Leonid Khayremdinov – Red Star) Lewis, you had a wonderful season with this ninth victory and your lead is now 17 points, but I remember this in 2007 and you had the same 17 points behind Kimi Raikkonen. Are you not afraid of repeating the situation as in 2007?

    LH: I remember 2007 very well. I wasn’t afraid then either but I guess I was perhaps less experienced so I’m a completely different man today so I’m looking forward to the races coming up.

  • The surface is very smooth but has a lot of grip; Hope to put a good show for Russia: Hamilton

    DRIVERS

    1 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)

    2 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)

    3 – Valtteri BOTTAS (Williams)

    TV UNILATERAL

    Lewis, congratulations on a superb pole today. Tell us what you feel about pole position for this race, this first ever Russian Grand Prix and how important is it to be on pole around here?

    Lewis HAMILTON: I have no idea in that sense but of course pole is a great place to start. Firstly, an amazing job done by the team; constantly improving and moving forwards this year. Thanks to them we’re able to be on the front row quite often. It’s great to come here. It’s a beautiful place and the weather has been amazing and really enjoying driving this track. It wasn’t the easiest session. These guys were looking quite strong. Just hooking up a lap from some reason it wasn’t the same as practice. But I’m really grateful that I got the pole here for the first time. It’s going to be tough tomorrow. It’s a long way down to turn one, so we’ll find out how that works out.

    What is it about the circuit? A lot of drivers have called it ‘cool’.

    LH: It is very cool. Yeah, definitely. The track surface is great, it’s very smooth but it has a lot of grip. The kerbs are just done really nicely and obviously the surroundings, you know when I landed here seeing the mountains… and also being around where they put the Olympics on, it’s quite an incredible place. And today we had a good turn-out as well for the first Saturday of the race here so I hope that tomorrow is even better and that we can put on a good show for them.

    Nico, second on the grid. This is an important race, isn’t it, to get some points?

    Nico ROSBERG: Every race is important at the moment. We have four to go. They are all just as important. Yeah, today Lewis was quicker – all weekend really. So I’ve been working hard to try to get close but didn’t manage to get closer than those two tenths now but that’s the way it is. I need to accept that. Also, I had the Williams or Valtteri coming up from behind, going quick, so I needed to keep and eye on that. But front row is OK definitely and from there everything is possible tomorrow. It’s going to be an interesting race. It’s very unique here because there is hardly any tyre degradation. The track is so smooth on the tyres or I don’t know what. It’s completely different to everything else we’ve seen this year and that makes it very unique. It’s been a big challenge set-up wise and everything to get to grips with the track this weekend. Yeah, I think it’s going to be a good race tomorrow.

    Valtteri, so, so close. I think the entire grandstand heaved with excitement when you went off, right at the end on that last corner. Nobody else has been off there either.

    Valtteri BOTTAS: Yeah, well I didn’t know at that time that it was close to the pole. I only knew how it was compared to my best lap, which was the previous lap, which was not bad. I knew I had one more lap to go. Maybe, looking back I took maybe a bit too much out of the tyres in the beginning of the lap and the last sector became a bit more tricky. As I was gaining time compared to my best towards the end it became more difficult in the last few corners. I risked it a bit too much in the last two corners, went a little bit wide and when you go offline it’s really slippery like everyone saw and that was it.

    Are you very upset about it?

    VB: Of course, yeah. It’s not nice to make a mistake. I think in the end today it maybe cost one place maximum. Anyway, I think the mistake was taking a bit too much out of the tyres in the beginning of the lap, that’s what made me struggle a bit more in the end of the lap. The lap before, I’m quite happy about that.

    Lewis, some of the corners around here seem to invite errors. What kind of race are we going to see tomorrow?

    LH: I don’t necessarily think they invite errors. At the end of the day we’re pushing all the time so you’re going to see those mistakes or hiccups occur all the time but they’re generally easy to recover from. It’s a very fast, flowing or medium to high-speed, fast, flowing circuit. I really think that tomorrow is going to be a good race for people to watch. You’ve got the long straight that you can follow on, the DRS. It’s nice and wide so hopefully you should be able to follow quite nicely. It could be one of the better races we’ve had for a long time.

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Lewis, an interesting message from your engineer saying he though the track was slowing and then you go and pop it on pole.

    LH: Was I not on pole at that point?

    You were, but you improved.

    LH: Yeah, I improved, absolutely. He said that the track looked like it was getting slower. To be honest I couldn’t really hear the message that clear but I kind of worked out what he was saying. But I was up on the next lap. It wasn’t a perfect lap. I think there was more time in it. It’s a fine line obviously; we’re all pushing out there. As I said, it didn’t feel as good as the P3 session but hopefully tomorrow should be good.

    This morning we saw you had a rather strange incident. What happened there?

    LH: I just basically made a mistake. I had the brake bias set the wrong way, forgot to reset it, had it too far rearwards and as soon as I touched the brakes I just locked the rears. Fortunately, I got away with it without damaging the car.

    And we mentioned a moment that it invite mistakes but we see a lot of people going off that corner, Turn 17. There are certain corners where people do go off – Turn Two, Turn Four as well. What is it about those corners?

    LH: I would say probably the exit of Turn Four… when you’re going into it it’s very wide and all of a sudden it gets quite narrow on the exit, so it’s very misleading when you go into that corners. For 17, it’s very hard to find the braking point and know how much speed [you can carry through]… the car is at the end of the lap, the tyres are overheating, it’s hard to know how much speed you can take through there. Plus, if you’ve had a good lap, you don’t want to lose it, so it’s a real fine line at those two places.

    Nico, tomorrow, how important is DRS going to be?

    NR: Hopefully very important! We’ll see. I think the start will be important of course, there’s a great opportunity there. Been having some very good starts lately, so quite confident for that. After that, race pace of course.

    What’s the most significant part around this circuit? What’s that long, long left-hander like?

    NR: It’s very unique. So long, full lateral G, so it’s quite exciting in an F1 car for sure.

    Any other specific points on the circuit?

    NR: It’s really a good track because it’s a big challenge to get it right. All those medium-speed corners, the way the asphalt is it doesn’t work the tyres very hard, it’s completely different scenario to everything else we’ve had this year. So we’ve had to adapt to this track and asphalt and the way the tyres are here. That made it a big engineering challenge this weekend. And also driving-wise it’s a difficult track.

    Thank you very much. Valtteri, can you take the fight to Mercedes tomorrow?

    VB: I really hope so. It’s never easy. They are really quick and you never know how more pace they have than what they showed in the long runs on Friday. So we will see tomorrow. As team we made a really good job this weekend in getting the car set up for this unique track and unique surface of the tarmac. It’s feeling good and I think the car should be a bit better in the long runs than it was in the qualifying.

    It has been another good fight-back from Williams. We’ve seen it quite a few times, that Friday hasn’t been so good but you’ve come through on Saturday.

    VB: On the Friday we’re always just focusing on our test programme, we’re not really looking in detail about the lap times. We’re doing our thing, doing it all weekend, to improve the car, make the most out of the tyres and the package we have and then, yeah, Saturday is the time when you show what you have. Sunday, in the end, is the day that matters but I’m feeling good for tomorrow.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Valtteri, after getting so close to the pole, they say you are very critical on yourself. How critical are you today?

    VB: Well, of course, very. I don’t know if it was possible to be on pole today, it looked like the Mercedes has been all weekend really quick in the last sector, so difficult to say how much we lost there. Maybe one position could have been better – but obviously when you haven’t done a perfect job, you are disappointed – but in the end the race is tomorrow and I’m starting on the clean side, second row, which is not bad at all. I’ll learn from this and we go forward.

    Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto Motor und Sport) Valtteri, after two sectors you were in the lead. Where in the third sector did you lose it. Only in the last corner or already before a little bit?

    VB: Well, compared to my previous best lap, I started to lose already a little bit in the beginning of the third sector and, yeah, then I lost it completely in the last sector. But I mean the whole weekend and the whole qualifying, Mercedes was really quick in the last sector, so I think they are, in general, still quicker in the corners than us. So, I think anyway with a good lap it would have been difficult to be on pole. But for sure I lost the end of the lap and I think I was a bit more than two-tenths ahead of my best before going into the last two corners so… yeah, it is what it is and we’ll see tomorrow.

    Q: (Vladimir Rogovets – Sb Belarus) My question to Lewis. This weekend we have the first race, the Formula One in Sochi, and today you are in the pole position here. Is this, have you feelings of love for Russia?

    LH: It equals my love for Russia. Really, growing up, I’ve said before in interviews, but growing up seeing footage of Russia in movies and in pictures. It was one of the countries that I’d never really been to. We travel all the time, always get to go and see new places but it was one that I hadn’t really seen. Just the four or five days we’ve been here, to see the beauty of this place is really pleasing. Moscow is a beautiful place, really enjoyed it there seeing these old, beautiful buildings and then landing here was like landing in a real nice holiday destination – with mountains that I hear in the winter you can ski on, which I had no idea you could ski over here. Yeah, so, hopefully this is the beginning of a real positive relationship Formula One has with Russia. And definitely now for me I know it’s only a couple of hours flight from where I live so I think I’ll be hoping over more often for some good weekends.

    Q: (Autosport es Formula Magazin – Balazs Vajta) This is a question for Lewis. This track is also new and a couple of years ago we went to the first time to Valencia, which was also new and, even though the two tracks are not really similar, they do have some similarities. Everybody’s very enthusiastic about the race tomorrow, it will be exciting – my question is what makes you think the race will be exciting because Valencia used to be a kind of boring race usually. What makes you think different this time?

    LH: I don’t know for sure but I personally wasn’t a big fan of the Valencia circuit. I liked the race track they have which is outside the city but the actually street one wasn’t very exciting. This one is definitely better for me. Whether or not we can follow… we were just discussing, who knows. They’re quite… they’re medium to fast kind of sweeping corners were you need maximum downforce, so tomorrow will be a true showing of whether or not you can follow. But you’ve got the long straights and, for example, Turn 10, you’re coming onto a corner which you should be able to follow through there for example, and then you have the DRS straight. Then you have a slower sector with the last sector which then goes onto the long pit straight, which again is very, very long, should enable people to be close and overtake. That’s why I think, when you were racing in Valencia it was very hard to follow and then when you did get to those long straights, or the couple of longer straights you had, you couldn’t get close enough. So fingers crossed.

    Q: (La Gazzetta dello Sport – Andrea Cremonesi) A question for Lewis and Nico. Tomorrow Mercedes can win the World Constructors’ Championship. Does it change something in the process of the race or it doesn’t matter in your mind this target?

    LH: For me it doesn’t change much in the race but it’s quite a historic moment, it will be a historic moment for us and for me to be a part of this team and sees its success and be a part of its success. And also, Mercedes-Benz, having never won a Constructors’ Championship, it’s going to be the first time so it’s going to be historic for the team, very special moment when we get there.

    NR: Yes it is. It’s the big, one of the two big targets for the team since five years now. I’ve been there since day one and it’s very, very exciting to think that we’re so close to that now. That would be a really, really fantastic feat for us. I hope we manage to do it tomorrow and then maybe we’re able to celebrate it a little bit.

    Q: (Haoran Zhou – F1 Express) Two questions, one to Nico, how are you finding the DRS zone on the pit straight because it’s a bit like in Shanghai, it’s in the middle of the straight and the case in Shanghai is that the DRS isn’t that powerful. How are you finding that in the simulation? And a question to Lewis is – or perhaps to both of you – you are in a chance to win for Mercedes again, one century later after the 1914 Grand Prix – it’s not Formula One but Benz also won that. Is that in your target to win a hat-trick for Benz anyway, tomorrow.

    LH: Where was that race?

    1914. There was two Russian Grands Prix, one in 1913, one in 1914, both won by Benz cars. Not Mercedes-Benz back then.

    NR: That’s a nice statistic. Obviously it would be very special to do it 100 years after again. And it’s always great to hear these legendary stories of the Silver Arrows, y’know? And then with the DRS, it’s always calculated perfectly by the FIA to make sure that the overtaking is not too easy and not too difficult. They try to always get it right. So, I’m confident they’ve done a good job with it and they’ve got it exactly right.

    LH: I already kind of said it but it’s special to… it shows to Russia that Mercedes is the best. So hopefully tomorrow we’ll stamp that onto the first grand prix here in Russia.

    eom

    From left: Valtteri Bottas (P3), Hamilton (pole) and Rosberg (P3) after qualies on Saturday in Sochi, Russia. An FIA image
    From left: Valtteri Bottas (P3), Hamilton (pole) and Rosberg (P3) after qualies on Saturday in Sochi, Russia. An FIA image

  • All our thoughts are with Jules Bianchi! We are praying for him: Alonso

    Drivers – Fernando ALONSO (Ferrari), Jenson BUTTON (McLaren), Daniil KVYAT (Toro Rosso), Felipe MASSA (Williams), Adrian SUTIL (Sauber), Sebastian VETTEL (Red Bull Racing)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Q: It’s just five days since we were in Suzuka, I would just like to hear your views on the events of last weekend – starting with Fernando.

    Fernando ALONSO: I think it was a very tough race. Obviously all of our thoughts are with Jules. All of our minds are there because we have huge respect for our work but when there are big accidents there are no words to describe – but you can feel. As I said, it was a tough weekend and right now we are here, a difficult weekend again. Emotionally very difficult. Ready to race, to race for him, being as professional as we can but definitely our minds, or my mind, is with him in this moment, praying for him.

    Adrian.

    Adrian SUTIL: So hard to say in words. Of course, very shocking moment for everyone, for myself. Nothing really to say about anything. Probably everyone has seen it. It’s just… we have to pray right now. This is all we can do. We can hope that we get some better news. It’s just that we are now here in Sochi, a grey cloud over us but try to be professional enough, more professional and focus on the race weekend again and also good to get rid a little bit of this mood but still it affects everyone. My thoughts are the same. Pray for the best and race for him.

    Felipe. 

    Felipe MASSA: For me I think it was the worst race of my life. It’s a really bad race, worse than the race of my accident – because I didn’t remember. It was the worst race of my life. Yeah. It’s so difficult to be everyday because I can just be thinking about him, thinking about Jules. It’s a very difficult weekend for all of us. Maybe tomorrow it will get a little bit better because at least you are working, at least you have something to think about, some issue put inside your brain. Try to race and do the best we can for him, for his family. But anyway, it was the worse race of my life.

    Daniil.

    Daniil KVYAT: Obviously it is a shock for me as well. Wouldn’t expect to hear quite negative news after the race finished. All I can wish now is that we can hear better news, positive news about Jules. I really wish him to recover, it’s the only thing that matters. Nothing like this has happened for a long time and we all hope, here in Formula One that the health to Jules. I’m thinking of him very often, like all of us. We’re all united to support him. I run out of words so I stop here.

    Jenson.

    Jenson BUTTON: I think, listening to everyone, I think we all echo the opinions of the guys sat here so far. It’s a very horrible feeling knowing what one of your fellow drivers went through and is going through. I think the only thing to say, and the most important thing is that we wish him well and our thoughts are with him. I think we all feel the same in the Formula One world.

    You’re a council member on the GPDA and so are you Sebastian. What lessons can be learned, do you think?

    Sebastian VETTEL: I think first of all you need to see that it was an extremely difficult race for all of us. I think I join on what the other drivers said, in terms of how difficult, it is probably the most difficult race to digest so far. But I think difficult conditions, leaving a very, very small margin for error. Obviously for Jules at that time it was too small. On top of that, very unlucky circumstances led to a catastrophe really. I think at this stage, for of all, all of our thoughts are will Jules, with his family, and we wish him all the strength that we can send. About the accident, I think it is very difficult. Obviously there is a lot of stuff going on now but surely if something happens there is always the chance to learn something for next time and avoid these things happening. Also, you need to understand that the cars we race, the speeds we travel, yeah, accidents can happen. But obviously, as I said, extremely unlucky circumstances led to much more than the usual type of crash that you see when you lose control of the car.

    Q: Daniil, we move on to this weekend. I suspect a very proud moment for you. Tell us your feelings when you come into your first home grand prix and our first Russian Grand Prix.

    DK: Quite mixed feelings as you see here the atmosphere and all our thoughts are still about Japan. So, I think it will be like this for a while. Another side of course, it’s my home grand prix. I’m pleased to see what I see here. Big structures, big track and I think around ten years ago, when I was starting my career, we couldn’t have even dreamed about this. And not this thing becoming reality. So, obviously it’s a special moment for me and the first time racing in Russia. In the end it’s our work and we carry on doing  what we’ve been doing for such a long time.

    Q: For the rest of you, can I just have your general impressions of the country, if you wish to, and the circuit as well.

    AS: It was a positive surprise, or a positive experience when I got here. Flew over Moscow but already went in there without problem. They really welcomed us into the country. I haven’t seen so much – straight into the hotel, the hotel is very big but incredible what they’ve built around there. The infrastructure is really good, the track looks very modern and interesting to drive. I haven’t even walked the circuit yet, I will do it after. Of course there is not so much information about the circuit for me and for our team because we have no simulator – so it will be the first time for us, driving on Friday morning. Exciting to have a new circuit, a new country on the calendar. Hopefully it will be a nice weekend with a lot of fans coming and making a good atmosphere. So yeah, pretty good so far. Looking forward to it.

    Felipe?

    FM: I agree totally with Adrian. It was nice to be here, I think it is a nice circuit, the infrastructure is pretty good so yeah, I think what I’ve seen until now is pretty positive. I hope we can have a nice race for these guys, these fans. So yeah, tomorrow we’ll have a better idea how is the track but it looks pretty OK, pretty interesting. Hope we can have a good weekend, good first weekend and first impression for all these Russian people and fans. Hope they enjoy the first race of Formula One here.

    Sebastian, what are your thoughts on the major factors needed around the circuit. I assume you’ve been around the circuit.

    SV: Yeah, I have. Also I’ve been here a couple of weeks ago for promotional activity with Infiniti. I had the opportunity to take a car around and have a look at the track. I think it’s a difficult one to find the right compromise. Obviously you have a lot of corners but also you do have a lot of long straights. Especially the start-finish straight is very long. You definitely need some speed down the straights but overall it looks like an interesting track. A lot of 90° corners, especially I think two and three will be an interesting challenge. Generally obviously it’s a unique feeling to drive around in an Olympic Park. So, obviously as has been touched on before, a bit of a shadow going into the weekend due to the events last weekend but for sure it is very exciting to have the first Russian Grand Prix and great to be part of that very first grand prix here.

    Fernando?

    FA: I share all the comments. I think it’s always a nice feeling when you arrive into a new circuit because it’s a new challenge. For everyone: for engineers, for drivers, for teams, etcetera. The other side, the feelings are there, especially for our team, which has been very close to Jules all the career, it’s an especially tough weekend. We have to be professional, we have to be working in the best way, just to race for him because we need to show we are a strong team – but it’s going to be tough.

    Jenson, your feelings about the circuit. Presumably you’ve driven it on the simulator, have you been around and had a look at it?

    JB: Yeah, I’ve done a few laps on the simulator. I haven’t walked around circuit yet, I’m going to do that in a couple of hours. I think we all look forward to a new challenge and this is definitely a new challenge. I think the most important thing this weekend in terms of the grand prix is that we put on a good show. It always is. The first year of a new circuit, hopefully we’ll have full grandstands and a good fight out on the circuit. So that’s what we’re hoping for.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Ian Parkes – Press Association) Gentlemen, you’re obviously all aware of the inherent risks of motor racing but partly that’s why you love Formula One. Is there any part of you, going into this weekend, that makes you reconsider taking part in this sport after what happened on Sunday? That’s for all drivers. Felipe, I can see that you’re the most cut up about this. After your accident maybe you could start with this as well please?

    FM: Well, for sure you think about it, but it doesn’t mean that’s the right thing to do. What I love to do is to race. What I love to do is to be competing. That’s where I feel happiness. That’s where I feel pleasure. We know that in what we’re doing we have a risk in this sport, but I think it’s what I like to do. It’s where I really feel happy, it gives me motivations and give me some, yeah, happiness. Sometimes you think about it but then you’re thinking more and you understand that this is my world, this is what I like to do.

    Sebastian?

    SV: I think Felipe expressed it very well. We all share a common passion for racing; we all share a passion for competing. Obviously we are all very fortunate to find ourselves in Formula One racing the best and quickest cars in the world, which give the best excitement and probably the best satisfaction. But there is always some risk involved, which is, I think, always a part, or a great part, of the feeling why you feel so alive. I think if you have to make the decision, I’m fairly confident for us you’d always prefer to go racing.

    Fernando:

    FA: Same.

    Jenson? Daniil?

    DK: I agree with all the comments before mentioned. In my case I just started my career as well. Every sport is risky. You never wish anyone to get hurt, but these things happen. I completely share all the comments of the other guys.

    Adrian?

    AS: Nothing to add.

    Q: (Luis Fernando Ramos – Racing Magazine) A question to all drivers: just to clarify whether you are a GPDA member or not. But regardless of whether you are a member or not, how do you think the drivers can contribute to help F1 to learn the lessons of what happened last Sunday?

    FM: Well, I’m not a member but I’m for sure trying to do everything I can trying to help on the safety because for me safety is the most important thing. I think this is not the right place to comment about any point, just comment about safety. Safety is what I care about.

    Sebastian?

    SV: Well I think it’s very difficult right now to give you the golden answer. As I said there were a lot of circumstances that probably led him to that type of accident. For sure, though, there is always something you can learn. I think for now we need to first of all digest what happened and then make the right conclusions. I think it would be wrong only a couple of days after, with all the events going on, with all the happenings we’ve had since Sunday, to come out with something that hasn’t been though through.

    Fernando? 

    FA: I don’t really have anything to add. There is an investigation going on. We don’t have all the details. We don’t have all the information necessary to suggest any change. So we let the people work and whatever idea, whatever things come from the drivers’ point of view we will share it.

    And are you a member of the GPDA? 

    FA: Yes.

    Jenson, your thoughts on this? 

    JB: I think everything’s been said already. Obviously we work as hard as we can to help our… to help the GPDA and to help the safety of the drivers, as the FIA does as well. Obviously it will be talked about a lot over the next few weeks and months and we can always learn. There’s always more to learn better ways to help our sport.

    Adrian?

    AS: Yes, very similar opinion about it. I’m not a member yet but that might change. We have a new director now and some good ideas. Whatever we can do, I think all the drivers, we’re together and we have the same thoughts: to make things better, especially for safety. It’s something you can never learn enough. Development goes always on and research has to go on. We are living in a very modern world and improvement is done every day. The most important thing is to learn out of mistakes and make it better.

    Daniil?

    DK: Yeah, I think of course in the next GPDA meetings we will have a talk about all that has happened. I think there can’t be any rash decisions right now. They have to be progressive and calculated decisions to improve. But of course, like Sebastian mentioned, there was many different circumstances that are yet to be considered but we will be still talking about this for sure.

    Q: (Haoran Zhou – F1 Express) A question to Adrian Sutil. Obviously being a witness you know, probably more than anyone else, what happened. I want to ask were you consulted, did the FIA ask you to consult your opinion or what you saw of the accident after the Japanese Grand Prix?

    AS: Yes, just how much I could see. Of course I was standing there but I think the pictures and the video which was on the internet it was very clear what happened, so there’s not really more I can say. I think we have to wait for the investigation there and there’s nothing more I can right now to be honest.

    Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Sorry Adrian if I continue on this matter because I think that for you it’s quite hard and painful but we can see of course the beginning of the accident. What happened before he went off? Maybe you can give some more details if you are watching him? And for Sebastian, changing the matter, we know you split from Red Bull and we would like to know when you can announce the new team and why you wait for the announcement please? 

    AS: I was standing there and of course I was not expecting anyone to go off and when I realised that there was a car coming it was in the gravel already. I just saw the last seconds. I don’t know what happened before. I can’t really say. I was just a witness until when the fatal crash really happened. But I haven’t seen what happened before. That’s it.

    SV: No update really. I hope I will be able to make an announcement soon and once the announcement is out I think you are probably clever enough to draw the conclusion why I had to wait.

    Q: (John Burns – New York Times) One of you has spoken about there being a shadow, obviously as a result of last weekend’s accident. A few weeks ago Ari Vatanen raised another shadow over this race over events occurring 300 miles to the north and northwest of here. I wonder whether any of you would like to comment on the question of politics and sport. Is it realistic to draw a wall between the two and say they shall never intersect or do you as individuals think about this, worry about it, wrestle with it and come to the conclusion, as you seem to have done in every case, to race notwithstanding? 

    JB: I think you know it’s a very difficult question for any of us sat here to give you an answer to. I think the correct people to speak to would be the governing body and if you have to, speak to our team principals but us as drivers I don’t think it’s the correct question for us.

    Q: (Ian Parkes – Press Association) Fernando, just to change tack completely to cycling. I believe the UCI have announced that your team won’t be competing next year. Can you offer any explanation behind that? What’s the situation going on with your team there? 

    FA: Well, I think two weeks ago we announced a partnership with Novo Investment from Qatar and they are in control of our next projects, which we are very excited [about]. For them it was not the right moment to create the team. We will have another, as I said, exciting project that will be announced maybe next week or maybe in 10 days’ time and, yeah, follow their wishes and try to enjoy that part of cycling that I love so much.

    Q: (Sylvia Arias – Parabrisas Argentina) Daniil, next year you are going to be in Red Bull. I would love to know your feeling about that. It’s such a very important step forward for you. 

    DK: Obviously I’ve been told about it in Japan. I was very happy about it, very honoured. Joining Red Bull Racing next year means a lot. Obviously the name of the team says it all and we will do our best to fight for the highest position possible. So I think that’s all.

    Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) We are talking about closed cockpits; I would like to know your feelings about this option? 

    FA: I probably tend to agree to at least check and try or test the idea. I think we are in 2014, we have the technology, we have aeroplanes, we have had many other samples that they use in a successful way so why not think about it? All the biggest accidents in motor sport over the last couple of years have been head injuries so it’s probably one part where we are not at the top of safety. Even in my case, in 2012 at Spa, I could probably have died there in corner one if it had been 10 cms closer to my head. If the technology is there and available,  and there is the possibility, I would not exclude it, for sure.

    SV: Sort of a mixed feelings to be honest. If you look at Formula One cars since the beginning of Formula One and open-wheeled racing, I think it’s one of the things that are very special about Formula One. On the other hand, as Fernando touched on, there’s a lot of reasons why we should look into closed cockpits for the future. As I said, at this stage, after what happened, I don’t think it’s right to… I don’t really have an opinion to be honest.

    FM: I totally agree with what Fernando said, so I think it would be interesting to try, it would be interesting to work on that possibility. Definitely, for my accident it would have been perfect. Maybe for Jules, I don’t know. But I think maybe it could have been interesting for so many different types of accident, including the one I had, but I totally agree with Fernando. I think it could be an option and we will see when we could try something or see something to understand if it’s positive or not, but I totally agree with him.

    AS: I think definitely it would be worth a try to test it out. We don’t know how it would be but I think these cars have been open for a long time in this category but maybe it has a future also with closing them. I think this is the category where things are tried to make it better and more modern and going in the right direction, so I think it’s definitely worth a try and maybe it works. For sure, we have seen airplanes where it looks quite similar from the cockpit and there it’s closed. If we can minimise a risk without losing anything, of course it’s very interesting.

    JB: It’s a difficult one. As Seb said, there are positives obviously, in terms of the safety point of view but this is Formula One that’s been open cockpit since the start of time so it’s a very big change for the sport to make. Safety is something that, as I said, we can always improve on so I’m sure it will be looked at whether it is possible to change or not for the future.

    DK: There are many sides to this decision if it will be taken. Like I said, I think now, when these kind of things happen, you have to take a little break and calculate everything, try everything and calculate what would be the best solution. Like everyone else said, why not but it has to be tried and has to be very well calculated.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Obviously race driving consists of managing risk to be the best of your ability, be it drivers’ risks, sporting risk, mechanical and technical risk. Is there are such a thing as acceptable risk and where does that level lie? When would you decide something is unacceptable and when is it acceptable? 

    SV: I think our passports say that we are all old enough to make our own decisions in life and I think generally we all have a brain that we are allowed to use, so it’s our conscious decision if we want to go racing or not. I think we expressed the love that we share for racing, for the thrill, managing the car on the limit etc. Obviously there’s always the risk that something can go wrong. I think it lies in the nature of the sport, if you look at the speeds involved etc. I think we’ve come a long way in terms of safety if you look back and a lot of improvements have been made but I think if anyone is not happy, he’s old enough to say no. Surely, I think we’ve been very fortunate that in our generation there have been crashes with limited outcome. Obviously last week reminded us all of how apparent the risk is and how quickly things can change but surely if you look at the type of accidents that we had in the last couple of years, how violent they looked and fortunately nearly nothing happened,  shows that improvement has been made. Obviously that’s a great feeling but you should never lose the respect, I think, for what you do.

    FM: Well, I think over the last years, all these improvements that we had in Formula One was good, it was impressive. To be honest, we saw so many accidents when drivers just jumped from the car and nothing happened which was pretty impressive. I think that’s what we need to fight for. We need to fight to have everything the most safe way around, so what happened last weekend was not exactly like that – it was a tractor on the track – and we cannot do anything when it’s like that. I think it’s two different things. I think we have  good working to make the car safer all the time and this is going in the very good direction  but in the normal situation around the track.

    AS: I think it’s clear for everyone that racing can be dangerous but I’m here because I’m aware of it and I like it. I’m here because I want to race and I know and I’m aware of the danger but that doesn’t mean that I just accept it. Of course, we all try to make it better and make it more safe because we don’t want to see this happening frequently. We’ve done – GPDA, Formula One – have done a great job in safety over the last years so it has been improved unbelievably but we can always make it better but yeah, still I’m sitting here and I will race because this is my passion and I want to do it and as soon as I feel different and I don’t feel like that any more, I will stay at home, this is for sure.

    DK: I agree with Adrian. We are here, we are racing and we know that the risks are still high, as we had the confirmation, unfortunately. The speeds are very high, over 300kph but we don’t want to race at 100kph because it’s not racing any more so on any circuit you cannot exaggerate but we always want to have maximum safety and this is what the GPDA, for example, is doing. And I think we have seen that the improvement has been huge but these kind of things, unfortunately, remind us that there is always something that can be improved.

    JB: I think enough has already been said on this matter.

    Q: (Carlos Miguel – La Gaceta) Fernando, in the last races you have had some problems in the car. Are you expecting to finish on the podium in the last races of this year? 

    FA: Well, I think it’s our wish. We have some races to go now and the car is picking up the pace. We are becoming more and more competitive in the last events. We lost some opportunities but we will try our best in the remaining races, especially, as I said, now I think the team is quite in shock with Jules and we are all worrying for him but it’s time to be united and to deliver a good result and that will also show him great respect so let’s try this weekend.

    Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Fernando, this is the last Grand Prix with Mr Montezemolo as president. I would like to ask you your feeling about it. Everything is overshadowed by Jules but this is also the fact. 

    FA: I think that president Monzemolo has been very successful in his career and has helped Ferrari in a big way, on the track, outside, as an industrial power. He’s done many things for Ferrari so huge respect for his career there. I have a very close and good relationship with him so I’m wishing him the best for the future.

    Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) For everybody, Felipe said before that we have also to improve the environment around us. I think that more safety cars in circumstances like Sunday should be alright. 

    FA: As I said, there is an investigation going on at the moment. Once I was not on the track at that moment, so I cannot judge the conditions very precisely so I don’t have an opinion.

    SV: I think with hindsight I think it’s always easy to say ‘this could have been avoided, this should have been done.’ I think there are definitely some lessons. I think everyone is obviously thinking about what we can improve and improve within a week’s time. I think here we have a completely different circuit, completely different conditions so I think – as I said earlier and Felipe touched on – it was a very special accident with unique circumstances leading into a very bad outcome. But surely, if the answer is as easy as bring in the safety car then I don’t think that’s a big thing for people to do in the future. On the other hand, I don’t believe the answer is as easy as that either.

    Q: (Silvia Arias – Parabrisas) I would like to know if you’ve found the pit lane is wide enough here or do you think you’re going to be very careful coming into the pits to change tyres during the race? 

    SV: It’s quite narrow, especially the pit entry looks very narrow. I don’t know, I think in the first place they had a lot of space to build the track so sometimes you wonder why some areas like the pit lane didn’t get a bit bigger.

    JB: It fits a car, so that’s a start. We’ll go from there.

    FM: Looks a bit tight but we will see tomorrow.

    eom

    Russian GP welcome the F1 bandwagon on Thursday after a sad race in Suzuka last Sunday. An FIA image
    Russian GP welcome the F1 bandwagon on Thursday after a sad race in Suzuka last Sunday. An FIA image

  • We are all concerned about our colleague, Bianchi: Hamilton

    DRIVERS

    1 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)

    2 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes) 

    3 – Sebastian VETTEL (Red Bull Racing)

    PODIUM INTERVIEWS

    (Conducted by Nigel Mansell)

    What a race we just had ladies and gentlemen, a very tough one at the office for these gentlemen. Brilliant drives everybody. Lewis, your 30th win, my goodness me, how did you enjoy that?  

    Lewis HAMILTON: It was great. What a day it’s been. It’s been a very difficult weekend. Today, to be raining so much, it was very difficult, tricky conditions. We hope that Bianchi is OK. But we had a great crowd this weekend, as every year.

    Tell us about those hot laps, 15 or 16 laps before the end there. You were putting in some hot laps, a second or second and a half quicker than anyone? 

    LH: Yeah, I really got into a groove. In terms of feeling it was very reminiscent of Silverstone 2008.

    Tell the fans what you really thought when you went off at the first turn when you were really pushing hard early in the race? 

    LH: I was pushing to get by Nico and I had the DRS open and I forgot to turn it off. When I went into the corner the rear end stepped out. It was very, very close but I saved it.

    Well, a brilliant win. Nico, you did everything perfect, great pole position yesterday and then great drive. You were doing all the hard work, acting as the brake, because being out front is difficult isn’t it? 

    Nico ROSBERG: It’s been a good weekend for us as a team. Of course it’s great for us as a team to get a one-two. And you fans have been absolutely spectacular again this weekend, it’s very, very special to drive here and to really get an impression of the whole atmosphere here. Congrats to Lewis for winning today, of course with my thoughts at the moment with our colleagues Jules, because it seems quite serious, so I really wish him all the best.

    As we all do. Unfortunately, we don’t have any news about that at the moment. But brilliant drive and congratulations Nico. Seb, unbelievable drive, you made things very exciting with the Williams drivers, getting on the inside and then the outside. How did you enjoy that today? 

    Sebastian VETTEL: As they both touched on it was very, very tricky. Took a while to get the race started, waiting for the conditions but then I think it was very good fun. Concentration has to be very, very high when it’s wet; it’s so easy to do a mistake. In the end obviously we pitted, decided to go for fresh tyres, lost one position only. Obviously I got lucky to have the safety car coming before, so I’m quite lucky to be up here. Great race, we seemed to have great at some times as well. Overall, very happy and last but not least best to Jules Bianchi.

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Q: Lewis, an excellent race, the right result for you in very difficult conditions. 

    LH: Yeah, absolutely. It’s been an interesting weekend. Obviously a great result for the team. I think we’re all very concerned about our colleague, Bianchi. Don’t really know what to say. But again, to have the result, this has been a great weekend with the car; qualifying obviously wasn’t perfect for me but generally the car was absolutely fantastic through the race and once I was passed Nico I was able to really manage the gap and enjoy the ride. Obviously didn’t finish the way we would have hoped but really, my prayers are with him (Bianchi) and his family.

    Q: A great overtaking manoeuvre round the outside of Nico going down into the first corner; tell us about that. 

    LH: Fairly straightforward, really. I had a lot more pace than Nico. This is not a very easy circuit to follow but fortunately I was able to get quite close and particularly in the last corner and I think perhaps he had a small oversteer moment out of the last corner and I didn’t. Obviously the DRS enabled me to get alongside. I was fairly confident with the balance of the car so I put it there and stuck it out. And after that it was really about trying to… you know, the whole approach changed after that because I was attacking, attacking and after that, I kind of took different lines and managed it differently. But it felt very reminiscent of a time years and years ago, of 2008, and it was a great feeling in that respect.

    Q: And you had a couple of excursions but they didn’t really seem to hurt you at all. 

    LH: Yeah, I only remember one of them but yeah, I went into turn one with the DRS open and there’s so much less downforce when that wing is open. You’ve got to remember to close it again and then I started to turn and brake and it was still open, so the back end stepped out. It was very very close but yeah, kept hold of it, didn’t really lose too much time so fortunate.

    Q: Nico, we heard you talking about a lot of oversteer, is that what the problem was throughout the race? 

    NR: I was definitely not happy with my balance but I think we had pretty much the same set-up so Lewis must have had the same oversteer. I just wasn’t happy with that and tried to figure out a way to reduce that and found some improvements then with the pit stop, put down the front wing so that was a bit better but still not good so just need to look into that. But all in all, Lewis just did a better job today and deserves to win. OK, second place is damage limitation and taking everything into consideration, it was very very difficult conditions out there on this track and everything so seven points lost to Lewis… you know, there’s worse than that.

    Q: Sebastian, a late stop and we weren’t awfully certain if we’d see you or Daniel in here; it was a bit worrying with that late stop. 

    SV: Yeah, obviously we didn’t know what happened. The safety car came out and I think we were aware that Adrian went off in turn seven and obviously it was difficult to see what happened after that. From a racing point of view, the safety car comes in and we saw that there was quite a good gap and so we decided to pit and lost only one position. Obviously, as it turned out with the red flag, we thought initially we were not on the podium, but as the rules are similar to… I think a little bit of confusion. Five years ago in Malaysia I think we had a similar scenario and we found ourselves back in third. Obviously it was great to be on the podium, this is my favourite track, it’s for sure very nice in those tricky conditions. In the end, I don’t think it really matters. I think the most important thing, as we’re all probably thinking, is that we hope the best for Jules, obviously currently not in the best shape but we hope that we get some very good news very soon.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport) Question to all three of you: you were out in the last few laps on intermediates as well when the accidents happened. How slippery was it and was it already too wet for intermediates at that period of the race? 

    LH: For me personally it wasn’t. There was more and more rain coming and you could see the circuit… you started to see more reflections and so you could see that it was increasing –  the amount of water that was on the track, but it wasn’t… I didn’t notice any difference so I was still able to maintain the same pace. I would imagine that we would probably have been able to finish on those tyres since there was only ten laps left. Yeah, but the tyres performed quite well today.

    NR: Yeah, it was fine but the thing is that we have so much more downforce than some other people, so I can imagine that maybe for them… because it was starting to get a little bit more difficult for us and maybe for them, with so much less downforce, it was already on the limit of needing to go to full wets. That’s very possible and I myself was a little bit surprised to hear that other people were already going for full wets but I guess that must be the explanation.

    SV: Yeah, it was borderline. At some stage, towards the end, just before the safety car, it started to rain a little bit less with a little bit less intensity. Also when the race was stopped it was just a drizzle and a couple of laps before it was getting quite bad, that’s why we decided to pit and we decided to go for intermediates again. I think the problem, in general, is that once there is a lot of water, visibility is very poor and once there’s too much water, the inter doesn’t work any more and the extreme wet only has a very very narrow window where it works because also, with a lot of water on the track, water drainage on the extreme tyres is not as good as it probably should be, so that’s why I think the window is narrow and that’s why other people probably decided to pit. For us, I think it was borderline but for sure, the better your car, the better – Nico explained it well – the better it is for you.

    Q: (Frederic Ferret – L’Equipe) Nico and Lewis, do you have any kind of explanation of the difference of balance and settings for the car and the difference during the race between the two of you? 

    NR: We had pretty much the same set-up, so I’m sure the balance was similar for Lewis and I just struggled more with it I suppose: a lot of oversteer and I don’t like that.

    LH: Yeah, we had pretty much exactly the same set-up so as Nico said, maybe he took out some wing later on in the race. I didn’t really have any problems with the balance of the car. It was oversteery but it was manageable.

    eom

  • I am very optimistic even if it rains: Nico Roseberg

    DRIVERS

    1 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)

    2 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)

    3 – Valtteri BOTTAS (Williams )

    TV UNILATERAL

    Q: Nico, after the disappointment of Singapore, how important was this?

    Nico ROSBERG: I’m not thinking about Singapore any more. I’m here, Suzuka, here to try and win and so yeah, it was a great day today. Of course, it’s only one step on the way but really good. It was a real pleasure today because the car is so amazing to drive and on this track which is one of the most spectacular to drive in qualifying, low fuel, the tyre grip and everything. It was really cool.

    Q: Your thoughts on the weather tomorrow; how prepared are you for that?

    NR: As prepared as we can be. We’re expecting it, we’re expecting it to be wet. The last experience we have in the wet was Spa where our car was really really quick, so I’m very very optimistic actually. Even if it rains, it could be even better for us.

    Q: And what’s it going to be like with a strong wind as well?

    NR: I don’t know. For sure, the more windy it is, the more difficult it is out there, because the cars are very sensitive to wind but it will be fine.

    Q: Lewis, we’re used to seeing tiny margins between the two of you but it’s a relatively large margin this time. Tell us about what happened in your Q3?

    Lewis HAMILTON: Not too much, really. Nico was extremely quick today. I did the best I could. My guys did a fantastic job to rebuild the car after I binned it so a big thank-you for their hard work. Yeah, just today, wasn’t really feeling it. Don’t know why. It was still fast but Nico was fantastically fast today. But tomorrow’s the day when you get the points so I’m looking forward to all the different tricky weather that perhaps will come.

    Q: And you mentioned a little bit of a vibration at one point as well…

    LH: Yeah, I generally had that throughout the whole run. I don’t know if that was following the incident but maybe it was just the tyres imbalanced maybe but it didn’t get in the way of the result.

    Q: And was it difficult to have to get back in the car and immediately be on the pace after this morning’s accident?

    LH: No. That’s the way it is, that’s what we’re trained to do.

    Q: Valtteri, much better qualifying position for you, obviously compared to last year, your third third place this year as well, best of the rest, and 0.4s behind Mercedes. How does that sound?

    Valtteri BOTTAS: Not too bad, I think. They looked really really quick yesterday and even this morning so it was nice to get a little closer. They still have some margin and they’re going to be really quick tomorrow as well. But I think we need to be happy as a team, third and fourth, that was the goal today.

    Q: And how is the Williams going to be in the wet?

    VB: We know that we might struggle a little bit more in the wet but there now seems to be also a bit of a margin behind us so hopefully we can still fight for a podium if it’s really wet. But I think like everyone and for the fans, it would be really nice if we could really have a good race so that the rain would not be too much. Let’s hope for the best.

    Q: Nico, how important is pole going to be tomorrow? People have always said it’s very difficult to overtake around here; is that more or less the case in the wet weather?

    NR: Well, for sure it’s better to be first and second, so it’s some sort of an advantage but I don’t yet know how much. If it’s dry, then it’s more of an advantage, maybe if it’s wet a little bit less so but I’m still definitely happy to be on pole.

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Q: Your eighth pole position of the year so far and obviously a really good one around here, you really seemed to enjoy that one.

    NR: Yeah for sure. Today was a good day, I just felt very comfortable in the car, I had a good balance. Our car is just unbelievable out there today.

    Q: Are you basically going to be relying on the FIA to run the race depending on the weather conditions? Is there anything the driver can do?

    NR: I’m not really thinking too much about tomorrow. I’m sure they’re going to try and take the best decision for everybody, especially for the fans who are also coming out to watch the race. I’m sure it will be OK.

    Q: Lewis, when it comes to weather we’re expecting tomorrow, have you already set the car up for those conditions because obviously it’s going to be in parc ferme?

    LH: No, because we set it up for qualifying today.

    Q: So not for the race itself, not with a wet set-up or a huge amount of wing?

    LH: No.

    Q: Valtteri, what can you do for the expected weather?

    VB: Well, yeah, if the weather is like it’s expected to be, first of all I really hope we can have a race but it could be difficult, but it’s going to be difficult for everyone. In mixed conditions, a lot of things can happen. The main thing is that as we’re now starting with both cars from a good place the aim is to try and get all the points available for us to take. The main thing is to score the points.

    Q: Nico, finally, what’s that run like into the first corner because it looks incredibly quick; we’ve seen people go off there in the past, that’s where Lewis went off this morning?

    NR: It’s a very exciting corner, for sure, because it’s a bit difficult to feel the limit, as you’re coming towards there, and you just have to give it a guess and give it a go. It’s a good corner.

    Q: Especially when you’re got 21 cars behind you.

    NR: Yes indeed. That’s a bit easier then.

    Q: And finally, tell us a bit about the downhill start?

    NR: It’s not much different. You just have to keep a little bit of brake pressure on so that you don’t roll off the grid, so you don’t get a jump start and then it’s fine.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) To all three of you: the big rumours of the day are Sebastian Vettel leaving Red Bull…

    NR: That’s not a rumour any more.

    Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) It’s not a rumour, right. Sebastian leaving Red Bull and probably going to Ferrari.

    NR: That’s a rumour.

    Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) What do you think about this?

    NR: I don’t know. It was a big surprise. I find it good for the sport when there’s a bit of movement and there’s a bit of excitement. I think that’s all good. A bit of a change, change is always good. And interesting.

    LH: Has nothing to do with me, so…

    VB: Yeah, not much to do with me. I guess it’s nice to see a bit of change but it doesn’t change very much for me.

    Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport) Lewis, on your last lap, I think, you locked the brakes at the hairpin. Was that a crucial moment when you lost out to Nico?

    LH: No, I don’t think so. I don’t think I lost any time with it. I just wasn’t quick enough today.

    Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport) And one to Valterri: how much have the upgrades on the car helped; would you have been in the same position with the old spec?

    VB: We probably would have still been in the same position but with not as good a lap time, so we definitely made gains since the last race. It’s positive to see the whole year, actually, always when we plan for some updates and we put them on the car and it always works so that’s a good sign for the future and those updates should also help us in the future races this year. That’s a good thing.

    eom

  • Yasuhisa Arai-san talks about the Honda project

    TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Pat FRY (Ferrari), Andy COWELL (Mercedes), Rémi TAFFIN (Renault), Paul MONAGHAN (Red Bull Racing), Yasuhisa ARAI (Honda), Jonathan NEALE (McLaren)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Arai-san, if I can start with you please. What’s the current state of the Honda project? Is Honda on target with development?

    Yasuhisa ARAI: First of all, thank you very much to sit in centre. I am glad to be here again after Shanghai. Our progress is right now almost on schedule and I hope that in the year 2015, March we will make [a good start] together with our partner, get a good start on the grid.

    Would you like to run the power unit in a McLaren before the end of the year? Is that feasible? Are you allowed to do that?

    YA: Everyone asks this to me! McLaren and Honda work together to design and create an experimental test vehicle to check the power unit system but unfortunately we don’t have an actual test plan but I hope if possible we will drive just before next season.

    You can’t say any more than “just before next season”?

    YA: Just before next season. End of the season and next season, during that time. That’s my hope.

    What lessons have you learned from the efforts from the other power unit manufacturers? Are there particular areas that you’ve noticed they’ve had troubled with?

    YA: I’ve learned very small things because most of the data we don’t know. So, very difficult to learn on the track.

    You’ve seen the failures that they have had. Are there particular areas you have concentrated on?

    Jonathan NEALE: If I may, just to help my partner here, as Arai-san says it’s very difficult at arm’s length to focus on any particular area. Honda and McLaren have a lot of work to do together in a short period of time and I’m sure if you were to ask – I don’t want to put words in the mouth of either Andy or Rémi here – but if you were to ask them what it felt like for them at this time of year before they were starting with the V6 engines, they’ll know what we’re going through at the moment.

    Thank you for that. If I can come to the back row now: a couple of questions for all of you. First of all, what is your state of development at this stage for 2015 with your engines? Rémi, if I can start with you?

    Rémi TAFFIN: It’s all about on plan. It’s basically now a few months we are working on that and we now have got a few examples on the dyno, so it’s a work in process. I think we are going in the right direction. It’s always difficult to know if we’ll hit all our targets but that’s where we are at the minute.

    Andy?

    Andy COWELL: We’ve been doing lots of development ever since we froze the specification of this year’s engine in February, so we’ve been doing lots of development on research engines and using this year’s engine as a prove-out but our final specification of engine won’t be complete until the early part of next year, because for all of us we’re in the development phase until the.

    Thank you. And Pat?

    Pat FRY: Our development is very similar to Andy’s really. As soon as the engine was frozen we’ve obviously been developing as hard as we can and trying to improve the power unit in all areas. There is a huge amount for us still to do. Very little of next year’s spec engine actually exists, which I expect to be the same for everyone here. It will all finally be coming together at the start of January.

    Can I ask you your feelings about unfreezing in-season power unit development and where is that discussion actually going? Rémi?

    RT: Where is that discussion? I think at the moment it is at the upper level than the one we are here and what I think about it, or what Renault thinks, is that it is not going to really change the way we are working. As Andy says we are developing our engine for next. There won’t be many parts that will be looking like the one from this year. Whether we will be able to put all the parts, all the development into one engine for Melbourne is difficult to say. Of course we will push as much as we can, because the more we put for the first race, the more performance we will get for the whole season. If we’ve got a slot at some point in the season to introduce some more development, they will be on the shelf, because obviously we just keep on working all through the year. It’s not really decisive in how we achieve our development. We will just take the opportunity if it is there.

    What are your feelings about this Andy?

    AC: I think it would be a change to the way we are structured. We froze the performance specification of this engine in January/February of this year and started working on a 12-month development programme and if you’ve got one introduction point or two introduction points, it is a change. And often it is the prove-out – taking that performance specification into something that is reliable enough to do five race weekends – that’s the costly aspect, because you’ve got to have several sets of bits and often you have to go back around, because fatigue failures occur and you’ve got to redesign and go again. The regulations were put together several years ago with the opportunity to do an annual performance update. If we change to a mid-season as well as a start-of-season update, we all just need to consider that carefully. I think we all acknowledge that it would affect the financial situation. Perhaps the engineering directors would love the opportunity but the finance directors would have a furrowed brow at the thought of doing it. It needs to be discussed and considered carefully.

    Pat, what does Ferrari think of this?

    PF: I think we are continually developing all through the year. It’s not like we’re targeting a fixed point, we’re developing as quickly as we can in every single area – some parts of that will be ready in January and some might not. But even then we don’t stop, we’ll carry on developing all through the following year. I think the changes that are being discussed still stay within the technical regulations and the number of tokens that you are allowed – it’s exactly the same number – it just gives you the opportunity to upgrade in one extra point, mid-season. I think for us the cost implications are not huge. As I said we would be doing all that development work anyway and also trying to improve the reliability of bits, so it doesn’t make a huge difference for us from that point of view.

    Q: Jonathan, we’ve heard the state of the engine development for next year. What’s the state of the chassis development?

    JN: Well, as Arai-san has said, we’ve been developing an experimental vehicle to support the engine and transmission integration. We continue to develop the car on the circuit this year, aerodynamically. And while we are not comfortable with where we’re at, we’re much more confident about the direction in which we’re taking the team and the progress that we’re seeing on the track. The gap to Mercedes still looks pretty eye-watering at times, so we’ve got a lot of work to do. The changes that Eric and I have made to the organisation, I’m happy that that’s going in the right direction. We’ve just got to get out heads down now and get on with it now. It’s going the right way.

    Q: We’d remember in the past McLaren and Honda would be pounding around here for weeks on end… not possible these days.

    JN: Well the world has changed a bit since that time, not least of which the engine regulations, chassis regulations, aerodynamic restrictions – it’s an energy-constrained series. All of these things, I think, have been good for the sport. They have their challenges, the rate of development, or the rate of aerodynamic development has definitely been restricted by the amount of wind tunnel time that’s available – not so sure that that’s actually restricted the amount of aerodynamic cost because the reality is that a unit of time in capacity is worth so much more at the moment but that’s probably a wider discussion – but we are very optimistic that the steps we’re taking in the organisation are the right ones and we will be a competitive team.

    Q: And finally – and I’m sure you’re expecting this one – when are going to hear about the drivers? What are the criteria for choosing the drivers for next year?

    JN: That’s a really interesting question and I think it depends on who you ask. I’ll give you my view. We have two very good drivers in the car who have been working incredibly hard this year, not always with the easiest car but with an improving car nonetheless. Having a world champion in the team is fantastic from a development and a confidence part of view, and having the Viking charger is also a joy to work with and good for us. In terms of setting our stall out for the future, then in our longer range, longer term conversations both with the shareholders and with our colleagues in Honda, then we have an eye on what’s happening in two, three, four, five years’ time. Where does the team want to be? In the short term, I read the same magazines that you do. I look with interest and note that everybody’s in contracts – but this is Formula One and anything can happen at a moment’s notice. I’m never surprised by what Formula One will throw up.

    Q: Paul, Sebastian in particular is on five units of certain parts of the engine. Is there any way you can manage that? Is there any way of managing how you take those penalties if there’s going to be a penalty? He says there’s going to be a penalty. How do you manage that?

    Paul MONAGHAN: As carefully as you can, with the minimum damage to the team’s performance. Obviously we have a few people breathing down our necks for second place in the Constructors’ title, so we have to keep ourselves in a competitive situation. I think on a race-by-race basis we review where we are, what we’ve got, how far we think we can take it? When is it least damaging to take any penalty? And we’ll have to make that call in the near future.

    Unless it springs up on you before hand…

    PM: We’ll deal with it if it does.

    Q: You are entering into a much closer relationship with your engine manufacturer Renault. How is that coming along, what are the benefits of that?

    PM: I think we’ve always had a close relationship with Renault. Don’t forget we’ve got four Drivers’ and Constructors’ titles with them. I think a closer collaboration will only benefit both parties. So if we can bring some additional skill-sets to the party to complement those which Renault possess, we’ll get a better package out of it, not just the power unit but its integration into the car, and ultimately our performance. That’s our aim, and that’s what we’ll do.

    Q: How far advanced is that?

    PM: It’s taking shape at the moment and I think a few early projects are starting to bear fruit looking towards next year. We hope to pick up a few more and, as Rémi said, when all the pieces come together, then we’ll see how big a step we can make with it all.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Arai-san, there are rumours today saying that Alonso has signed with McLaren-Honda. Can you confirm this, and if not, how desperate or hungry is Honda to have Alonso in its car next year?

    YA: [to JN] Should I answer? McLaren-Honda know this idea, what driver should be used to drive our car. There is many rumours but my understanding that Formula One driver is just 22 drivers in the world. All of the drivers, I have great respect and so of course not only McLaren-Honda but also the other teams want to keep the good driver. Not only McLaren-Honda but also the team, everyone keeps the good driver. We don’t decide yet.

    Q: (Kaz Kawai – Fuji Television) Pat, we’ve all heard that Steve Clark has won his job back. Do you have any idea when he’s coming back or have you been told by your boss when he’s coming back in?

    PF: I think that’s all being negotiated and sorted out at the moment, so I’m sure we’ll know in a few days.

    Q: (Kate Walker – crash.net) Pat, we’ve heard some stories today about the movement of technical staff from Red Bull, possibly moving to your team. Does this mean that Seb has signed for Ferrari as has been rumoured?

    PF: Technical team… we have had a few people join in the recent months but in terms of drivers, it’s got no link to drivers whatsoever.

    Q: (Sumie Dan – The Hochi Shimbun  ) Question for Arai-san: I understand that your new engine power target is over 600hp. Did you achieve this target now?

    YA: Sorry, I never said the number of our target. Where did you get such kind of a number? But of course our target is very clear. This season, the Mercedes is top of top so next season we shall achieve that same competition or power. Everyone understands that and wants to exceed that power. Lots of work.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) To Andy, Remy and Arai-san if he would like to comment as well: obviously any change to the engine freeze situation requires regulation change. Given Formula One’s present governance process, that means that the teams would actually be voting for that rather than the engine suppliers. How much of a frustration is it that your destiny is not ultimately in your own hands?

    RT: Difficult to answer or difficult question, I don’t know, but I will give one. That’s the way it is, as you say, that’s the regulations so obviously we have to follow that, and again, as I said a bit earlier, it’s not going to be changing the way we are working so whether we are going to have a change or not, we’re just pushing like elves to try to get back to where we should be, so at the upper level and whatever we will get for next year… it will just be a plus, I would say, if we have this change. I would not say we are frustrated.

    AC: Yeah, I would support Remy’s comments. It’s not frustrating, that’s how Formula One is set up and one of the great things about Formula One is that the boundary conditions do change and you do well if you can adapt quickly, if you can react quickly, change your organisation, not slow down but accelerate and make sure that you’re in a strong place. And that’s what we’ll do. So as soon as we’ve got any change to the regulations, we’ll all react, we’ll all take the race on and we’ll all see who’s done the best job when we get to the first race.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Andy, I must come back to your comment earlier on that it’s got to be very carefully managed, any changes, and yet you won’t have any input into that process and that’s really what I’m getting at. How would you ensure that it is carefully managed?

    AC: You’re asked your opinion, so collectively we’ve got lots of years experience developing engines, KERS systems, ERS systems and we’ve all got a clear breakdown as to how many people we’ve got, how much we spend on material, how loaded our dynos are so based on a different set of criteria, different set of regulations, we can all work out what the consequences are, what the opportunities are and do we want to take on those opportunities or not. So of course we’re all consulted on that and regulations are often a compromise, not everybody is completely happy but as soon as the regulations are clear and fixed, you react, you respond quickly, motivate the staff and you go racing into the first race with those regulations as we’ve seen at the start of this year.

    YA: Just a small comment: from the engineers and many fans, they and we want to keep the competition so in a season, to develop the many parts and to keep the competition is very important, just from engineering and fans’ side.

    Q: (Kate Walker – crash.net) Arai-san, when you first announced your engine development programme, you said that there would be the possibility of supplying more than one customer team from 2016 onwards. Have you already entered into any negotiations or discussions with potential customers?

    YA: Not yet, because no one knows of our potential. Of course, we prepare many cards but no one has checked my card.

    Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Mr Arai, what is your target for next year, realistically. What level do you think your power unit will be able to perform at and do you think that you have been doing enough at this stage, to convince a top driver to join your team?

    YA: Our development progress is still on plan but we need to be careful to achieve top competition power within five months, so I need more time but finally our target, the McLaren-Honda target will be to keep a good position to compete in the championship. That’s our target.

    Q: (Ken Kawakita – Weekly Playboy Magazine) Arai-san, we’ve seen at the debut this year, a lot of engine manufacturers facing problems in testing as this whole system is so complicated and integration of the whole components is a colossal issue. And as far as we’ve heard, you start properly testing from next year with only one partner. That means that the information and data that you can gather from that is quite limited. Do you think this could be a disadvantage for your engine programme? Do you have any concerns about this situation?

    YA: I don’t think so. Our partner is very strong and I think one of the best teams. Of course that means just one team’s data, but maybe that’s enough, I think. So we already discussed with our partner and set a target and already we have agreed whether the target is good or not. Then finally, maybe in March 2015 we will be in a good position.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Paul, obviously Adrian has started moving out and moving on within the group. What will the restructure look like? Who will be appointed in what positions, come next year?

    PM: As I understand, a group of four will step into the void created by Adrian’s step-back. That’s Rob Marshall, Dan Fallows, Pierre Wache and myself. So we all get a dose more responsibility. Adrian hasn’t left, he will still be involved in the F1 programme and that’s how it will be divided up.

    Fans at Japan on Friday. A Mercedes AMG Petronas image
    Fans at Japan on Friday. A Mercedes AMG Petronas image

  • We are still a candidate for points and still looking competitive: Nico Hulkenberg

    Motor Racing - Formula One World Championship - Japanese Grand Prix - Preparation Day - Suzuka, JapanDRIVERS – Nico HULKENBERG (Force India), Jules BIANCHI (Marussia), Romain GROSJEAN (Lotus), Sebastian VETTEL (Red Bull Racing), Kamui KOBAYASHI (Caterham), Jenson BUTTON (McLaren)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Kamui, as we’re at your home race, can we start with you? Last time we saw you here you were on the podium. Just tell us what that was like for you to be on the podium at your home grand prix?

    Kamui KOBAYASHI: Well, first of all, thank you for this special seat! I think in 2012, my first podium ever, in Suzuka, it’s a great memory. After 2012 I break for a year and then come back in 2014. It’s a very difficult situation right now but still I’m back at Suzuka. Of course, I think we have a lot of rumour before coming here but at least we can announce that we are here and we will race this week. I’m very happy about that.

    Indeed. In terms of the likelihood of being on the podium, it’s perhaps a different story this year, but what do you say to those who have supported you. You’ve got a huge amount of fans here and of course it’s a fantastic grand prix in terms of the home crowd?

    KK: Yeah, I really appreciate all the support. I’m here because of only fan donation and these donations are very important for me and we show how the Japanese supporter is always supporting Formula One, also myself as well. Next year, Honda will be back and I think this will be helpful for all the Japanese fans and also maybe other Japanese companies as well. This could help one day. At least I’m here for this year and I think it will be really exciting and still it’s only Thursday so many fans try to get [things] signed and it’s still very nice to see for me.

    Thanks very, I hope you have a great weekend. Jenson, you sometimes say that this is a home grand prix for you as well and I remember being told you’re very much a Honda driver as well, which we’ll talk about in a moment, but first tell us what you feel about this race. You’ve finished 14 out of 14 Japanese Grands Prix, plus one win, it’s a remarkable record.

    Jenson BUTTON: Yeah, I think the one win stands out for me as a result, rather than just finishing 14 races. Winning here in 2011 was a very special victory for me and also being chased down by Fernando and Sebastian at the end of the race was a proper climax. Really stands out in my Formula One career.

    But a little bit of a shadow on the horizon at the moment, in that we don’t know which way your career is going. What do you know? What can you tell us? Is it likely to be decided fairly soon?

    JBu: I… I don’t know! As you know I can’t discuss anything to do with the contract.

    It’s the same with your team-mate?

    JBu: Exactly.

    So, what are your hopes for the grand prix this weekend?

    JBu: I hope that we can race on Sunday, that’s the first thing, I think. With a typhoon coming this way it’s always very tricky. Hopefully it will miss us. It’s going to be a mixed weekend in terms of weather; tomorrow there’s a good chance of rain as well. I think it’s really just thinking on your feet and staying on top of all the different weather forecasts. But this is a circuit I think we all love. It’s fast, it’s flowing, there’s a lot of support here from the fans, not just for Japanese drivers but for every driver in Formula One as a whole, so it’s always great coming here and I’m looking forward to getting out there tomorrow.

    Nico, if I can come to you next. Since the summer break you’ve been beaten by your team-mate at every single race. What’s changed? What’s happened there?

    Nico HULKENBERG: I think obviously race weekends didn’t go as flawlessly as before and for one or other reasons we didn’t always achieve our maximum on my side of the garage but nothing too concerning I think. Obviously Hungary was a mistake, technical issues in Monza, unlucky in Singapore, so there is always a story behind it. But overall, if we put it together we are still a candidate for points and still looking competitive.

    And your team principal is full of praise for both drivers, so what does the future hold?

    NH: We’ll see. I think there’s not much to report at the moment but everything is looking quite positive.

    OK, Jules, just rate your season so far, how do you think it’s gone?

    Jules BIANCHI: After the break it was a bit more difficult for us. In Spa I had an issues and in Monza we were not so competitive and then Singapore was a difficult race again. I think overall it was a good season and I’m quite happy. Now I hope we can do some good results again.

    You’ve sort of served your apprenticeship, if you understand that expression, at Marussia. Do you think you have achieved all you need to achieve there to continue in Formula One and to move up?

    JBi: Well, you can always do better for sure but it was a good season for me. I’m still trying to do my best in the next races we’re going to have and we will see. But for sure I have no regrets.

    Q: Romain, also rate your season so far if you would.

    Romain GROSJEAN: Kind of missed the podium. It’s a tough season for all of us. We started a little bit on the back foot and it takes time to recover but things are going slightly better since Singapore. I think we have seen that the car was a little bit more competitive and hopefully it will be the case until the end of the season. There are a few updates coming. Even though they are small pieces it makes a good difference in how you prepare for the future. I think the key now for Lotus is to get on top of issues to prepare as good as we can for next year.

    Q: The frustrations clearly spilled over a little bit in Singapore, as we heard on the radio messages. How difficult a season has it been for you?

    RG: Well, the season is difficult. Of course part of the frustration… part of that radio message was frustration from the beginning of the year. When you’re racing in Singapore it’s certainly one of the toughest tracks to race, qualifying lap, you give 120 per cent of everything you can, you take every single risk to get close to the walls without kissing them too much and the straight line your engine cuts – so I wasn’t very happy with that. I think it was clear. But we’ve found the issue with Renault, they solve it for the race and things were going better. I think it was just the fact that it was hot, humid and trying to get 100 per cent of everything and suddenly you get issues on the straight line where it’s easy not lose time.

    Q: Sebastian, you’ve obviously had a remarkable record here, you’ve been on the podium the last five years plus the wins as well. And you’ve just had your best result of the year in Singapore. Has a corner been turned? Is it the new chassis? What’s made the difference?

    Sebastian VETTEL: I think it’s all the small bits coming together. Obviously we hardly ran the first half of the season, we had lots of issues in winter to overcome and then a lot of issues on my side in the first half – which is never great to get the right feeling and get things lined up the way things should be lined up. I think now we had a little bit more consistent weekends, a bit more time to look at all the stuff and I think it’s coming our way – but there’s still huge potential which I feel we are getting closer but there’s a lot of work ahead of us to make sure we extract it in the next couple of races as well.

    Q: You know the podium here very well – is there the possibility to be back on it?

    SV: I think there always is. Yeah, there’s some discussions on the weather. Kamui just gave me a brief update on the Typhoon. I think chances are a bit 50:50 but there’s always a chance to do well, race well. This circuit suits me, suits our car so I think we should be a little bit closer this weekend again. Whether we are as strong as Singapore is difficult to say. It’s a different nature of track – but a track I definitely enjoy and an atmosphere that I really enjoy, so I’d love to be on the podium, yes.

    Q: But there is a little bit of a shadow hanging over a lot of drivers at the moment with the possibility of penalties. How do you approach that?

    SV: Well, I’m one of them! Yeah. The rules are as they are but surely at some stage we have to take some penalties, which penalties those will be is not entirely clear yet. We’re waiting for some parts, we’re hoping that we get as far as we can but it’s inevitable to go for an extra engine on my side – which is already ten positions after qualifying. Potentially there is more waiting for us – which is only a consequence of the poor season we had, first half of the season, in terms of reliability. But that’s something we knew back then. Now we have to figure out what is the smartest plan, let’s say, and the smartest track to come up with a penalty.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Anne Giuntini – l’Equipe) Question to Jules. Considering the many rumours developing at the moment, if it would occur that a seat would become available – vacant – at Ferrari, would you feel ready to go there? And why?

    JBi: Well, yes of course I feel ready. I have been working for that since I’m in the Academy, end of 2009. So, now I did nearly two seasons in Formula One. I think I have good experience and I feel ready for that, for sure. It looks like the logical step for me if something happens like this. Obviously at the moment both drivers have a contract so it’s not the question but if there is the opportunity I feel it would be good for me and I feel good.

    Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Jenson, is it for you McLaren or nothing more for the future?

    JBu: In Formula One I’m hoping you mean. It’s the best option.

    Q: (John Westerby – The Times) Question for Sebastian. We have a 17 year-old driving here this week. I wonder if you could compare when you came into F1, perhaps with the cars in particular. Does this mean cars are easier to drive now then when you came into the sport?

    SV: I think one of the biggest differences is that I was able to drive myself from the hotel to the track – which I think he isn’t. He doesn’t have a driver’s licence. I think Formula One has changed a lot, especially this year so it’s not a secret cars got slower. Different to drive to previous years, probably a little bit more technical but less demanding in terms of the corner speeds we are taking. Especially on a track like this. But, y’know, I’m as excited as you to see him running. Obviously he was only done half a year, three-quarters of a year in Formula3. I think he has a remarkable record in go-karting. So, yeah, I think he has the potential. On the other hand, you need to give him time, as much as he needs. When I was 19, joining Formula One, the first time. Of course, you always feel ready and you don’t say no if somebody gives you the opportunity to race or drive a Formula One car – but you have to take your time to get used to all the things. Not just the car but also working with the team, which is completely different in Formula One to all the other categories.

    Q: (Daniel Johnson – The Telegraph) On that topic, Seb, you have a number of the records for youngest race winner, pole position, World Champion, I think. From what you’ve seen of Max so far and he’s part of the Red Bull family as it were, do you think he’s set to take those records from you?

    SV: Well, I think records are there to be broken. Obviously he starts quite a bit younger than all the rest of us but it’s hard to say, but one day I think there will be somebody to break these numbers and one day there will be somebody again to break the numbers again, so I think that’s normal.

    Q: (Anne Giuntini – L’Equipe) Romain, it’s the usual question yet I would like to know how can you keep motivated during such a hard season, to keep going?

    RG: Well, because you wake up in the morning and you’re still a Formula One driver. It took me quite a long time to get to Formula One. I lost it once, at the end of 2009 and when I came back in 2012, I realised… you know, when you lose something, you realise how much you like it. So even though it’s a tough season, I still have mechanics that give 100 percent of themselves and I still love what I’m doing. Of course, it’s much more fun to fight at the front and for victories but it’s still a very good job.

    Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Sebastian, even if you say that your future next year is with Red Bull, your name still comes up a lot and it comes to Ferrari and Fernando, who might possibly leave. Anything to say to that?

    SV: Well, I think there has always been rumours over the last couple of years, especially around this time of the season. I think probably more for Jenson; he already has 17 teammates for next year. I have been one of them, a couple of weeks ago, maybe next week I will be again. It’s not really in my head. As I said, coming from back… coming from the back at Singapore we made some progress and I hope that we can carry that momentum into this race and that’s really where the focus lies.

    Q: (Ben Edwards – BBC TV Sport) Just a quick question for everybody following on the Max Verstappen question: what was the most powerful car/engine that you drove when you were 17 years old?

    JBu: I’m trying to think. It was a long time ago now. At 17, I will still be racing in karts, I was racing in – as it was then – Formula Super A. I’d driven three Formula Ford cars before that, when I was 14 so 30 horsepower, I guess.

    KK: I think I did Formula Renault but I think that’s it, and I don’t remember how much horsepower.

    SV: I think I did a test, when I was 17, in ChampCar in America so around 750 horsepower.

    NH: Same as Jenson, karts.

    JBi: Yeah, I was racing go-karts. I think I did a test in Formula Renault, so 180 horsepower.

    RG: Technically, in horsepower, I think it was my mother’s Subaru. On a race track, for the record.

    Q: (Daniel Johnson – The Telegraph) Kamui, obviously your home race gives you lots of reasons to be cheery and look forward to the weekend but back in Oxfordshire, the team is going through its own troubles at the factory. I wonder if you could summarise what the mood is like in the team, has that affected it at all or is it as usual?

    KK: Well, first of all, I won’t get the same information to the boss because I think that our boss is flying over here, so we are waiting what happens really. I think it’s very difficult to say. At the moment, I think we can still communicate with the UK so I think it looks as if the company is OK but I don’t know the rest really. Unfortunately.

    eom

  • I dreamt, but you never really think it is going to happen: Hamilton

    DRIVERS

    1 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)

    2 – Sebastian VETTEL (Red Bull Racing)

    3 – Daniel RICCIARDO (Red Bull Racing)

    PODIUM INTERVIEWS

    (Conducted by Eddie Jordan)

    Lewis, did or dream or think this would be the result today?

    Lewis HAMILTON: Of course, I was dreaming it last night but you never really think it’s going to happen. I just want to say a huge thanks to my team. What they’ve done this year is absolutely incredible and to be able to arrive here knowing that we have a car we can fight with, and just the feeling I had through the race, it’s… I couldn’t do it without them. Thank you guys.

    We know you’ve won seven races this year but the talking point is how big a pressure was on you in that last pit stop? That’s what we wanted to know.

    LH: Ah, it wasn’t that bad.

    Well you sounded totally paranoid up there I have to tell you!

    LH: No, I think at the time it was just not really knowing what the situation was. I knew I had a big gap but if a safety car comes out, what does that mean, but then when I came in and knew that I had to fight the guys on a long, long, run-down tyre, I knew that we would have chance to get by, so I felt kind of comfortable.

    Well, we’ll come back to you because we have lots more questions but ladies and gentlemen, Sebastian Vettel, four times world champion, his best result of the year! Sebastian, what is it with Singapore and you? You seem to be a night raider or something like that. Every time there’s a night race you do remarkably well. Obviously on the podium again this year.

    Sebastian VETTEL: Yeah, kid did well! It’s a circuit that I really enjoy, I really like. The atmosphere is great. You know, on the drivers’ parade there are already so many people in for the race. It’s great. It’s a tough one, it’s two hours and again we went to the full two hours. I had a good start, got past Daniel and then I think we had a decent race. We played a little bit with strategy and then the safety car came in the worst possible moment for us. So we tried to obviously stay out with the last set of tyres and make them work, which was very, very much borderline. I had a lot of pressure from Daniel and also from Fernando behind, but very happy obviously to make it P2.

    A lot of red faces up here – the dehydration, the heat, the temperature. A huge race here is it? Is it very, very difficult?

    SV: Yeah, it’s quite hot. The cars are sliding a lot, so you have to focus quite hard. It’s definitely a race we all enjoy as drivers because it’s such a big challenge and to stand up here and get a cool glass or bottle of champagne is quite nice.

    Well, your best race of the season, your best result and we know what you’ve done here before. Now, ladies and gentlemen, the pride of Australia, Daniel Ricciardo! Almost like a home race really?

    Daniel RICCIARDO: Yeah, feels like a home race. Singapore to Perth is pretty much as close as Melbourne to Perth, so for West Australia it’s like another home race.

    I need to ask you the question: do you think that when Fernando gave up the place to Sebastian, do you think he should have given up the place to you?

    DR: To be honest, I’ll have to have a look. Obviously he went off, that was clear. I knew he would give it back to Seb [but] whether he had to give it back to me, I’ll have a look at that. I was just sort of focused on regrouping from the start really. To get on the podium I guess is not a bad result, good for the team and at least we’ve got some Aussie flags.

    We see a lot of Aussie flag, you’re the pride of Australia. Lewis, things have changed, really, haven’t they, for you?

    LH: Absolutely.

    Big smile on your face.

    LH: Yeah, I was so excited to have… I was looking for that clean weekend and this has been it. It’s been fantastic. It’s not perfect for the team because Nico didn’t finish and we’re always striving to get both cars finishing 1-2. I don’t think anyone has finished one-two before and that was our goal. So there are things we can still work on. I also want to say a big thanks to all the fans. Incredible support today, so thank you guys.

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Q: Lewis, your second victory in Singapore, your seventh of the season and a very popular win, it would seem, with the crowd – but there was clearly a tense moment for you after the safety car when you knew you had to stop again and it was clear the four or five cars behind you didn’t – but the strategy team stayed calm, you stayed calm and you’re now leading the Drivers’ Championship. Just tell us about the rollercoaster of emotions and the way you feel leaving Singapore tonight.

    LH: Coming here and to the last six races with a great race in Monza, knowing that we had a car to compete here, obviously yesterday in qualifying it was very close between everyone so I didn’t really know what to expect today – but got off cleanly. Of course it would have been a hardcore race if Nico was in the race with me as the car was feeling very good and we would have been very strong. But, yeah, later on in the race, I think for me I was a bit unaware of what I needed to do. That second-to-last stint, I extended it as long as I could and then they said “we need 27s.” And that was still six seconds I needed more, and my tyres were dropping off, so I didn’t really understand why. And I was also nervous that, if the Safety Car came out, would that cause me big problems? So anyway, fortunately we got to where I needed to go and we pitted. I came out, and I saw Sebastian going past but straight away I knew they would be on… they were obviously doing a two-stop, I would have good pace. So, took it easy the first lap. It was actually a bit of a tight gap, maybe I should have overtaken him somewhere else but fortunately Sebastian was very fair and I got by. After that it was quite straightforward. Amazing job from the team and the guys back at the factory. The car was really spectacular in the race.

    Q: Sebastian, clearly the start was decisive for you. A fantastic initial getaway up into second place, you got the place back from Fernando. You were also a little bit sceptical when it came to the strategy, saying “that’s not my plan,” to go to the finish. So, tell us about the thinking at that point and how the race played out from your mind.

    SV: As you mentioned, the start obviously was good for me. Quite weird to stop with no car ahead but not being on the first row. But it helped, obviously, because I had no car in front and I could get side by side and get straight into second place. After that I think we had a good race. Not ideal, in terms of timing with the safety car. Obviously, before that we lost a position to Fernando because we stopped too late – but we decided to go on the primes and we were hoping for no safety car to come out, which came out, so not ideal! But yeah, after that, obviously after the restart, we knew it was difficult with 27 seconds to make up on older tyres than everyone behind – it’s probably impossible. So, obviously to get the best result we knew we have to get to the end. I wasn’t very confident that we can do it, simply because of the wear we had the sets before. Obviously for one lap I was in the lead. As Lewis touched on, the overtaking manoeuvre, I wasn’t quite sure what he was doing. I thought that I give him all the space to pass me on the inside for the next corner but it seemed like he couldn’t wait to get back in the lead. It was quite tight but I saw him, obviously, so I had to back-off and let him through. There was no point fighting him at that stage because I didn’t have the tyres to match him. Nevertheless, to finish P2 obviously was the best we could do. We had the oldest set of tyres in the last stint, so it was quite tricky managing those to the finish line with not much tread left. Obviously very good result for the team.

    Q: Daniel, I guess the opposite for you. Not a great initial getaway, you lost the initiative to Sebastian there, which is why you finished behind him in the end. Tell us whether you expected the attack from Alonso at the end because obviously he had pitted under the safety car, was on much fresher tyres than you . Were you surprised the attack didn’t come? What was going through your mind?

    DR: Yeah, I think the closing stages, I could see after the restart for the safety car, he wasn’t attacking as much as I thought with a new set of primes, so I thought he was holding back and was going to make a late charge at the end. I think we all just piled up. I caught the back of Sebastian, he caught the back of me and we were all in a train and not really any real opportunities arose for any of us. So, it was what it was. I probably did expect him to come on a get stronger at the end but I think once you start following and trying to get the pedal down a bit harder to set up a pass, then you start hurting the rears and you all fall into each others’ pace. The start initially wasn’t too bad but just before Turn One we had a bit of an issue and I think we lost a bit of power. Whether we could have held on or not… who knows? But then yeah, Fernando went wide and then gave the place back to Seb and the race from there was fairly straightforward. Encountered a few other issues and bits and pieces here and there – so we’ll have to look into that. See how much it cost us in the end. But obviously it was nice to get on the back of Seb and try to put him under a bit of pressure but I think for all of us here it was follow-the-leader a bit and not much else to do.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Lennart Wermke – Bild) Lewis, is there anyone you dedicate your victory to?

    LH: I’ve not really thought of it. There are only a few of the race wins which I’ve really dedicated to anyone. Maybe to my fans, I think. I met a couple of really special people last week – they’ll know who they are – and just generally to all the fans. They’re sending me messages and all that, really just saying that we win or we lose together and also being here with all the British flags, it lifts you up so much that probably they don’t even realise, so this is for them.

    Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action and National Speedsport News) Daniel, you were on the radio during the race saying that you were losing power and I believe gears. What was happening and was the team able to help you correct those matters?

    DR: Yeah, we had quite a bit going on during the race so yeah, power was coming and going and from the safety car onwards it was pretty consistently down on power and basically, coming up through gears, I would get a bit of power and then it would drop and then it would come again. So we definitely had a few issues and we tried fixing them but to be honest we didn’t quite clear it all up. I guess it did cost us a bit today but obviously we still got it to the end but obviously we will definitely look at what the cause was and if we can fix it. Normally, if we have those glitches after a couple of laps we clear it but this one pretty much carried through all race. I guess I was a bit frustrated, bit concerned as well that we wouldn’t get it to the flag but luckily it held on and as I said, we’ll just look at it and I’m sure we’ll fix it for Japan.

    Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport) To Seb and Daniel, what was the plan to have the harder tyre, the prime tyre, in the third stint rather than at the end, because at that moment, I don’t think you could know that the safety car would come out?

    SB: I guess in my case Fernando undercut us, it was quite obvious, and then I think it was pretty pointless to do the same as him so we tried to do opposite and then get him back obviously, in the last stint of the race, I think that was the plan. With hindsight, we should have obviously stopped earlier, tyres were at the end of their wear life anyway so I think that was the plan. It was obviously high risk because of the safety car. In the end, we got lucky because the tyres held up but at that stage it didn’t look like it.

    Q: (Don Kennedy – Hawke’s Bay Today) Lewis, you said on the podium that Mercedes were hoping for a one-two finish but in terms of the championship, can you say, in all honesty, that you’re sorry that Nico didn’t finish?

    LH: Well, of course the points are something… I came here hoping to really gain those seven points and anything more than that was just a bonus, so today, of course, those extra points are a huge help. That’s several DNFs we’ve had now on either car and we want to continue getting those one-twos still. I know that the team will not be 100 percent happy today because we want to win collectively, we want to get those one-twos, we want to be the dominant team all together, so by not getting that result, they’ll be going back to the drawing board trying to figure out what happened. They’re constantly coming up to things and perhaps other people are starting to be a bit more reliable than us so that’s an area that we can still definitely improve on.

    eom/FIA transcript of the Press Conference