Tag: Formula One

TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Nick CHESTER (Lotus), Jonathan NEALE (McLaren), Giampaolo DALL’ARA (Sauber), Rob SMEDLEY (Williams), Paddy LOWE (Mercedes), Paul MONAGHAN (Red Bull Racing)

PRESS CONFERENCE

Nick, can we start with you? First of all, a little insight into what happened with Romain Grosjean’s engine cover and what the explanation was?

Nick CHESTER: OK, yeah, we’ve had a little bit of an eventful day so far. On Romain’s car we just lost some fixings on the bodywork. That just pulled the top of the engine cover and broke the rest of the fixings and blew it with it.

Thank you for that. Obviously you’ve got a much faster car this but that has not, so far, translated into the points you perhaps might have expected. What’s your feeling on that?

NC: I think we’ve had a couple of races that haven’t gone our way, when we’ve looked like we’d get both drivers in the points. The good thing is that the pace of the car is there and we’re expecting that we’ll get both cars up into Q3 and start scoring points with both drivers every race.

Thank you. Moving on to you Giampaolo: obviously, faced with all the problems that you had over the winter and at the start of the year, what was the key to your relatively strong start do you think?

Giampaolo DALL’ARA: I wouldn’t pinpoint a single key. Obviously we were coming from a season where we were nowhere near where we feel we belong. We’ve been working throughout last year, throughout the winter and coming with a new car, or a new power unit, everything was working OK. On the reliability side of things, since winter testing we were pretty much sorted so it was only a matter of our performance, so that was it – a bit from the power unit, a bit from the car… let me add a bit from the tyres as well. The whole package came together. The drivers did a good job and that was it.

Clearly, as you say, you have a much more powerful power unit. What does that allow you to do from a chassis and strategy point of view?

GD: Well, not much different from anyone else can. We felt like… I mean, again going back one year we felt back then we were pretty much limited, so I would turn your question the other way around: last year whatever we were wanting to do, it didn’t change the race result. This year, basically, in one word, it allows us to compete. Basically, we are belonging to the midfield and we have competition that race by race we can challenge – sometimes this turns into points, sometimes it doesn’t, but for us it’s important to actually be there.

Thank you for that. Coming to you Paddy, the speed with which Ferrari has closed up the gap, does that reflect also that you’ve been perhaps a little bit conservative from last year to this, focusing on reliability rather than chasing performance at the start of this year?

Paddy LOWE: No, not at all. We put in a very aggressive programme over the winter, both on the engine and on aerodynamics and other parts of the car. So, no, not a bit of it. We expected a very tough season as the second iteration of this new formula and we weren’t going to get through that without a lot of development on the performance of the car. No, I think credit to Ferrari, they’ve done a good job over the winter to make a big step to approach and even exceed our performance from time to time, so that’s set the place for a very tough competition through the year.

What about your two drivers then? Nico obviously is yet to match Lewis, is that just that he’s not done a good a job or is there a technical story behind that?

PL: No, I think Lewis is performing, really, at the top of his game. I’ve worked with Lewis actually throughout his Formula One career and I would say at the moment he’s really at his peak – the best he’s been driving so far. That’s a tough prospect for any driver to compete with. Nico’s doing a great job. I was particularly pleased with how he performed in Bahrain. We let him down at the last minute, which is why he lost the second place, but you saw he did some fantastic driving, some great overtaking, which showed that he had great race craft. I think Nico is doing a good job, it’s just tough to beat Lewis. The season is still young and there’s plenty in prospect for a good battle between them.

Paul, coming to you: obviously more power unit problems today. Can you tell us about what happened with Daniel’s car in particular and was this race supposed to be the turnaround away from all of that?

Paul MONAGHAN: I think you would have to ask Renault directly what their expectations for the weekend and the future are. We had a fluid leak on Daniel’s car. We took the choice that fixing it was going to be longer than putting the next power unit in, so we said “right let’s put the next power unit in, get him out in P2, let him have a run in the car and we’ll deal with the consequences this evening”.

What about the new short nose? I understand it’s good to go. When are you hoping to use it and can you tell us a bit about the thinking on that?

PM: Well, if you look up and down the pit lane there are a number of people pursuing that topic; we’re not alone. We’re going to put as much chassis performance on as we possible can. That’s one of the aspects we’ve looked at. Best you look long and hard at the footage and see if you can find it.

Right-oh. Thank you for that. Jonathan, what appears to be a very good step today, with Jenson up solidly in the top 10. Where is that step coming from and does it get harder to make the big steps the further you go on?

Jonathan NEALE: Well, it certainly never gets easier! I think we’ve had a reasonable day today. I wouldn’t read too much into a Friday. We all like to convince ourselves that if you’re quick on a Friday you’ll be quick through the weekend but Friday’s are notoriously fickle. We don’t know what everybody else is doing, so we’ll see tomorrow just where we’ve got to. But the reality is we’ve been pushing on all areas of the car. We have aerodynamic upgrades here this weekend, we have some engine, reliability upgrades, there’s a huge amount of work still to do on our systems package – much of our performance we’re getting from systems integration work. And importantly Exxon Mobil have delivered us a fuel upgrade here as well, so in all areas, pretty much, as Paddy suggested.

There’s been a lot of change in the McLaren technical department – new faces arriving, returning faces like Peter Prodromou. How much change has been effected in the engineering ideology, the ‘McLaren Way’ if you like? Is that changing fundamentally?

JN: Yeah, I think it is. I think there are some things about McLaren that have stood the test of time over 50 years and there are other things about it that need constantly reinventing. No business stands still, no market stands still. The sport’s constantly changing and what it takes to stay at the top requires constantly to reassess everything that’s going on. I think the changes that we made during the course of the last 18 months have had a very positive impact, I think it’s ventilated the organisation a bit. I think there’s a bit more work to do and Eric [Boullier] and I are hell-bent on making sure that’s the case.

Thank you for that. Coming to you Rob, obviously from last year to this, certainly so far, the hoped for improvement hasn’t come through yet relative it the pacesetters. Why is that?

Rob SMEDLEY: Well I think you’ve got to be fairly pragmatic about it first of all and understand where we’re at and what we’re trying to achieve as a team. I think it would be fairly remiss of me to sit here and say that we are going to start competing with Mercedes but I think that if you look at our gap to Mercedes, MGP, last year and this year then it hasn’t really shifted a great deal. It was about 1% in lap time and it’s about 1% this year. It’s not where we want to be. We all know that, we all buy into that. It’s not where we want to be. We’re working on that. But the team, the business as a whole really, is on a journey and we’ve got to keep improving. We’ve got to keep developing the car, we’ve got to keep developing the business, the company. Ensuring that we’re developing in all areas. We’re not as strong as the front-running teams in lots of areas; every single area of the business. We’ve got to keep on looking inwards and go quietly about it.

So you’re the third-fastest car, basically. Mercedes and Ferrari are well ahead and the others, at the moment, seem to a way behind, so essentially your two drivers are kind of racing each other each weekend. How does that affect, internally, the strategy planning knowing that your two guys are going up against each other?

RS: It doesn’t affect anything a great deal, to be honest. The number one objective for the team is that the maximum number of points available and the finishing order of the drivers is of much less consequence. The drivers know that; they buy into that. So it doesn’t really affect us a great deal. We’re looking forward all the time and seeing if we can get in there at some point with the Ferraris but we’re looking behind as well. You’ve got Red Bull, who’ve got a huge resource and a great team behind them, lots of world championships. They’re going to come back at some point. We shouldn’t just be looking forward, you’ve got to be looking backwards as well, but at the moment, while we can, we just have to keep getting the maximum number of points.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action and Speedsport) Gentlemen, the rules can change in 2017. Name a couple of things that would be at top of your wish list, even if it’s not practical, that you would like to see coming?

JN: It’s very tempting to be unguarded at the moment! I think that the sport needs to rethink a number of areas. Personally, I think it would be foolish to mess around with the immense amount of good work that has been done on the power units. Maybe some minor adjustments but it’s a much more efficient package, it’s got some great technology, it’s still maturing in the sport and the price can come down if it’s left to mature because just we’re not putting in the same R&D costs. So I would leave that alone. But I would look for… we’ve spoken about that a step-change in aerodynamics, to make sure that these cars are difficult to drive and maintain that perform gap to the other junior series and Formula One remains and out and out race. We can still have the efficiency, we can still have many other attributes of the sport but I think it should just be a flat-out race.

Nick, what would you do?

NC: I come from a slightly different viewpoint I think. There’s a lot talked at the moment about the rule changes for 2017 but I think people forget at the moment the racing’s actually quite good. There are some very good battles up and down the whole grid and as the cars’ performance is improving a lot – I think we’re seeing two seconds improvement from last year – do we really need a huge change of regulation? A huge of regulation is going to open up the grid again, there’ll be bigger differences between teams and obviously it’s going to add a lot of cost, so I think we shouldn’t forget that show’s actually not bad at the moment.

Giampaolo?

GD: I’m pretty much on the same line as Nick I think. I wouldn’t add much to what he has been saying.

Paul?

PM: As a personal view I’d seek to improve the performance of the cars. The mechanism by which we do it really will come down from Strategy Group to people such as ourselves and then we’ll sort it out from there. That’s what I would wish for at the moment.

Are you talking about a lot more power, that kind of thing? Over a thousand horsepower has been discussed.

PM: I’d leave the power unit aside for the moment. I’d like to do it more on the chassis side I think.

Paddy?

PL: I agree with Jonathan that above all we must maintain Formula One cars as the pinnacle of motorsport. That’s the presentation that Formula One is and that’s what maintains the show and the attractiveness to a global audience. Even amongst topics such as cost saving, which often comes up, above all we’ve got to maintain that show and that means the cars must be truly spectacular. But in terms of rule changes, I think it’s not absolutely clear that we need to change the cars radically, that’s something being discussed. As Nick correctly says, performance will increase anyway through normal development and we may arrive at the position we want to be through natural development. I think an interesting area is just in the sporting regulations. There are a lot of thing we can do that would improve the show without spending a huge amount of money changing the cars themselves. Changes to sporting regulations generally don’t attach a lot of cost and can change the sport in subtle ways that improve the spectacle, improve the interest, improve the uncertainty, which is what you really want from race to race – that it’s not absolutely clear who is going to win.

Can you give us an example of what you’re thinking?

PL: I think we’ve been discussing ideas like the use of tyres, how tyres are allocated – but I think we’re actually on the lookout for people to come up with interesting ideas. But I still say in that context, again agreeing with Nick, the sport, in my view, isn’t in a bad shape. And I don’t think we need to run around thinking we need to do drastic things.

Rob?

RS: I agree entirely. I think we should leave it alone. In the main we should perhaps think about stopping tampering with it rather than thinking we’re going to create a new set of rules and that’s going to fix everything. Every time you create a new set of rules, you’ll usually find the people with the biggest resource or with the cleverest thinking, or the people who stopped working on the current generation of Formula One cars, come out with quite a big gap. That’s what, when we talk about these boring races, that’s what we’re referring to isn’t it? A team dominating at the front – but a team dominates when we have radical rule changes. I think that we do have to seriously think about not changing anything. Nick was quite right in what he said: the racing is very good. Out front this year you’ve got Ferrari and Mercedes and that’s making for some good races. Behind us it’s everybody in, isn’t it? There’s some good racing going on there. I also agree with Paddy’s sentiment, that there’s lots of things we can do with the Sporting Regs, which aren’t going to cost a great deal of money. We have to be responsible in how we spend. I’ve said this before. The average man on the street, the people who we’re trying to drag into the circuits, or who we’re trying to drag into viewing us on a Sunday afternoon, they don’t care about spend: they just want to see racing. Even the technology, to a certain extent, is of less interest. So it’s got to be the racing spectacle that we put at the forefront. By having a radical rule change you’re not guaranteed to increase the racing spectacle – but what you are guaranteed to do is increase costs.

Q: (Haoran Zhou –  LETV) I’m glad Jonathan mentioned keeping Formula One away from other junior series because I’d like to draw your attention to a ten-lap run that Pierre Gasly did in this morning’s GP2 session. He started off with some 35.4s and gradually started doing 34.5s and finished with a 33.9s. Which is around 2.5s away from Mercedes but on a par with a lot of cars here, a lot of your cars. What’s the correct way of interpreting this? Is Formula One being too slow or is GP2 being too fast?

JN: I think the racing is good – but if it’s going to be the pinnacle of motorsport then it has to be. The engine technology has been fantastic but we flip-flop between whether we perceive aerodynamics as some evil that entered Formula One at some point. The fact is aerodynamics are around us all the time: the genie is out of the bottle, let’s embrace it and go with it. The cornering speeds, I think, you could do something about and I think that would stretch some of the drivers a bit better. Got to be careful about safety because the circuits aren’t changing very much – but we have gradually pared back various parts of the aerodynamic aspects of this, for a variety of reasons. I think there is room for a little bit of tweak on that without upsetting the show. It is true, performance will continue to develop but I just think I’d give it that nudge and I think it’s the cornering speeds, if you look at things like Super GT, which you’ll be familiar with, or GP2. It’s those areas that we just need to watch.

I wonder Paddy, if we need an explanation of this phenomenon, why it is that this has happened here?

PL: I’m not a great expert about GP2 but it may be that they’ve improved a bit. Formula One is in an early phase of a major regulation era. This is the second year of a set of regulations, so generally performance will increase until the next reset is required. Those resets are normally introduced to control safety through cornering speed. So I think we’ve got a period now where we will stretch out relative to some of those other formulae. For 2017 it may be that we need to give it a bit of a nudge and that’s what’s being talked about. Perhaps some more aerodynamic performance could be added – but historically we have always reduced aerodynamic performance step-by-step. I can’t recall us ever increasing it in all the years.

Giampaolo, do you have a view on this?

GD: Maybe in addition to what was correctly mentioned, this gap will open but also on the other side it would be wrong if the gap would open beyond a certain extent if we want to keep considering GP2 as the last step for a young driver to be formed into Formula One. In latest times the young drivers unfortunately get less and less chances to be actually forming themselves within a Formula One team – at least into the car. Having this final series before Formula One, let’s say the closest series to Formula One, not too far away I think is something that could be beneficial on this side of things.

Rob, what would be the ideal gap, do you think, from Formula One to a series like GP2 in a perfect world?

RS: I don’t know, you’re asking the wrong person. It’s got to be at least 6-8 per cent, hasn’t it? I think the question, what we’ve perhaps missed in the question that was asked was if you look at the starting times of the run that you referred to, compared to what we were doing this afternoon on a hot track, then you’re probably looking at around six per cent. The difference is that, at the end of the run – and I haven’t looked in any detail – but at the end of the run the times were a lot quicker. I don’t know who the driver was or the car was that you are referring to but the times were a lot quicker than what he started off with. That’s perhaps a trend that we’ve seen here in GP2 that we certainly haven’t seen in Formula One. We all agreed through various means that we wanted a greater spectacle in Formula One – and one of the means of achieving that was to have higher tyre degradation and that’s what we’ve got. We do have high tyre degradation now, compared to the past, in Formula One. So at the end of the runs, yeah, if you take the fuel-corrected times out of it, we can be upwards of two seconds slower than at the start of the run – certainly on new tyres. I think some of that is probably what you’ve inadvertently mentioned there.

Anything to add Nick?

NC: I think the other thing to bear in mind is that the GP2 car is probably fuelled for a shorter race – so it’s probably got a bit less fuel to carry. Also, when you look at the development of the cars, that two-three seconds gap we see at the moment will probably be six seconds by 2017.

Paul?

PM: I refer you to my earlier answer. I think we need to add some performance to the Formula One cars.

Q: (Andrew Benson – BBC Sport) We’re all taking about making the cars go faster, changing the aerodynamics, playing with the engines, whatever – but no-one seems to be talking about the tyres when we all know the drivers are driving within themselves for the entire race distance, pretty much. Why not?

Rob did address the whole question of degradation but has anyone got anything to add on the subject of the tyres? Paddy?

PL: That subject comes up repeatedly. I think it’s always been a factor in Formula One racing that you have to consider getting the most out of the tyre over a long distance. I don’t think there have been many tyres over the years that one could sprint with on every single lap. I think with the current tyres we have an interesting situation which I think has improved the spectacle a great deal, where the nature of the tyre degradation is such that cars are obliged to stop at certain points, and it produces a lot more variety. I think we’ve seen far more exciting races as a result since Pirelli came into Formula One. So, there is the aspect around drivers having to manage and not necessarily drive as fast as we would like – but I think that’s been an element in the past. It may be a slightly bigger element at the moment – but it also adds to the skill necessary from the driver. So, it’s still all part of an exciting package. And in qualifying, of course, they are going absolutely flat out.

Q: (Sebastian Scott – racedepartment.com) This is a question really for the three people from the works teams. If you look at the World Endurance Championship now Porsche, Audi and Toyota seem to be fairly reliable for an endurance race and they seem to have a great power output. Is there anything you could learn from what they are doing and apply it to the current set of regulations? As you were saying, not to make a massive change to make a quick fix or just a little fix.

PM: Yes, there is always things we could learn and yes we ought to be open-minded and yes we ought to look. There is a Power Unit Group that, if it wished to adopt something like that, can make its statement and put its foot forward. I wouldn’t suggest that we go down the route of a quick fix. I don’t believe with our sport there’s anything such as a ‘just’ job: you can’t ‘just’ do that. There’s no such thing as a quick fix, it’ll normally come back to bite. We’ve got adequate time now to make some sensible steps, enhance our sport and keep it as the pinnacle and we don’t necessarily have to have wholesale change but why not look, why not learn and then put our step forward and keep us where we are.

Paddy?

PL: I’m not a great expert, I’m afraid to comment. I would just say that the power units we have are extremely sophisticated. They incorporate hybrid systems which are very road car relevant and I think that’s been a great direction for Formula One. I don’t see a great need to change the engine formula now because we’ve only really just adopted it.

Jonathan?

JN: I agree with Paddy. If we look at what’s going on inside Honda at the moment, then the technology is exciting and relevant, we’re at the foothills of the climb that we have ahead – but as Mercedes have adequately demonstrated over the last few years, that power unit has matured. It’s a really good piece of technology and it’s reliable. There’s something we can all learn from that. I think we just need to keep pushing away at the series that we have and it will come to us.

PL: I think it’s worth mentioning, because I forgot to mention it, that talking about the World Endurance Championship… these engines now are doing a huge mileage compared to history, four, five, six thousand kilometres compared to barely three hundred kilometres in the old days so they are already endurance engines and I think that’s a point to note and a point which we should appreciate and celebrate actually.

Q: (Mike Doodson – GP Week) Next week there’s going to be a meeting with the strategy group when I think you’re going to decide on whether or not to have a fifth power unit. I realise that given the alarm and disparity and reliability between certain power units which we won’t mention there is a danger that the World Championship for Drivers is going to be compromised in some way. Bearing that in mind, what do you think the chances are of there being a fifth engine permitted or agreed by the strategy group?

NC: I’ve got to say that I can’t really answer for what the strategy group will decide. I think we’ve got a regulation at the moment which is four power units. I think it will need o be unanimous if it goes to five.

JN: I don’t know whether it will pass. There are some conflicting views. There was a certain degree of unanimous agreement amidst the teams in Malaysia. I think that position has changed a bit from what I can pick up in paddock rumour at the moment, but what matters most is what case is put to the strategy group next week. I think that if it isn’t simple, if it becomes… if it goes to five engines with a thousand strings attached and complex other paraphernalia around it, I don’t think it will go. I think it would be advantageous… we would obviously benefit from it because we’re in a situation where, as a new entrant to the sport with Honda, we would very much like that additional fifth engine – we would, wouldn’t we? – and we think that would be fair for us. I’m pretty sure Renault would feel the same way. They’re investing in the sport, they’re a big organisation, it’s important for their brand as well that they have some degree of glide-path on this but it’s a fair race for everybody and I accept that . If it’s four it’s four, if it’s five it’s five.

GD: For me the regulations are in place. There are deadlines to change them. Those deadlines  passed so I think for this year it should stay as it is.

PM: Personally, I would support the fifth engine. The strategy group is the first step of three to a rule change. If it proceeds, all well and good. If it doesn’t you play the hand you’re dealt.

PL: I think the original reason that people talked about a fifth engine was because in this year where we first reduced it to four per year, there was very little running on Fridays and it was seen that this was the explanation so the original reason it was agreed that we would look at introducing a fifth engine to improve the amount of running that was done on a Friday. We would agree with it in that context. We will see what happens in the strategy group.

RS: Yeah, we’ll go before the strategy group who will need unanimous agreement. It’s, at the moment, of less consequence to us. We’ve used one engine and another group of engineers were working towards four engines. We’ll see what’s decided at the strategy group. I think one point that I would pick up on that you made is that the Drivers’ World Championship, the Constructors’ World Championship could be compromised. Yeah, it could, that’s what the rule book is for.

Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Question to Jonathan please: Jonathan you alluded earlier on to the staff change, manning changes, restructured McLaren. When it was all announced 18 months ago, you were acting CEO if I remember. Are you still acting or are you doing it and have there been any other changes within other companies, for example McLaren Advanced Technologies, which have a bearing on Formula One?

JN: There’s a couple of question in there, Dieter. Let me just handle the first one which is yes, of the job titles that I had, it still includes one that’s called acting chief executive officer. I am still there, I am not hung up on a job title. Eric and I are running the team, we like the way it’s going at the moment. Ron doesn’t appear to be ready to make any imminent changes there which is OK at the moment, so I assume he’s comfortable with it. But let me just be clear about your supplementary question there which is about the changes elsewhere in the organisation. There are lots of things going on at McLaren Automotive and McLaren Applied Technologies but they are completely ring-fenced away from us so there’s zero distraction away from the work that Eric and I are doing, which is purely focused on the relationship with Honda and our on-track performance. That is our first and only priority.

Q: (Craig Scarborough – Scarbs F1) General question to everyone: we’ve been speaking about wanting to improve lap times. We always want to talk about cutting costs. I imagine that a lot of your R&D budgets actually spend on actually trying to circumvent previous cost-cutting attempts. We don’t want to play with engines, we don’t want to play about too much with downforce. Is there a potential that we could lose some innovative technology in 2017 or in the future? Maybe things like active aero or active suspension to improve corner speed, straightline efficiency in order to get the lap time but without having to spend too much money?

NC: Well, it’s a point. Obviously that would be quite a big change. There would be a lot of investment required to generate those active systems. For me that goes back a little bit to earlier subject which we were on: we don’t want to change it too much because I think we’ll spoil the show.

JN: Well, I’m quite attracted by the new technology and what else could we do, providing it’s relevant to the markets that we serve and the sponsors who back us in some way. Now that might be for the fans to make it more interesting or it might be because it’s more relevant to the people who bankroll the teams and the whole show here. Providing it’s relevant and not technology for technology’s sake, then I think there are opportunities to do things on the chassis, as we’ve done on the engine.

GD: Although it’s not my field in my team, I know that we are on the side of cutting the costs which is fundamental for the survival of the small teams. Having said that, for sure there are different ways of evolving Formula One or improving performance, but most of the time, for as much as you can think about going back, it results into further reserves and further development and ultimately additional costs. It’s a really complex topic to sort.

RS: I think that you have to bear in mind always that F1 has to be the pinnacle of motor sport. It has to be about innovation as well. It’s always been engineering-led, it’s always been technology-led and it has to be about engineering, excellence and innovative excellence, and I think that as long as… I would agree with Jonathan, as long as that’s relevant to the sport in general, to the business, to the markets we serve, then yes, why not look at things. There’s got to be a cost-effectiveness as well. It’s got to serve the business and the sport in general. It hasn’t just got to be ‘we’re producing something and we talk about it all winter and it’s going to change the world and then it changes nothing.’ We’ve had a few of them before. Yeah, we should always be looking at innovation, that’s what keeps us going, I think, especially the people that you’ve got here in front of you. That’s what we all do it for.

PL: Yeah, I agree with Rob and Jonathan. I think that where it relates to costs, often it’s not more expensive and a suspension is an interesting example that has been studied over the last few years. Sometimes we spend more money designing systems that get around the constraints of the regulations in an indirect manner, so some of the suspension systems we have at the moment are incredibly complex and therefore expensive and maybe cheaper if they were implemented using electronics.

PM: I think it’s prudent to keep an open mind and keep a review on all aspects of what we do and as you say, whilst people have said try and keep our sport as the pinnacle. Personally, I wouldn’t agree with going down the active suspension route as it will drive the cars and development direction which I don’t think is healthy for the sport. Active aero? If there’s an interest in it and we can come up with systems, kind of supplementing DRS if you like, which can be used to create a performance differentiation and performance equalisation. Whatever we aim to do with it, it’s interesting to do. As I said, it doesn’t come for free. I think we’ve got to decide what we want to do for 2017. If we’re to pursue such avenues, we can look and take it from there.

Q: (Christopher Joseph – Chicane) A question to both Rob and Jonathan: you talked about how vital it is that the technology is relevant, not only to the businesses, the suppliers and yourselves as engineers.  Do you think enough is done to promote the technology side of the sport and if not, do you think we could do more in terms of more media times with people like yourselves and your colleagues and relating that technology to the fans?

RS: Yes, I do. I think it’s imperative that we try to do more. I think it’s imperative that Formula One embraces all different types of media and tries to get the technology across to people. I think it’s a little bit lost. We’ve got incredibly complex  – almost quite beautiful in their complexity really – the power units and the cars that we have now in this current guise of Formula One and it’s lost. We’re not doing a good enough job of getting it out to the people. We’re not doing a good enough of getting it out so that… they’re difficult enough for the likes of the people sat here to understand. If you try and convey that in our language to the people who watch it at the moment, the general public who just want to see Formula One racing, then if you look at what’s happening now, then it’s not happening, it’s not good enough and we do have a responsibility. I think it’s part of the sport, it’s an incredibly important part of the sport and we need to probably do a better job of conveying it to the general public in simple terms what we do and how we go about it.

JN: Yes, it’s a good question. I think that we’ve spoken  a lot about the product, the car but the product is the end of a process and there is as much technology, innovation and excitement that sits behind every team represented here on this stage. We’re really lucky to work in Formula One, we should never lose sight of that. We do some amazing things in these businesses and maybe we don’t do a tidy enough job through an event weekend like this, but anybody… the guys will attest here, anybody who comes into our businesses and gets up close and looks at what it takes to put two cars on the grid twenty times a year, it is extraordinary, but from the manufacturing technology through rapid prototyping work, the simulation, computational fluid dynamics, it’s a really rich mix which is why it offers such interesting jobs for young engineers and scientists. Each of the teams is certainly working very hard, most of these guys are sitting with businesses that run effective web sites and media channels, the digital environment is constantly changing, for us it’s very hard to know how to get traction when they’re just spamming out content left, right and centre. And I think certainly if we’re going to address the demographics of the audience, then it’s how we access those people like my children and what will be their children who don’t do terrestrial television any more – that’s gone – and how we tap into some of that and I certainly we could be more effective in that. But that’s easy to say, but actually doing something practical and making it happen is quite difficult because it’s so fragmented.

PL: I wasn’t asked that directly but if I could add to that question, slightly correct Rob because I think Mercedes spent a great deal of effort actually publicising…  making the most of the hybrid power that we produce. That’s been used in a lot of advertising over the last 12 months, making a big story around that. Hybrid is a name that I think now, through Formula One, it’s being more associated with a cool car rather than an uncool car and I think there is a lot going on. Of course we could do more but it is beginning.

TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – John BOOTH (Manor), Rob WHITE (Renault Sport F1), Eric BOULLIER (McLaren), Maurizio ARRIVABENE (Ferrari), Monisha KALTENBORN (Sauber), Toto WOLFF (Mercedes)

PRESS CONFERENCE

Toto, we’ll start with you. Great race here obviously 12 months ago between your two drivers. This year, though, it seems you’ve got Ferrari breathing down your neck. How much of a restriction is that on your freedom to let your drivers do the race they want to do? 

Toto WOLFF: First of all, it’s true, we have great memories of the race last year. But this year the equation changed, because clearly looking at the first three races Ferrari’s back and they they looked very strong this afternoon in the long runs. We will still follow the principle of letting Lewis and Nico race but there could be a situation where you just need to be aware that there is a new competitor, it’s not as easy, we don’t have the gap anymore like last year and this needs to be considered.

Can you just drill down a little bit more into what we saw today? You mentioned, obviously you were quickest with the two cars in Free Practice 2, but looking at the long runs, at times it even looked, if anything, that the Ferrari was a shade faster.

TW: Yeah. The Ferrari looked the quickest car out there in Free Practice 2. Very stable quick tyres, lap times. That was a Freudian [slip], tyres. We just need to get our act together and analyse it. This is Friday, Sunday’s going to be the important time.

Thank you. Rob, if I can come to you: what’s the state of play this weekend with engines for your four drivers that are using your engine this weekend?

Rob WHITE: Clearly we had a bad day at the office in China and the consequences of that bear very heavily, individually and collectively, on everybody at Viry. It’s never good to cause trouble for the teams or the drivers. So the state of play is that we’ve put a huge amount of energy into understanding where we were after China. That was a big logistical battle. Just the mucky detail of it is that the only legal way to get the engines out of China was for them to travel with the freight to Bahrain as expected. To get them to France to be stripped down and inspected would have been Wednesday or Thursday. So we didn’t do that. We had a welcoming committee. We had some specialists from France who made the trip in the other direction. We dismantled the engines in the garage during the week so that we could put a finger on exactly what went wrong in China. The situation is that we understand what happened to the two engines that failed during the race. One of the incidents, the one that happened to Kvyat, was an incident that we know about, which we were aware of a vulnerability for, and for which we have what we believe is a good counter-measure. We don’t expect to be vulnerable to that going forward. Unfortunately the failure that ended Max’s race was not of that type. We were absolutely not expecting such a thing at such a low mileage, so a real shame to end the race for him in that way. The time is such that the best we have for this week is engines of a similar spec, that we must look after during the Friday, Saturday and of course Sunday running, but we are vulnerable to that failure still. Looking forward of course the task back at the factory is to create a solution to that for the races ahead. We’re not out of the woods yet on that one.

You’ve obviously pushed very hard on development, to try to close the gap. Have you pushed too hard and come unstuck or is it more complicated than that?

RW: It’s true to say that we are paying the price for a late change of tack, a late arrival of the spec for the start of the season, taking account of some of the things in the environment that moved on – we all know the story about tokens that moved on just before Christmas. That’s part of it, not the whole story. We must keep our head down and deliver the solutions to the issues that were encountered earlier on but honestly a lot of the direct consequence is to do with the lateness of the arrival of the spec. We’re still on track delivering the solutions to the earlier problems. We’ll continue those. Obviously in Australia the big word was driveability and I think we’ve eliminated that from our vocabulary and now we’re hoping to be in a proper situation for Monaco, where of course it’s very important. We’ve got performance improvements in the pipeline for delivery later in the season, again taking into account the token situation. And the game now is to fold into the plan the consequences of the failures, which clearly puts the whole supply chain under a lot of pressure. So that’s the way the land lies going forward.

Thank you very much. John, coming to you: double finish last time out in Shanghai. What are the steps along the pathway now and when do you get your 2015 car?

John BOOTH: That’s the big question Ted.

James

JB: You both look alike! Yes, a double finish last time out in China. That was a major step forward for us. That was a major step forward for us. We ran every session on plan. Operationally we’re working as we were last year. So that step has been achieved. As for the 2015 car, our aim has always been for the August break, as with arriving in Australia it is a very aggressive target and will take a lot of achieving. But when we get back from these first four flyaway races we just really need to sit down and see if we can bring all the areas together that need bringing together to achieve that in that time frame.

Well you’re here and you’re racing. What are the prospects for attracting fresh investment?

JB: I’m sure there are prospects but we have a commercial plan that we’re comfortable is sustainable for our model and we’re confident in the investors we have now or the owner we have now to take us forward over the next few years.

Thank you for that. Same question to you in a way Monisha, what does riding high in fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship, as you are at this stage, what does that mean for the prospect of attracting new income, new investors to the team?

Monisha KALTENBORN: Well, it’s definitely a better position than we were in last year! But we’ve seen that… let’s say like in 2012, that even if you have good performance it does not automatically mean that you have sponsors lining up after the race weekend. So it’s important that we keep this up as well as we can, that we make the most of the opportunities we get, try to develop according to what’s possible for us and just make sure that we have the stability in the team.

Well, as we said, you’re riding high at the moment in fourth. You finished behind Marussia last year and this year you’re ahead, at this stage, of Red Bull and McLaren. Have you had to revise your targets of where you want to finish at the end of this year?

MK: I think we’re very mindful of the situation. We’re at the start of the season, there are a lot more races to go. We know it’s going to be very tough. We don’t dream about positions at the moment. For us it’s important that we stick to the plan we have, the development plan, and make sure that we just make the most of it.

Eric, coming to you. Obviously from the outside it looks like a rather demoralizing start to the season but from the inside do you, as the leader, see the team channeling together, getting behind everybody and pushing in the same direction? Do you see all the positive signs you want to see?

Eric BOULLIER: Yeah, I think obviously for the outside world, it’s a bit frustrating to be where we are, definitely where we don’t want to be. But from the inside we know what we are doing, we know what we want to achieve and we also know what’s coming along. There is some process to go through and I think, as you can see from the outside, the team itself, the atmosphere is good, everybody is working, everybody is concentrating and focused on what they have to do and we will get there eventually.

And do you still maintain your view that you had before the season started that you will be competitive by the end of the season?

EB: Yeah, I think so. Still. Obviously before the summer or from the European [season] onwards you will see a lot of development coming, both chassis and engine, so we may expect to be more competitive definitely by the end of the season.

Q: Maurizio, coming to you, do you feel that you are breathing down Mercedes’ neck right now?

Maurizio ARRIVABENE: If I’m going to tell you that we are going to win the championship, you think that I am out of mind, like a terrace in the house. We are happy, of course, we are coming back, we are following our programme but I think that Mercedes is still a super-strong team.

Q: You’ve been around the Ferrari team in various different capacities for a very long time. What do you think that Sebastian Vettel is bringing to the culture of the team?

MA: It’s the enthusiasm and the passion, like all the other guys. A driver that is so committed to Ferrari is making our job easy, I have to say. And on top, he’s said many, many times that since he was a kid, he was dreaming about Ferrari and he always liked it. Of course, last year it was impossible for him to say so, but now he’s liberated and he’s telling the truth. And then, as a driver, it’s very, very strong, very precise. Many, many journalists, they were asking about him and Michael. I said the things they have in common is the culture but then they are two different drivers with two different characters. But somehow, when you recognize that, there is something in common. I think this is based… this is a cultural base. It has nothing to do with the personality of the two.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Oubay Zakkar – Autosport Middle East) My question is for Maurizio. One of the main issues for Ferrari in the last few years was the lack of correlation between data from the wind tunnel and the numbers from the track. Has this issue been solved? Is the car working as expected?

MA: Yeah, now the car is working as expected. I think we have… last year technical staff, they were in charge of developing the car in the wind tunnel, they were doing a lot of work to make sure everything was going well, and now the correspondence between the data we have on the track and the wind tunnel is fine. We are happy.

Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Question to the five team principals. Last week former FIA President Max Mosley came out and said that he thought, in order to prevent Formula One from imploding, the existing contracts should be torn up and the money should be distributed more equally.  How do you feel about the implications of his statement?

MK: Well obviously I can just speak for the contract we have at Sauber, and not being one of the teams that are considered to be, let’s say, privileged financially, I wouldn’t mind if that contract is torn.

JB: Obviously we support any steps in that direction. I don’t think it’ll ever be quite that radical – but we would definitely support any steps in that direction.

EB: The more you go through the grid, the more reluctance you will find, I guess, to tear apart the contract. But, I think it’s a comment from Max, it’s maybe out of context, so I think maybe F1 needs a bigger discussion, or a bigger picture to be discussed rather than just tearing apart the contract.

TW: It’s an unrealistic scenario. The contract’s in place, you can be happy or unhappy but the contract is there. If you want to do it better, next time around.

MA: I agree with Toto, the contract is there. But if Max has an idea to break the contract I want to tell him what he’s going to do without a team like Mercedes or Ferrari. Then he can organize a funny championship and then he can distribute the money.

Q: (Jerome Pugmire – AP) Question to Toto. You just said “we don’t have the gap as last year and this has to be considered,” is this because perhaps you’re slightly worried that in particularly Nico may be getting too sidetracked by the competition with Lewis, as was shown by his comments last week? And perhaps maybe he should be concentrating a bit more on the threat from Ferrari?

TW: No. That has no correlation. The point is that when you have a gap like we had last year, it is easy to compromise on race strategy sometimes because you want to assure you are keeping as neutral to the two of them, as neutral as possible. And sometimes that is not the quickest race. So there needs to be a situation… you have seen the situation in Malaysia where the two cars have been stuck up behind each other on the pitstop because we wanted to mirror the race strategy. It could be that we simply split the strategies, if needed, just to make sure that, if you are wrong with one of the strategies, at least the other car is able to achieve a good finish, or win the race.

Q: (Kate Walker – motorsport.com) I have a question for the five team principals. In Formula One talk of succession planning usually focused on a post-Bernie world. I was wondering, the extent to which you think continuity is important for success – and whether or not you each have succession plans in place for your own eventual departures for the team or the sport?

Maurizio, you’ve only just started, have you got a succession plan?

MA: Regarding me? I’ve just arrived. C’mon! First of all I have to apologise. Before I said a Championship without Ferrari, Mercedes – but of course I mean all the historical constructors, with all respect for everybody here. Answering your question, in all the company, that they are called Company with a capital C, it’s normal that you have a succession plan. This is not anything new, it’s something that is part of the commitment that anyone, or everyone, who has an important position, must respect. For me, succession plan is part of the job that you have to do. Not for me yet, I hope.

Monisha, do you have someone in mind?

MK: Maybe Peter Sauber? No, I have not… I’ve had enough other issues to handle than looking at this. Maybe it’s a question more for Peter indeed. But coming back to what you said about continuity. I think that’s a very important point for Formula One itself. I think it’s what many teams have been saying, particularly on the technical side. If you can have a certain continuity and stability, it allows you to foresee the future better, to maybe also stabilize situations in teams better.

Toto?

TW: The trouble is others do your succession plan. I hope there is no succession plan in place for me yet.

John?

JB: I’m very happy and very proud to hold this position but time marches on and I’m sure eventually whoever makes the decisions will have the plan in place.

Eric?

EB: Well, McLaren is a big organization so I’m sure there is somebody, somewhere in McLaren who could step up and take my job, yeah.

Q: (Luigi Perna – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Question for Arrivabene: yesterday Kimi Raikkonen was asked about his future in Formula One and the possibility to go on with Ferrari, and he answered that it was up to Ferrari to decide in the end. Can you say something about that?

MA: You see, it’s only Italians who are calling me Arrivabene.  Everybody they are calling me Maurizio. The Italians call me Arrivabene, very formal. It’s early to talk… you want to know what I said to Kimi? He was telling me about the contract and I said to him, it depends on your performance. And Kimi, he’s the kind of person that he appreciates when you’re talking with him in a very transparent way and straight to his face. Kimi knows, now it’s early to talk about this at the moment. I’m happy about the performance of Kimi but he needs to push and he knows that.

Q: (Ted Kravitz – Spy Sports) Maurizio – or Mr Arrivabene – we saw you being part of a football human wall in front of Sebastian’s car at the end of the session. Is this Ferrari’s idea of being more open and accessible to fans and TV viewers?

MA: When you have passion for something, you are screaming like a football supporter, it’s normal. If I understand the question well.

Q: You were shielding the front of the car after Sebastian broke his front wing so the TV audience couldn’t see what you were doing.

MA: Normally, when some parts of the car are quite sensitive, we try to do our best to make sure that you don’t have 10,000 cameras as we had. They try to find out what’s going on. The real surprise that sometimes it’s tactical this thing. We were put in the wall but there’s nothing to see. I was there because I was curious.

Q: (Ted Kravitz – Spy Sports) Can I just follow that up? That was my point. Obviously you’re not so naive to think that every other team doesn’t have very detailed photos of every part of your car anyway, so really, ultimately, aren’t you just blocking the cameras from seeing?

MA: Yeah, you’re right. The cameramen are there to do their job, of course, but sometimes there are too many and sometimes they are turning around the box and taking video but not with the intention to share something with another team. They do it like this. Occasionally we have a problem, a real problem on the brakes and the guys naturally, they start to cover. Maybe it’s a bad habit but I was there to be with them but to look at Seb’s brakes and to understand. I’m not naive, I’m new, I need to learn.

Q: (Luke Murphy – Formula Spy) Maurizio, we heard Sebastian say at the end of the session that he was struggling to decelerate the car and this was after the incident with Sergio Perez. Have you had a chance to look into that at all, or is there any issue identified?

MA: No, we were looking at the telemetry and we saw something wrong with the brakes. This was the reason why we were looking and the guys they took away the carbon fibre shape to understand it better. This is what we learned from the telemetry but they are still looking now.

Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) To Toto, Maurizio and Rob in particular, but Eric if you’d like to comment as well. I’m talking about the fifth engines that were discussed in Malaysia. Toto, you said last week that a proposal had been submitted to the FIA regarding this. What sort of progress has there been, and Rob, could it get to a stage where you’ve gone through four engines already, you’ve taken a penalty for the fifth before the regulation is introduced?

TW: We’ve submitted the proposal to the FIA, the proposal is with the FIA and I guess it’s going to be discussed the next time around in a strategy meeting.

RW: For the time being, we know what the sporting regulations say, that it’s four engines. It’s obvious that we’re over-using engines and to some extent then the way to deal with that is one step at a time, one race at a time and the penalty regime is what it is. If the regulations change along the way, then we will adapt our planning to take account of that. It will be the same for everybody the day that it happens if it happens. I understand from what Toto just said, that there is a proposal to be discussed. I can’t imagine it will be very complicated. I guess there’s one place in the rules where we would have to put five instead of four, and so how we would deal with that I think will  become clear as time goes by.

EB: I’ve not see the proposal so I don’t know. It has to be discussed in the strategy group, I guess we have to wait for the strategy group and see what comes out. I guess and I hope it’s sensible, even if Honda is new this year in F1, we are maybe struggling with reliability but maybe less than my colleague here, but I think it would be welcome and cheaper solution to run a fifth engine because I think all the engine manufacturers have realised that going into strong reliability performance actually costs a lot of money.

MA: As Toto said, the power unit engineers get together, they’re talking about that proposal and that proposal is going to be discussed in the strategy group on the 14^th of May.

MK: As a customer team on engines, we of course follow what our engine supplier says, but for us, the rules are given. We suffered that much last year, also with the engine we had. Some engine manufacturers do the job better, others don’t and it’s just different every season. So we say if there has to be an additional engine, as the smaller teams look primarily at the cost of it, and under what conditions it will be introduced, and what it’s meant to be doing.

JB: We’re perfectly happy with the four engine rule but sometimes rules have to be changed for the good of the sport and this may be one of those but I’m sure it will get discussed at the strategy group.

Q: (Nahed Sayouh –Autosport Middle East) Do you believe that refuelling should come back into F1 in order to make a new challenge for the designers and revive the spectacle, and make a difference in the race strategies?

RW: It’s been a while since we’ve had refuelling. I think the reasons that it went away were appropriate at the time. The current set of technical and sporting regulations has been constructed without refuelling, so I think it’s a difficult thing to consider in isolation but I personally feel that the current regulations are very easy to understand. It’s obvious that there would be an immediate improvement in the show as a result of refuelling, but all of the things we know about about refuelling would remain the case. There’s a lot of kit involved, there’s a lot more people involved at a pit stop and so on and so forth. So I’m pretty neutral from an engine provider perspective. From a fan perspective, I don’t personally particularly yearn for the idea.

MA: It depends, because it’s not a personal… it’s going to be easy to say refuelling or no refuelling. You have to think about what’s going on, about the issue whether you should do the refuelling. That means that you change a lot of the regulations that are related to the engine. Of course it involves the chassis of the car, so it’s something that is more complicated to discuss. It’s not just a question of in or out. Of course, if you ask somebody who would like to see the cars being refuelled they are going to say no, but I don’t think it’s a question of refuelling yes, or refuelling no. It’s a question of what we are going to do in the future and this is a matter that is going to be discussed at the strategy group.

eom/FIA transcript of the Press Conference

DRIVERS

1 – Sebastian VETTEL (Ferrari)

2 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)

3 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)

 

PODIUM INTERVIEWS

(Conducted by Eddie Jordan)

Sebastian, you look amazingly emotional, what’s the matter with you? The last time we saw you crying you went on to win world championships.

Sebastian VETTEL: It’s been a while that I haven’t been on the top step. It’s my first time obviously with Scuderia Ferrari. I’m speechless. Obviously a big change over the winter and the welcome the team gave me is just fantastic. The fans. I’ve only done two races but it’s a great atmosphere. I’m very, very happy. Proud of today, we beat them fair and square. A great achievement, we have a great car. Plenty of positives and I guess that’s why it is a bit emotional.

I don’t need to tell you but now, having won here four times, no other driver has ever achieved that. So that’s another little one in the book.

SV: It is bloody hot though! I think today is a very special day and will always remain a part of me. Thank you very much, as I said, to the whole team. Grazie. Thank you to the fans.

Lewis, first of all, Arnie says ‘well done’ and he’s allowed me to come and talk to you today. He’s coming back to see you later. So, Arnie well done last race. Lewis, that was a surprise and you weren’t very happy with your car, we could hear what you were saying to your engineers. Tell us what was going on there?

Lewis HAMILTON: Well, firstly, huge congratulations to Ferrari and Sebastian, they did an amazing job. Jeez, they had some good pace today. I gave it everything I could; we did as a team. We knew coming into this weekend that they had made a step, we didn’t know how big but they were too fast for us today.

Obviously you’ve converted so many… what, the last eight pole positions into wins. You just missed out today. Does that mean you’ve got to kick-start it again and start thinking about the strategy for the future?

LH: We’ll just get back together as a team and try to figure out where we were losing time today. My balance wasn’t great particularly, so there are definitely areas we can improve on and I’m sure we’ll be fighting for the next race, which I’m really excited about.

You talked with your engineers, we were a bit confused and you were a bit confused. You didn’t know whether you were going to have to stop again. What was that discussion or were you not supposed to hear that?

LH: I don’t think I was supposed to hear it. In general the team did a fantastic job. I’m really grateful for the car we have. The fans have been fantastic this weekend. Thank you so much guys.

Nico, another podium. I know you teased him at the last race, you said come on Sebastian, get a bit more speed and you can come up and join us guys. You didn’t think he was going to be there that quickly did you?

Nico ROSBERG: No, but all I can say now, on behalf of our team is: game on, Ferrari!

Absolutely, we saw that today. And in everyone’s interest, it is the most amazing thing, because we don’t want to see you run away with the championship and to see Ferrari up there fighting you, as obviously as Sebastian has said, fair and square, this was a titanic battle that everybody here absolutely enjoyed. Can I just ask you a question about tyres? You didn’t need to run the softer tyres yesterday morning in the first session and you could have done with that tyre today. Was that a mistake?

NR: I don’t know the exact details about the strategy because it was quite complex out there. I’m sure we did a good job and congrats, Ferrari did an awesome job today and they deserved to win and we’ll be back next race.

Indeed, I don’t have to remind everybody here that the first person to win in the modern era in a Mercedes was a couple of years ago, in China, which you won. Are you going to win there?

NR: Yeah, China is a great track for me, so I look forward to that and of course we’re going for the win.

And you’re going to beat this man here, which is obviously what everybody wants to see, we want a big fight with Lewis. Is that going to continue?

NR: Definitely yes, I’ll be pushing him hard; definitely.

Am I allowed to sit down here, because it’s been a very hot day and we can see… c’mon give him another round of applause. He deserves it after that. He’s exhausted, all of them are, all of the drivers, each and every single one of them. So Brazil 2013, I don’t have to remind you, that was your last win and you just didn’t look comfortable at all last year and now we see you back in the thing, waving your finger, emotional. The transformation! Tell us what it’s like?

SV: I don’t know. I’m speechless. Last year was not a good year for me. I think we had a great car but I was just struggling to extract the performance. This year’s car seems to suit me very well. Obviously it’s a big change but the team has been phenomenal, welcoming me the first day. I remember when the gate opened in Maranello it was like a dream coming true. I remember the last time I was there was as a young kid watching Michael over the fence driving around in the Ferrari and now I’m driving that very red car. It’s incredible. The day today, the race, really spot on, the whole team was there, great strategy, great pace, we beat them fair and square, so thanks to the team, thanks to all the team in Maranello, really, really great day.

Just before we sign off I have to ask you this: it was an inspired decision for Lewis, leaving McLaren to come to Mercedes, it made such a transformation to the great pace they’ve had in the last couple of years and it would appear it’s exactly the same for you. Do you feel it’s possible to win a championship in this car?

SV: I hope so. That’s why I signed up! That’s our goal and that’s the mission – to bring the world championship back to Maranello. I think for today we have to enjoy the day. We know that these guys are incredibly strong and difficult to beat but today we did an excellent job and that’s what we have to keep doing for the whole year: try to get the best and then we’ll see where we’re at. We know there is a long way ahead of us but for now, to be honest, I don’t care. I want to celebrate today, I want to get pissed tonight, I don’t care.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Sebastian, the emotion, and I think possible the tiredness as well after a very long and hard drive, is very clear, but you’re first win since 2013 and like your childhood idol you have won a grand prix for Ferrari. Just tell us how that feels and also clearly the strategy was a crucial part of that, the decision to stay out when the safety car was deployed, but you then had quite a lot to do to deliver?

SV: A phenomenal day. How does it feel? It feels incredible. To see the guys when I was on the podium, to look down, it was an incredible atmosphere. I can only recall from the victories Fernando had with Ferrari and recall especially the victories Michael celebrated with the team – I think there were one or two – it’s incredible. To become part of that team is something special. It makes me very happy obviously. Last year was tough. The first win since more than a year’s time now. I definitely missed not just the champagne but the top step in particular. So great to come back after a tough season last year where I think I just didn’t get on top of the car. This year the balance of the car seems to suit me and has come my way, also I think Kimi’s way more than last year in general. Very pleased. The strategy today was also ace. So big thanks to the guys. They pulled in obviously, which I think we were a bit surprised by, but we saw on Friday that they weren’t too happy on the medium compound and Lewis was struggling in the first stint and I was able to keep up with him, which I enjoyed a lot. And then I knew I had to deliver, trying to make those tyres last and trying to go as fast as I can. Second stint he was chasing me down, which was tough, so he had a string second stint. In the end I think I was able to rebalance the car a little more and I was able to, yeah, have a solid gap the last couple of laps. But to be honest… I shouldn’t say it but I don’t know, I was shitting myself the last couple of laps because here and there the thought was coming to my head, I was looking at the top of the chassis and thinking “this is a red, you’re about to win” and then I thought, “OK, stop thinking that, otherwise you’ll miss the next apex or something”. Really, really a great relief I crossed the chequered flag and saw the guys, as I said, on the podium. So a really special day and a big thanks to all the mechanics and engineers and all the team in Maranello. There are a lot of people there and a lot of potential and power going into the project. I think we have done a massive step over the winter and it’s their victory today.

Q: Lewis, coming to you, you’re still in the lead of the drivers’ championship after this race but as Sebastian was alluding to there, clearly it was a frustrating day for you. With the way that the car was behaving, with the way that the tyres were behaving and obviously with different strategies at play, do you still believe that was a winnable race for you?

LH: Well, we have to give it to them, they did a fantastic job this weekend and big congratulations to Sebastian and Ferrari. We were not, and I was not, expecting them to be as quick as they were today. I think it’s great for the fans to see. I don’t really know whether, if I’d stayed out with him, whether that would have made much of a difference. They were probably just as good if not a little bit better perhaps on tyre deg. So I think it would have still been very, very close. But I think naturally after that first stop I had so much ground to catch up it was pretty much impossible.

Q: Coming to you Nico, obviously as we’ve been hearing, the strategy was decisive today. Talk us through, from your point of view, the decision to come in under the Safety Car and to go onto the hard tyre in that second stint.

NR: I think… it was the plan from before the race. If there’s a Safety Car on that lap, then we box. I think we didn’t expect so many people to stay out, probably, and also I didn’t expect, of course, to lose that much time in the pitstop waiting for people to go by. Because the pitlane was so wide, so we thought we could go alongside. So, those were the problems, and then just getting through the pack afterwards was very difficult and cost a lot of tyre degradation also. So that really put me on the back foot. I tried to fight back as much as possible but couldn’t quite get back to Lewis. Although I lost a lot from that pitstop phase, I’m happy that I got very close to Lewis, but not enough to attack or anything.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Haoran Zhou –  LETV) Question to Sebastian. The last time the German and Italian national anthems played in this sequence was in Italia. 2008 Italian Grand Prix. And the last time in red was 2006 Shanghai. Historic moment: describe your emotions on the podium when you hear the Italian national anthem.

SV: Yeah, you’re right about Monza 2008. It’s true. Probably just as emotional. Look, I’ve been my entire life with Red Bull and celebrating that first win at Monza was unique. Then, I think winning the first time with Red Bull in China, 2009, was unique. This is just as unique. Maybe a little bit better because it means a little bit extra… I don’t know. It’s my dream. When I grew up, Michael was my hero and for all of us – and I speak for all of the kids at the go-kart track at the time in Germany – we were looking up to him and when he turned up every year and to look after us a little bit, it made our lives. So, that’s why I think today… I probably don’t understand yet how special it is. Very, very emotional. To see the guys there, and to realise at the parade lap, I really tried to soak everything in, enjoy the fans here around Malaysia and, yeah, I recognised obviously for the first time, all the Ferrari flags. So really, really happy and just proud. Especially proud to beat these guys because they have been phenomenally strong the last year and a bit, so to be the first one to beat them really fair and square, I think is an incredible achievement, so big thanks to all the guys back in Maranello.

 Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Congratulations Sebastian, you’ve won already your second race with Ferrari and it took more than that for Michael. Do you think it’s possible to start winning as regularly as he did?

SV: You’re asking a lot! Probably you’re right, I guess you know the statistics – but I don’t think his car in ’96 was as good as our car this year and I think if we could get anywhere close to – and I’m speaking for the whole team, I’m speaking for both drivers – if we could get anywhere close to the victories he had with Ferrari then we’d be in a very, very good place. Yeah, very, very large footsteps – but the target is not to fill those, the target is ideally to leave some new ones.

Q: (Cesare Manucci – Autosprint) Question for Nico. Can you describe the start when Vettel squeezed you against the wall?

NR: Well, he left enough space, so it’s OK. I closed my eyes and went for it. It was exactly the same last year, so I expected him to leave the space again, just like last year – but all I can do is pray: ‘please leave some space’ and he did. It was enough, so it’s OK. But a centimetre more would not have been OK anymore. It’s OK. It was a good battle in Turn One also. Squeezed me again onto the inside so I had to sort of avoid a little bit or we would have touched but yeah, fair play.

Do you want to comment on that Sebastian?

SV: Well, I was surprised to see him again. Just like last year, yesterday, Déjà vu, a tenth behind Lewis in qualifying and then side-by-side with Nico into Turn One. I really wanted to get that tow off Lewis’ car, so I was trying not to be squeezed too much to the left but I had to give him room and then in Turn One obviously I tried to stay ahead – was crucial for our race – as you said it was hard but, well I hope, I just gave him enough room.

Q: (Andrea Cremonese  – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Question for Sebastian and one for Lewis. Sebastian, what did you think when you passed Red Bull and if today you reply to all the guys who think you won because you have the strongest car in the past at Red Bull? And for Lewis, if it was not a mistake at the end, don’t try to bring a set of medium used to try to attack?

SV: Well, I saw that we overtook them – but I know the team inside-out and they are very strong and obviously now they are in a difficult time but I’m sure they will come back and be a strong competitor. I’ve been with them for a long time, I know their strengths and one of their strengths is to come back. The second part of the question: I don’t know. I don’t really care. I don’t think I have anything to prove. The person who puts the most pressure on myself is probably me. So, I expect just the best from myself and if I don’t succeed them I’m not happy. Last year I didn’t have much reason to be happy. This year I’ve been reasonably happy with what I’ve achieved so far. Everything else… everyone is free to have whatever sort of opinion they want to have.

Lewis?

LH: I think it’s impossible to do a fourth stop. I was already trying to chase down a 13s, or maybe a 16s gap I think it was. It would have been close to a 40s, or 30s gap if I’d done another stop which would have been impossible to close.

Q: (Peter Windsor – F1 Racing) Sebastian said earlier that he could see you were struggling in that first stint. I just wondered if you agreed with that and indeed if that was going on. And just to expand on that previous question, the impression I got was whether he was asking whether maybe you should have run a set of used softs or mediums in that last stint instead of…

LH: …the hards. Sorry, I thought you were talking about another stop.

Q: (Peter Windsor – F1 Racing) I think you questioned that on the radio as well, whether you could have been on mediums instead of… The first question was were you really struggling early on or just holding…?

LH: Yes, I was. I was, definitely. Just generally, all day today, I was struggling with the balance, very very uncomfortable with the car, a lot of understeer in the low which inevitably snaps into oversteer everywhere, so I couldn’t really look after my tyres and I was doing everything with my controls but it really wasn’t… I couldn’t really find a good balance. When I went to the option tyre, the car was good or better so I was able to be a little bit more consistent and then closed down the gap. I hadn’t been told but I thought we would be going onto that tyre again at the end but we went onto the other one which wasn’t good for me as I’d experienced before, but I did the best job I could with it. I think ultimately the team made the best choices we could today and we’ll try to analyse and improve for next time.

Q: (Luigi Perna – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Sebastian, everyone was expecting you and Ferrari to be struggling much more in this part of the season; what is the secret of this transformation compared to last year: ideas, man, money? And did you expect to be able to win so early?

SV: Of course not. I think for all of us we didn’t know, when we started in Melbourne, where we were, where the journey was going to start but I think the most important thing is that for both Kimi and myself, we had a very good feeling since the first test. We were happy with how the car feels and we were able to build onto that. We had some issues to solve which I think that just in time we got on top of so great job from the guys. So far, reliability has been very strong and I think today the key was to look after our tyres. That’s, I think, where we were able to close the gap a lot compared to Australia, compared to Mercedes. What it is, I think as I said, first of all, the guys have worked over the winter, tidied up a lot of things. Obviously I wasn’t around last year and I don’t know how last year’s car was but I was told that this year’s car is a lot better. I’m very happy with how the car feels, with the balance. It allows me to play and to work which I think is always crucial as a driver and then I think there’s a fresh wind, there’s a lot of new people. Some people have changed their position and so far I think the atmosphere is great, people are happy just to be there and do their job. They’re very passionate and I think that’s the most important thing. Everything else, of course, at this stage, is a bit of a surprise  for us but of course we take it. The most important thing again, just like after Australia, we need to confirm that in the next races and then gradually try to catch these guys.

Q: (Wei An Mao – Titan Media) Seb, in two weeks you are travelling to Shanghai. A lot of Chinese fans have a special passion for Ferrari. Will that be extra motivation?

SV: I think it will be special. Obviously I’ve always felt that there are a lot of fans, especially for Ferrari and especially for Kimi in China. I think if they wave the Ferrari flag then I feel they also wave it a little bit for me so I’m looking forward to that and obviously there’s always a great fan base for all of us, for the drivers and therefore China is a unique event. It’s a crazy track and crazy conditions, and anything can happen there but for sure, we will be very happy to go there after the great success this weekend.

Q: (Wei An Mao – Titan Media) Lewis, in two weeks you are travelling to Shanghai; you have the most victories there. You’ve got three wins there, are you looking for the fourth one?

LH: For me, going to China is one of my favourite races, simply because of the fans. Every time I… I don’t know how they know but from the moment we land at the airport they know we’re there. The weirdest thing is that I go to a restaurant… I leave the hotel and go to a restaurant and they beat me, even though they’re standing waving to me at the hotel, they beat me to the restaurant, so I don’t know how they do that. And then I leave the restaurant and they’re waving bye to me and they beat me back to the hotel. I don’t even know how they do it. There’s only one way! It’s amazing the support we get there and of course I’ve had some good races there. I think ultimately my assumption is that this weekend the heat got to us with the tyres and it will be a lot cooler at the next race, so I hope that we pick up our pace a bit more.

Q: (Elmar Dreher – German Press Agency DPA) Sebastian, do you see Ferrari now on the level of Mercedes? How big is the gap still?

SV: I think, as Lewis touched on, they probably struggled a little bit more with the heat today than they expected. Equally, I think we didn’t struggle with the heat as much as we probably expected, so both things put together made us very competitive today and able to beat them fair and square. For the next race, I think again, a completely different type of track China is a unique track is many ways, supposed to be a lot cooler. I think Mercedes were struggling with the hot conditions at this stage of the season, so we expect them to be very very strong, and they are the ones that usually set the pace. Today we could capitalise on their weakness a little bit and for the next race, we just try to race as hard as we can and see where it takes us.

Q: (Chris Medland – F1i.com) Nico, you said that at the same stage back in Melbourne that you wanted Ferrari to get closer but obviously they’re more than closer now; what’s your feeling after the race? Is it good that you’ve got a competitor that’s from another team or is it a bit of fear that they’ve made such a big step in such a short time?

NR: Big difference between get closer and beat us because they are faster, massive difference there. Happy? No, not at all. Definitely the opposite of happy. But for sure, on behalf of our team, as I said on the podium, bring it on. We’re going to fight back big time.

Q: (Chris Lines – AP) Nico, at that first stop behind the safety car, you had to be stacked behind Lewis and that cost you several places. Was there any debate from you with the team about that or was that just a pre-arranged thing?

NR: That was to be expected and everything, I knew that was coming, but I think we underestimated, afterwards, not being able to pull out into the pit lane because of other people coming somehow. Even that we had planned and we were planning to release me just alongside the others but maybe they judged it to be too risky and too bigger risk. I think it was also a Red Bull who was stacking with the other Red Bull and he was waiting and that meant that I couldn’t go or something like that so we need to look into that. And that definitely cost me a huge amount of time, so tried to fight back as much as possible, to get back at Lewis at the end of the race but I just lost too much in that phase.

Q: (Nicola Pohl – Bild) Sebastian, is there anybody you dedicate this win to?

SV: Well, I think it would be the team. As soon as the gates opened at Maranello I was amazed by the manpower, amazed by the size of the factory, the amount of people working in the race team and I think it’s a unique constellation on the grid that the team has, so probably dedicate it to all the teams there, to all the people there. Having been there a couple of times now, many times, and also been in the place where the whole company grabs lunch, to see the amount of people all sharing that passion, I think that since they’ve been waiting for that win for so long, I think it’s really dedicating it to them because they’ve done a hell of a job over the winter to get us in that position.