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Tag: Formula One
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Lewis Hamilton storms to pole in the rain-hit Malaysian Grand Prix
Lewis Hamilton stormed to a second consecutive pole position in a rain-interrupted Malaysian Grand Prix qualifying session that saw Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel split the Mercedes drivers by claiming second place ahead of Nico Rosberg.
In advance of the start of qualifying race control put the chances of rain falling during the session at 60 per cent and as the cars prepared to go out for the start of Q1, the skies above Sepang became ominously dark.
Q1 passed without showers, however, and Lewis Hamilton claimed top spot with a lap of 1:39.269 on the medium tyre. Rosberg was second, just over a tenth behind his team-mate, while third place went to Sebastian Vettel, whose time of 1:39.814 was set on hard tyres. Two other drivers, Bottas in P5 and Raikkonen in P9 also only used hard tyres in the opening session. Fourth place went to Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz. Lotus’ Romain Grosjean was sixth ahead of Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson
Eliminated from the session in Q1 were Sauber’s Felipe Nasr in 15th place, the McLarens of Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso and the Manors of Roberto Merhi and Will Stevens. Stevens took no part in the session owing to a fuel pressure problem. Merhi, meanwhile, finished with a best time of 1:46.67. That was more than 7.4s adrift of Hamilton’s best and put the Manor driver outside the 107% of P1 time needed to race.
The start of Q2 saw a flurry of activity as teams dashed to get their drivers out on track as the threat of rain grew.
The first drops began to fall five minutes into the segment and the rush to put in a good lap. As conditions became undriveable a number of drivers were caught out, chief among them Raikkonen. The Ferrari driver finished in P11 with a time of 1:42.173, four tenths behind Ericsson who secured the final Q3 berth.
Behind Raikonen in P12 was Pastor Maldonado and the Venezuelan was followed, respectively, by the Force Indias of Nico Hullkenberg and Sergio Perez. Sainz, too, was caught out and the Spaniard’s good work in Q1 was undone by missed timing as the storm clouds closed in. The Toro Rosso driver qualified in P15.
With torrential rain sweeping across the circuit Q2 elapsed without further action and then race control announced that the start of Q3 would be delayed by at least 15 minutes.
The stoppage eventually extended to 35 minutes but at 6.15pm local time the final top-10 shootout began, with all 10 drivers taking to the track to test the conditions. Vettel set the first timed lap of the session a 1:53.178, but that was quickly beaten by the Mercedes of Hamilon and Rosberg, with the Briton heading the list with a time of 1:49.834. Max Verstappen was fourth for Toro Rosso after the first flying laps ahead of Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat.
Hamilton’s final lap was no better than his opening run but with Rosberg only improving marginally, Hamilton’s first flyer was enough to secure his 40th career pole position. It was Vettel who stole some of the day’s thunder, his final lap improvement to 1:49.908 putting him on the front row for the first time since Hungary last year and leaving him just seven hundredths of a second adrift of Hamilton.
Fourth behind Rosberg was Red Bull Racing’s Daniil Kvyat, with Toro Rosso teenager Max Verstappen an impressive sixth. Seventh place went to Williams’ Felipe Massa with Lotus’ Romain Grosjean eighth. The final top 10 places went to Valtteri Bottas in the second Williams and Ericsson in the Sauber.
2015 Malaysian Grand Prix – Qualifying
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:49.834s –
2 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:49.908s 0.074s
3 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:50.299s 0.465s
4 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:51.541s 1.707s
5 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull 1:51.950s 2.116s
6 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso 1:51.980s 2.146s
7 Felipe Massa Williams 1:52.473s 2.639s
8 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:52.980s 3.146s
9 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:53.179s 3.345s
10 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:53.260s 3.426s
11 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:42.173s –
12 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1:42.197s –
13 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:43.022s –
14 Sergio Perez Force India 1:43.468s –
15 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1:43.700s –
16 Felipe Nasr Sauber 1:41.308s –
17 Jenson Button McLaren 1:41.635s –
18 Fernando Alonso McLaren 1:41.745s –
19 Roberto Merhi Marussia 1:46.677s –
20 Will Stevens Marussia – –eom/ FIA Press Release
Hamilton takes pole at Sepang on Saturday. An FIA image -
Hami fastest in FP2 despite engine problem; Kimi second in both sessions
Hamilton of Mercedem AMG Petronas tops FP2 on Friday at Sepang. An FIA image Lewis Hamilton shrugged off the engine issues that saw him grind to a halt after just four laps in first practice to go quickest in the afternoon session, finishing just under four tenths ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, repeated his second place from the morning session.
After his morning woes Mercedes gout Hamilton back on track 40 minutes into the second session. He jumped to sixth fastest with his first flying lap but more problems struck when he lost telemetry a – problem that had also affected his first outing in the morning session.
He rejoined the action with 20 minutes left on the clock and soon went fastest with a time of 1:39,790 set on medium tyres.
That put him ahead of Raikkonen and also Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg, who after leading the morning session dropped back in the afternoon on the medium tyres runs after running quickest early in FP2 on the hard tyres. He finished the session 0.428s behind his team-mate.
Daniil Kvyat, who had spent the first part of the session garage-bound, impressed with the afternoon’s fourth fastest run but the good feeling at Red Bull resulting from his quali sim was short-lived as the Russian encountered engine problems.
It was a similarly difficult afternoon for team-mate Daniel Ricciardo who complained of problems with his car and then spent a lengthy period in the garage. He finished the session in 10th place.
Behind Kvyat came the Williams cars of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa, with Sebastian Vettel seventh. The Ferrari man was one a number of drivers to be caught out by lack of grip in the extremely hot conditions and he spun on his qualifying simulation. He then chose not to complete another run on the medium tyre and for the rest of the session focused on longer runs.
Eighth place went Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen, the Dutch teenager finishing 1.4s behind Hamilton but over a second faster than team-mate Carlos Sainz, who had eclipsed the youngster in the morning session. Ninth ahead of Ricciardo in FP2 was Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson.
Lotus’ Romain Grosjean reported a power loss during the session and eventually was sidelined 30 minutes before the end of the day’s running. He completed just seven laps.
Malaysian Grand Prix Free Practice Two
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m39.790s 16
2 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m40.163s 0.373s 29
3 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m40.218s 0.428s 26
4 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull 1m40.346s 0.556s 17
5 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1m40.450s 0.660s 31
6 Felipe Massa Williams1m40.560s 0.770s 27
7 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1m40.652s 0.862s 29
8 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso 1m41.220s 1.430s 30
9 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1m41.261s 1.471s 30
10 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1m41.799s 2.009s 8
11 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1m41.877s 2.087s 15
12 Felipe Nasr Sauber 1m41.988s 2.198s 30
13 Sergio Perez Force India 1m42.242s 2.452s 24
14 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1m42.291s 2.501s 31
15 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1m42.330s 2.540s 28
16 Fernando Alonso McLaren 1m42.506s 2.716s 25
17 Jenson Button McLaren 1m42.637s 2.847s 24
18 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1m42.948s 3.158s 7
19 Will Stevens Marussia 1m45.704s 5.914s 12
20 Roberto Merhi Marussia 1m47.229s 7.4eom/FIA press release
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Rosberg tops timesheet in the opening session; Hami suffers power unit problem
Sepang, 27 March 2015: Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg topped the timesheet in the opening practice session for Sunday’s Malaysian Grand Prix but it wasn’t plain sailing for the silver arrows in Sepang as Lewis Hamilton was sidelined early in the session by a power unit problem.
With just half an hour on the clock and with only four laps to his name, Hamilton steered his Mercedes off track at Turn 9 and stopped, radioing his team to explain that “something happened, I lost power”.
“There was a click in the rear, the gears still worked, I just pulled over and stopped like you told me to. I would have made it back,” he added.
Mercedes engineers, however, told the championship leader that they were concerned about the issue as the power unit in Hamilton’s car was a race engine.
The Briton’s car was brought back to the pits on the back of a truck and he took no further part in the session.
On the other side of the garage Rosberg had a more profitable outing. The German was fastest throughout the session, initially by almost a second and then, with half and hour remaining, improving to almost 1.5s ahead of Lotus’ Romain Grosjean.
Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen then went quicker than the French driver and eventually ended the session just under four tenths down on Rosberg’s best time of 1:40.124 with a late blast in the final minutes of the session.
Third place was taken by the Finn’s team-mate Sebastian Vettel. With extensive work being done on Vettel’s car the four-time champion didn’t set a time in the session until almost an hour had elapsed. He eventually climbed to third, however, to finish with a best lap of 1:40.985, eight tenths shy of Rosberg’s P1 time,
After running second to Rosberg at the hour mark, Grosjean dropped to fourth, just over three tenths of a second behind Vettel. Fifth was the impressive Carlos Sainz who powered his Toro Rosso to within 1.5s of Rosberg and almost two tenths of a second ahead of Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo. Sainz had also been second quickest to Rosberg for much of the opening phase of the session.
Max Verstappen was seventh in the second Toro Rosso ahead of Williams’ Valtteri Bottas, who was making his return to the cockpit after suffering a back injury in qualifying in Melbourne that kept him out of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
The Finn finished his first session 1.758 down on the morning’s P1 time but ahead of the second Red Bull of Daniil Kvyat and the Sauber of Marcus Ericsson.
At McLaren, Fernando Alonso made his long-awaited reappearance following the testing accident in February that kept him out of the season’s first race.
The Spaniard passed FIA medical checks on Thursday in Sepang and in his first session back completed 20 laps at the wheel of McLaren’s MP4-30 to claim 14th place on the timesheet, five hundredths of a second behind F1 weekend debutant and Ferrari Academy driver Raffaele Marciello, who took over Felipe Nasr’s Sauber for the session.
Alonso’s time put him ahead of the Force India cars of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez, with Jenson Button 17th in the second McLaren.
After failing to take to the track in Australia two weeks ago, the Manor Marussia team made its race weekend debut in Malasysia with Will Stevens completing eight laps of the Sepang Circuit for a best lap of 1:46.686. Team-mate Roberto Mehri also managed eight laps, with his best lap putting him 7.5s behind Rosberg, a result that would in qualifying put himself beyond the 107 per cent of the fastest time needed to race.
2015 Malaysian Grand Prix – Free Practice 1
1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:40.124s – 20
2 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:40.497s 0.373s 17
3 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:40.985s 0.861s 13
4 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:41.543s 1.419s 14
5 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1:41.596s 1.472s 26
6 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:41.787s 1.663s 15
7 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso 1:41.803s 1.679s 23
8 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:41.882s 1.758s 23
9 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull 1:42.055s 1.931s 18
10 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:42.064s 1.940s 16
11 Felipe Massa Williams 1:42.103s 1.979s 23
12 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1:42.567s 2.443s 19
13 Raffaele Marciello Sauber 1:42.621s 2.497s 13
14 Fernando Alonso McLaren 1:42.885s 2.761s 20
15 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:42.893s 2.769s 13
16 Sergio Perez Force India 1:43.054s 2.930s 15
17 Jenson Button McLaren 1:43.100s 2.976s 19
18 Will Stevens Marussia 1:46.686s 6.562s 8
19 Roberto Merhi Marussia 1:47.683s 7.559s 8
20 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes – – 4 laps (engine problem)eom/FIA transcript of press conference
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Melbourne was excellent but a lot of work to do: Robert Fernely, Sahara Force India
TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Robert FERNLEY (Force India), Matthew CARTER (Lotus), Paul HEMBERY (Pirelli), Franz TOST (Toro Rosso), Cyril ABITEBOUL (Renault Sport F1), Christian HORNER (Red Bull Racing)
PRESS CONFERENCE
Paul, can I start with you, what did we see today in practice with these extreme temperatures – up to 60 degrees this afternoon – what’s it going to mean for the racing this weekend?
Paul HEMBERY: Well, of course here it depends on what the weather brings along, that’s one of the big variables for everybody. But the hottest conditions we’ve seen for some time, hotter than anything we saw last year. The medium tyre in particular was overheating. About second, eight tenths to a second different maybe between the two compounds. If it was like this on Sunday that would lead us to certainly a three-stop race we think, which would be good after maybe a few too many one-stops in recent times. So it’s tough conditions but we didn’t see any levels of blistering that would have caused any concern. We had a little bit of graining this morning but the track evolves here quite quickly, so relatively straightforward for us.
Well you mentioned one-stops, we saw that in Melbourne last time out. The tyres, apparently, are more consistent but also a little bit, perhaps, more conservative. So without these higher temperatures, like this weekend, is one stop going to be more or less the default for the season or are you hoping to see more stops as we go on.
PH: Well the input has always been two to three in reality and that’s what we’ll be aiming to do. We’re understanding now the evolutions of the cars this year and as we gain more confidence as to where they all are then of course we can make choices that will make sure that we’re closer to the two and three stops rather than the one.
Franz, coming to you, obviously two exciting rookies in your cars this season, both had solid weekends at the opening round in Australia. What are you seeing that these two have got when you look at the data?
Franz TOST: I’ve seen that they are matured to do Formula One. They are very highly skilled and we prepared them quite well during the winter months and in Melbourne and so far they have really done a fantastic job. Also today I must say that both drivers competed quite well and I expect that if we get everything together both of them tomorrow will be within the first ten.
There were some quotes since the last grand prix from Dr Marko of Red Bull about a possible sale of Toro Rosso to Renault. As the team principal of the team what’s your view on that or do you have any comment on that?
FT: I think this would be a fantastic opportunity for Toro Rosso to make the next step forward, because the team wants to be established in the future within the first five in the constructors’ championship and to be part of a manufacturer, to work together with a manufacturer, to be owned by a manufacturer would be exactly this step forward which the team needs to be established in the first five.
Cyril, coming to you then, from a Renault points of view how far along are you in that consideration of acquiring a team like Toro Rosso and how would that fit in with a plan of working with Red Bull?
Cyril ABITEBOUL: I think the first priority is to get the engine right. We’ve seen in Melbourne that it was not really the start of season that we were expecting, both on track and off track, so before starting really to think about doing a car I think we need to get the engine under control, so that’s the priority for the time being. Then if we can do that we’ll have to review the situation from a marketing and strategic perspective and see if there is anything better to do than we are doing currently, from more of Formula One to less of Formula One, but for the time being we are focused on what we are doing.
Now it’s no secret that there have been quite a few quotes from you since the Australian Grand Prix about the problems with Red Bull’s competitiveness not being just about the power unit. Can you elaborate on that?
CA: What I can elaborate is that Melbourne was a big disappointment for the whole team and when I say the whole team it’s Red Bull, Renault and it’s Toro Rosso, so those two guys and myself were all extremely disappointed. I’m sure also extremely frustrated because of the amount of work and the level of expectation for this season when we are all very keen to reduce the gap to Mercedes. Everyone has his own challenge and agenda and we were not where we wanted to be. So I think this has created a lot of frustration and maybe led to some comments that were unjustified on both sides. But I think we need to move on and focus on making progress.
Christian, what’s your view on the points that Cyril has just raised?
Christian HORNER: Well, first of all I think he’s very brave to be sitting there between Toro Rosso and Red Bull. Look, I think that what happened in Melbourne happened. It was a frustrating weekend. We’re all racers at the end of the day; we all want to do the best that we can. Melbourne from start to finish didn’t go in any way to plan. I think that’s what’s encouraging is the way that the two teams have reacted between Melbourne and here and the positive steps that have been made, and we’re experiencing some of those steps on track today. It’s always a difficult situation particularly when you’re race team with an engine supplier and I think that the way the two teams have worked in the time available has been very commendable.
So what’s the best way forward for Red Bull Racing? And what are your thoughts also on what Franz has been saying about Renault’s possible takeover of Toro Rosso?
CH: Well, it sounds like Franz wants to sell his team to Cyril and we then need an engine. We’ve enjoyed a great deal of success with the Renault/Nissan alliance over the last five or six years – 50 grands prix have been won, eight world championships, four drivers’ and four constructors’ – all with Renault power. There are some very capable people within Viry but I think that we’ve seen this year, well not this year, really from last year that Mercedes have set the benchmark at an extremely high level. That’s not their fault, they’ve an incredibly good job and it’s down to the rest of us to work hard to try to catch up and I think the frustration more than anything coming into the first race was that expectations were higher than what we saw in Melbourne and we appear to have taken a retrograde step. But I think having researched properly into those issues, Renault have really started to understand them now and already we’ve seen here a positive step forward.
Robert, a delayed start to testing for you and Force India and the new car, so in light of that how satisfied were you with the points scored in Melbourne in the opening round?
Robert FERNLEY: I think Melbourne for us was an unexpected but very pleasurable finish because the team has worked exceptionally hard over the winter and it’s very nice to be able to go back with points in the first race and a very credible finish. So I think that was excellent but we’ve still got a lot of work to do.
What lies ahead for the rest of the season for Force India, especially as it seems that Toro Rosso, Lotus and Sauber are all stronger this year than last year?
RF: I think what we’ve got to look at is where Force India was at the end of last year and we had a choice to make between staying with our own wind tunnel in Brackley, which is a relatively old tunnel with a 50 per cent model, or restructuring the whole aero department and moving forward. Fortunately for us we’ve got Vijay there to support the team and he made the decision that we would move forward and we’ve restructured the aero. We’re now working exclusively in Cologne with the Toyota wind tunnel, we’ve upgraded the CFD. Unfortunately in that process there’s a slight step backwards and I don’t think we will see really Force India coming to the front again until probably mid-season.
Coming to you Matthew, it certainly looks like Lotus has put 2014 behind it and is getting back to the right level. What has it taken in financial and personnel terms to get here?
Matthew CARTER: I think it’s safe to say that the team had a very difficult 2013 off the track whereas on the track it was very successful. There was some natural loss of personnel and we needed to restructure the team and put it on a more secure footing, which is what we spent most of last year doing. The problems that we had on the track last year certainly didn’t reflect anything that was going on off the track. And then moving into this year, obviously with the change of power unit, with the restructure we have done, a more stable future, as it seems to be for Lotus, then we can hopefully turn that into some points.
And how far can you go? Are you targeting getting on the tail of that Ferrari/Williams battle or…?
MC: Absolutely, yes. We’re looking forward, not looking back. The performance in Melbourne was very strong. Obviously it was unfortunate what happened to both cars in the first lap, but the performance was very strong and yeah, we’re definitely looking forward.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Pierre van Vliet – F1i.com) A question for Cyril. Is it true you’re your hierarchy at Renault asked you to reply to Red Bull criticism? Otherwise, why be so aggressive publicly?
CA: Well, clearly I don’t think there was a lot of enthusiasm from the corporate offices on the Monday after the race but I don’t think that there is any surprise but obviously the first disappointment will come from engine performance over the weekend. No actually the answer to your question is no, because actually the sequence of events… the quote that you refer to, which again I would like to leave behind, is something that happened over the course of the weekend, so not in reaction to any sort of instruction.
Q: (Luc Domenjoz – Le Matin) It’s also a question for Mr Abiteboul. Since the engine regulation change, your engine seems to be far from being the best and this season seems to be even worse. In any other normal business in the world such a disaster would lead the person in charge to either resign or to be fired. So at Renault did you get your technical director’s resignation or do you consider changing your technical department?
CA: Well, there have been quite a few changes happening actually in the engine structure. First, I would like to comment that I don’t think we are that miles away or doing that bad, let’s see how the season is panning out. Clearly last year was not at the level that we wanted but obviously we were the only one to be capable of winning races [apart from Mercedes]. But answering to your question there have been a lot of changes in Renault Sport F1, which is the unit that is responsible for engine. In particular we have completely restructured back in December, so I was back in that unit in September. December we announced the new organisation, which entered into play in January. We are [in] March and I think it would be a bit of an overreaction trying to change again the structure that we have just operated. Having said that we need to progress, on track but also at the factory, I’m not denying that fact.
Q: (Olav Mol – Sport1 SBS) I have a question for Matthew and for Robert and maybe also for Cyril. After Melbourne we heard Felipe Massa talk about, and answering whether he thought they had the same engine as the Mercedes team, and the answer came “yes of course we have the same engine,” and “yes, everything is the same.” But shouldn’t the question be: ‘do we have the same software?’ So my question to Matthew and Robert is, do you feel you have the same software version as the Mercedes team. And my question to Cyril is: do you deliver to the guys left and right of you, the same software version for the engine you’re using here?
RF: Coming from a Force India point of view, I’ve no complaints at all from Mercedes. They’ve delivered everything we’ve ever wanted. We’ve been with them now for six or seven years and we have absolutely no issues that they are supplying us the same as they are. However, one also has to accept that they are a works team and there are going to be development programmes that come in that will automatically go there first and then trickle down to all the customer teams. So it would be unrealistic to expect it to be the same all the time. But I think primarily where they can, they’re supplying us the same equipment and same software.
Matthew?
MC: Being in the unique situation that we’ve had a contract with both Renault and a contract with Mercedes, I can confirm that we, in the Mercedes contract, it is stipulated that we have complete parity. In the Mercedes contract.
Cyril?
CA: I don’t want to reveal any details of the contract but yes, obviously it is common practice that we chose at Renault. And with the complexity of the new power unit, already managing one is enough, so if you have to manage diversity, honestly it is not something that you want to do.
Q: (Kate Walker – Motorsport.com) Question for everyone except Cyril and Paul really. Christian, when we were talking about cost-cutting over the winter, you did mention the potential of a wind tunnel ban. Now, with limited investment in computing teraflops you can actually get an awful lot more bang for your CFD buck than you can out of wind tunnels. Have you changed your position on banning wind tunnels? And I would like to know how the other three of you feel about that. Thank You.
CH: I think that if we really are serious about addressing costs in Formula One then you’ve got to be able to look at turning it upside down in many respects. One of the holy grails that the teams are reluctant to go near is the wind tunnel. Red Bull has a very strong aerodynamics department. It has a good wind tunnel that we’ve invested a lot of money in over the years – but if you look at the amount of consumption of cash it takes to feed that tunnel, to feed those ideas. If the sport is serious about reducing costs, then we have to look, maybe to say, OK, let’s get rid of wind tunnels, let’s commercially rent them out, as some of the teams already do with their second tunnels, and put in a standard teraflop, or a standard amount of capacity for CFD, and loosen the regulations in certain areas so that you come up with more ingenuity. I think that way you will also come up with different shapes to the cars. Because currently, through the iterative programmes that we all run. If all the cars were painted the same colour, it would be very, very difficult to differentiate between one and the other. I think more technical freedom from a regulatory point of view but constricting the tools that you can do that with, I think would certainly be quite a positive thing for cost-saving in Formula One.
Franz, your thoughts?
FT: Yeah, if you look at the cost aspects. First of all it is the number of people which are working at the teams. If there are 800 people for the chassis and 400 people for the engine, I think it’s far too much. We must come down with the number of employees. Then, of course, we are using very expensive tools. Whether that’s the wind tunnel or CFD, whatever. If we continue working with these tools, then we must reduce the working hours much more than is currently the case. Then the use of standard materials, the use of standard parts, the use of homologated parts and if we really want to come down with the costs then there are always possibilities to do it but the problem currently is that the top teams do not want to come down with the costs because they get anyway the money and they want to spend it. And, I think there we have to first discuss how to go on and how to come down at the end with the costs. The possibilities are more than enough.
Robert?
RF: I completely endorse what Franz and Christian have said. Force India has been an advocate of doing this for at least 18 months, so there’s no question of that. But I think there’s another very important part to it. Apart from what both Franz and Christian said for the existing teams, one of the biggest barriers I think for entry for new teams coming in is the huge cost of wind tunnel programmes. I think it would remove one of those big obstacles to attract new entrants into Formula One. So, I would definitely be for it.
Matthew, your thoughts?
MC: Yeah, it’s no surprise that we at Lotus agree exactly. Exactly with what the other three have said. There is a huge cost to the wind tunnel programme and it makes absolute sense to take it away.
RF: If I could just add one more thing to that. One of the arguments for not getting rid of wind tunnels is that Formula One is the pinnacle of motorsport and should use all of the tools that are available to motor manufacturers and everybody else who use wind tunnels. But if it is the pinnacle of motorsport it should be pushing the boundaries. And the boundaries for us, technically, are in CFD, the same way as we’re pushing the boundaries in hybrid. So, for me, we always have to move the goalposts for Formula One and, taking what is a bit of a dinosaur technology is not one of the options. And I think environmentally it’s sending the wrong message as well. These things are huge consumers of electricity.
Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) The two team representatives in the back, Bob Fernley and Matthew Carter, it’s well-known and well-documented that you’ve been approaching the commercial rights holder and pushing him for additional revenues. Do you honestly believe… first of all, could you give us a progress report on your quest please, but also, do you honestly believe that two or three teams could actually be effective against a commercial rights holder like that, in terms of getting more money out of somebody who is notorious for not wanting to pay any more money.
RF: I think the key element is that Bernie, at the end of the day, when things are tough, he understands when they’re tough. He’s shepherded this sport for many, many years, he’s done a great job, and whilst we may have arguments with him along the way, at the end of the day, he’s kept it all together, and I think when he genuinely sees there’s something that’s not quite right, he will address that. We’ve got to go back a little while to
Top row left: Bob Fernley of Force India at the FIA Friday Press Conference at Sepang. An FIA image where I think the problems have started, and I think, a few years ago we had FOTA operating in a very good way, it was a consolidated approach, it was well-stewarded by Martin Whitmarsh, we were in joint negotiations with CVC at the time to obviously renegotiate those contracts and everything else. Unfortunately – and I say that because obviously Christian is here – Red Bull felt the need to take the 40 pieces of silver and that was the downside I think for Formula One and I don’t think we’ve recovered from that particular action.
Matthew?
MC: I obviously agree with everything Bob said – but I would add that whilst it’s easy for us to sit here and ask for more money, there is only a certain size of cake – and any more that we ask for has to be taken away from the bigger teams. Now, whilst I understand that they can probably afford to lose some of that money, it’s no question that they’ve built their businesses and structured their businesses on that income which was guaranteed and secured. So it’s not quite as easy as just saying: “you should give more to the smaller teams.” I think it needs to be looked at and that’s why it’s taken such a long time to get to this stage. However, I think that things are starting to move. There seems to be a shift in the tide of opinion within the sport and hopefully it will continue down that route.
Christian, your right of reply to Bob’s comment…
CH: Yeah, I think it’s a little harsh of Bob to suggest that the plight of the smaller teams is all Red Bull’s fault. What you have to remember at the time, FOTA was pretty dysfunctional. It was focussing on the wrong aspects. Ferrari went and cut their own deal, Red Bull weren’t the first team to sign an agreement with Bernie. At the same time, McLaren were also in dual discussions and cut their own deal. That’s the way of the world. We all represent our own entities and y’know, guarantees had to be given by the companies in order to be eligible for that funding. And, y’know, that’s the situation. I can understand the other teams’ frustration but it’s not down to Red Bull to decide what the revenue distribution is – or Ferrari or McLaren. That’s down to Bernie and the board members at CVC. They distribute the money how they see fit.
Q: (Wei An Mao – Titan Media) A question to Matthew. Now we have a Chinese Hong Kong driver in Lotus, Adderly Fong, would you please reveal more the detail about his appointment and is it possible we will see him take part in FP1 in China in two weeks?
MC: I’ll answer the second part first. He won’t be driving in FP1 in China in two weeks. Jolyon Palmer will be driving in FP1 in China. Adderly has been tracked by Gravity Motorsports, who are one of our parent companies and they also run the Lotus junior team, for a number of years. And he’s been highlighted as a potential talent and a potential talent in F1. As a team we are trying to look for young talent, again in terms of trying to make this business work on a business footing, we need to look for young talent, we need to spot young talent at every place that we can. And Adderly’s been highlighted as being a potential F1 star of the future.
Q: (David Croft – Sky Sports) Christian, Red Bull as a brand run many extreme sports around the world, very successfully, and attract a lot of attention. Were Red Bull as a brand in charge of Formula One, and running Formula One, how would you distribute the revenue to ensure that the sport had a healthy future and survived for many years to come and was exciting and loved by all?
CH: Fortunately I run the team but I can see where you’re getting at. I mean, Red Bull don’t run Formula One. Formula One’s run by Bernie and by CVC and, as I say, the distribution of funds, they’ve applied accordingly. Red Bull promotes events, it promotes championships and has done so successfully. Formula One is an expensive business and I think that what we should also be looking at is, what are the cost drivers? What is driving the cost for it to be unsustainable for teams? Even though the distribution isn’t equal, teams like Force India and like Lotus and others actually are receiving more money compared to where they were five years ago by a significant amount – but their problems are still considerable. And I think the problems are there because the regulations, technical and sporting, are driving the costs far too high in the sport. And until we get those under control, we’re all going to have these issues. Big teams are struggling with budgets – not to the same extent – but y’know, there are budget pressures, and I think to get those under control needs a fundamental look at what is Formula One and what does Formula One need to be in the future?
Q: (David Croft – Sky Sports F1) Sorry, can I ask one follow-up question to that please? Is it then the percentage gap between what the big teams earn and what the smaller teams earn that is the root of the problem, not the actual amount but the fact that you’re perceived to be getting way more in a percentage term and are able to spend more and are then forcing other teams to try and keep up with that?
CH: Well no, it’s all relative. What causes or drives your spend are the rules. You look at the rules and you look at the best way to exploit those rules. Ferrari obviously get more money than any of the teams on the grid, irrelevant of where they finish and it doesn’t mean that they’ve been competitive over the last five, six, seven years. Toyota spent more money in the history of Formula One than perhaps any other entrant, didn’t win a Grand Prix, so money doesn’t guarantee success. It enables you to obviously recruit and get the right resource but unless you’ve got the right personnel involved… Formula One is still a people business, it’s still a people sport and you’ve got to have those ingredients in place in order to be successful.
Q: (Haoran Zhou – LETV) Christian, last year at this stage, you were posting some interesting numbers; with two 800 meters straights here, 1.2 kilometer back straight and 800 meter start/finish straight in Shanghai and four long straights in Bahrain, what kind of straightline performance deficit can you project at the moment?
CH: You’ve just depressed me! It’s getting better, so Cyril keeps telling us. It’s been a tough start and – as we’ve said – things happened in Melbourne that… frustration boils over because we’re racers at the end of the day. We want to compete, we’re used to competing and we want to run up at the front and that applies to Red Bull as much as it does to Renault. We’ve got some challenging circuits coming up but Renault have also got some aggressive plans in their pipeline as well, in order to try and reduce that deficit. It’s clear that Ferrari have done a good job over the winter, you can see the step that they’ve made and the target should be exactly the same, to try and replicate that in the tokens and time that we have available.
CA: Indeed, if you look at those numbers it’s not good for the morale but we think that there is light at the end of the tunnel and that the tunnel may not be as long as some people think so let’s keep our heads down, focus. I think that actually with those new technologies there is more than just the absolute power of the engine. We actually see that the crisis which we are going through related to driveability is telling us more than there is just power in those engines and that’s maybe where we need to focus. And the good thing about driveability is that you can change that without using tokens, towards which we are also in a good position because we are the manufacturer who has the most tokens to spend over the season. So let’s see. It’s a people game so if we have the right people, the right structure, I’m sure that we can catch up.
Q: (Kate Walker – Motorsport.com) Paul, we heard this week that you’re undergoing a change of ownership with a new Chinese board. You’ve also said recently that you need to know the changes that are coming in Formula One if you are going to continue as a supplier and as a sponsor because you are uniquely both. Has the change of ownership altered that at all? Is there any indication that the Chinese are interested in continuing in F1 or that they’ve been scared away by the financial messes we find ourselves in at the moment?
PH: The change in ownership… we’ve had many different shareholders, international shareholders over the years so we have a new major shareholder that’s come in. The biggest change will actually be in our industrial truck business where we will be combining both activities to make the most of the synergies in those businesses. Mr Tronchetti will remain for another five years as our CEO. They’ve bought into the management team that we have in Pirelli and an integral part of our vision and our work is also Formula One so from that point of view, no change. Having said that, we have many discussion, we read many discussions where the sport is looking, what it wants to do going forward and of course, if you’re going to go through a tendering process, you would like to understand what those changes are and what the sport’s going to look like, so it’s just a practical thing really. Assuming we get some of that visibility and it looks good and we do hear some good suggestions coming through, if the sport allows the change to happen and that tends to be the biggest issue, people tend to agree to disagree rather than get a commonality of view and that tends to hinder the introduction of a lot of very sensible and a lot of very good ideas. So if that can change and we can actually get the visibility going forward, then we’re very happy with the sport.
Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Christian, you’ve referred on numerous occasions about the guarantees that your parent company had to issue in return for the premiums that are paid. By that, I assume you mean your commitments through to 2020. In which case, how does that square with the comments or possible threats that were made in Melbourne about Red Bull possibly withdrawing from Formula One?
CH: I think you have to – like with all these things – look at the context that that comment was made in. I didn’t make that comment. It was a comment by Helmut and I think that what he was trying to refer to is that should we find ourselves in a situation where we could ultimately find ourselves without an engine supplier should Renault chose to withdraw from Formula One, Mercedes would refuse to supply Red Bull with an engine, it’s unlikely that we would be in a position to take a Ferrari engine so you could find yourself actually forced out of the sport and I think that as with any company, Red Bull again reviews its return on investment: is Formula One delivering for Red Bull as a brand? There are some worrying signs when we see races like we saw in Melbourne but hopefully that’s one chapter in a long story; there’s a long season ahead of us. Red Bull want to compete, Red Bull want to be in Formula One and we want to try and address some of the issues that are currently plaguing the sport that we don’t seem to be able to find any traction with.
Q: (Craig Scarborough – ScarbsF1) Following on from that, we’ve seen Red Bull get deeply involved in the Renault engine programme with engine staff at Milton Keynes, with the talk about the virtual test track at Milton Keynes, obviously bringing in Ilmor involved. How much ownership and pushing have you been involved in the relationship and would that potentially lead to a Red Bull Technology engine, for example?
CH: Well, first of all we have no intention of being an engine manufacturer. We have an amount of resource that we try to supplement and assist Renault where we can. We have a strong simulation group. We have strong facilities and cfd capacity within Red Bull Technology. Basically, what we’re trying to do is work in co-ordination with Renault, to assist the areas where they’re perhaps not so strong and it’s more of a long term view than a short term view but hopefully the strengths that we have in Milton Keynes can be applied to helping Renault engineer themselves out of their current predicament.
CA: I’m not sure that Christian will actually confirm that there is a lot of Red Bull in the engine that was in Melbourne! No, no, seriously, it’s true that we are trying to improve the way that we are working together. I think Christian is absolutely right that we can complement each other very well. There are areas where we have been a little bit complacent in developing where we were extremely successful like in particular simulation and software development and so on and so forth. We have the opportunity to have a better collaboration. The culture is different, the mindset is different, working practice is different, so I think this is basically the change management that we have to drive in order to… and make sure that we align the interest of both parties long term and from a strategy perspective. If we do that, I’m pretty sure that we can be a very successful formula.
Q: (David Croft – Sky Sports F1) Cyril, you’re working together with Red Bull to have a better partnership in the future but how difficult is it to do that when you claim it’s hard to work with a partner who lies and in what areas do you think Adrian Newey has lied to you during your partnership?
CA: I think there has been a bit of a similar question, so I don’t want to say too much of that. Again, that’s one of those things that has a bit also been taken out of context, I guess, just like Helmut’s comments regarding Formula One so let’s leave Melbourne behind us, what goes on tour stays on tour… It’s not what I said. Let’s leave that behind. Let’s look at the progress we have made over these two weeks. Again, Melbourne was extremely frustrating for everyone. I think everyone now has to focus on what’s not performing in the package overall, is not performing in accordance to the expectation. Already this weekend it’s better so let’s be positive, let’s keep morale high and let’s make sure that we continue on that path.
Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) To Cyril, Robert and Matthew: Franz has already admitted that there have been some possible talks about a possible purchase of Toro Rosso by Renault but a prudent buyer looks at other options and I believe that Force India and Lotus could also be on the market. Have you looked at them, and also from the back row, your comments… have you had discussions with Renault please?
CA: I can confirm that we are looking at a lot of options, including getting out of Formula One. Honestly, if Formula One is that bad for Renault’s reputation, if we see that we struggle with the current formula, if Formula One is not delivering value what it costs Renault, bearing in mind that when you are an engine supplier you have no financial incentive to develop and to fund engine development, so this is what we are looking at, and obviously we think that we are a credible player in the sport but we want to compete amongst the best brands and that Formula One is good for meet and plan as a brand, then we need to think about what else can we do to what we are doing and if you do that, this is an open market, we have the capacity to have discussions with lots of parties. But as I’ve said, for the time being the focus is on engines.
MC: The first comment is that Lotus isn’t for sale so we’re not looking for a buyer and we’re not for sale. And the second comment is that we’ve just signed a long term deal with Mercedes Benz which takes us through to 2020 so any talk of any change of engine or change of ownership or anything is completely off the cards for Lotus.
RF: Similar really to Matthew. We have a contract with Mercedes until 2020 and I’ve had absolutely no discussions whatsoever with Renault.
eom/FIA transcript of the Friday Press Conference
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Happy to be back in the cockpit and ready to enjoy the race: Alonso
Sepang, 26 March 2015: As the F1 bandwagon arrives in the Malaysian capital city of Kuala Lumpur, INDIAinF1.com’s coverage start’s with the Thursday Press Conference…
DRIVERS – Carlos SAINZ (Toro Rosso), Felipe NASR (Sauber), Daniil KVYAT (Red Bull Racing), Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes), Kimi RAIKKONEN (Ferrari), Fernando ALONSO (McLaren)
Fernando, if I can start with you. This has been a happy hunting ground throughout your career – you got your first pole here, you won with three different manufacturers – so a good place to come back from what was a difficult episode. What can you tell us about what you’ve been through in the past few weeks?
Fernando ALONSO: Happy to be here in another Formula One season. I start one race later than I should be but, yeah, unfortunately I had the accident in Barcelona and following the recommendations by the doctors I missed the first race. But, yeah, happy to be here, as I said. Malaysia has always been a very nice circuit for me in my Formula One career. My first pole position was here in 2003, my first podium and then as you said three wins with three different teams give me the possibility always to enjoy this circuit and I know it’s going to be very tough this year to repeat such a result but, yeah, happy to be back in the cockpit and ready to enjoy the weekend.
You’ve only done around 500km of testing with this car so far. How do you see the journey ahead and the challenge now to hit the targets the team has set?
FA: Well, I think we need to be with the feet on the ground knowing that we are not in a position that we wanted and not in a position that we will be hopefully very soon. It will be like a test session for me, the first races. As you said I did in this car more or less the same number of laps that another guy do in one day, so obviously I’m not probably confident with the car in this moment and I will need to learn many things, not only on the driving style but also on the approach McLaren has to the weekends. So, many things to learn for me; very challenging moment of my career and ready to take it.
Okay, thank you. Kimi, coming to you, obviously you had some problems in Australia towards the end of the race but the pace all weekend was good and you were close to your team-mate Vettel throughout, so it looks like it’s going to be a good in-house battle between the two of you. How do you see it?
Kimi RAIKKONEN: Obviously we are in a much better position than we were say even at the end of last year so in that way it’s a nice place to be but obviously we still have to improve quite a bit. We want to be in front and we still don’t have the speed exactly, at least in qualifying, to be there. In the race I think we are a bit stronger compared to Mercedes. But I think it will be a fun year, obviously not an ideal start of the year and we got some damage from the start and had those issues in the pit stops but you know it can happen sometimes but at least we had pretty good speed. I’m sure we’re going to have strong races and good battles but like I said we still have some work to do to be absolutely where we want to be but we have done a good job so far.
Can you tell us what it is about the chassis and the way it handles in particular that makes it a better race car for you personally?
KR: I think it’s the whole package. It’s not just the engine we improved. Yes, we improved that a lot but we improved the chassis itself a lot as well. It’s the whole package, you cannot just point to one area that has been improved from last year, it’s the whole thing. I think how everybody works and it’s one team and things are going in the right direction and people are pushing and doing a good job. Like I said, it’s still early days. We still have to work hard and improve things but where we started, so far we have done a good job.
Carlos, coming to you, a great debut obviously in Melbourne for you. It could have gone even better without the long pit stop. I guess you dream of your grand prix debut and then when it goes well, like it did, is it a feeling or elation or relief, or both?
Carlos SAINZ: A bit of everything to be honest. It was a good debut, which I’m very happy with. It obviously gives you a boost of confidence and also a big boost of motivation to keep up the good work and keep improving because I’m sure I still have a lot, a lot, a lot to improve.
Did all the attention that was on your team-mate Max Verstappen help to take the pressure off you a bit and allow you to perform better?
CS: This may be a bit what it looked like from the outside, but obviously from the inside I perfectly know the amount of pressure I put on myself and the amount of pressure STR and Red Bull are putting on us and for sure I can tell you we have exactly the same amount of pressure to perform. So not really, to be honest, I think we were pretty equal in that sense and it was just a good weekend.
Felipe, another rookie and another very good result in Australia with fifth place, which is the debut result ever for a Brazilian in Formula One. What does that result… it must be very emotional to even hear that… what does that performance mean to you and the team?
Felipe NASR: It was very unique I have to say, coming from a very troubled weekend. My very first ever weekend in Formula One was not ideal the way it started, with all this trouble, going to court and everything else; missing first free practice, a track that I didn’t know. So it was a very good outcome to come up fifth in my first ever race and I think for the team as well it was something they really needed. It’s important. It shows the team was ready, myself was ready to put the things on the side and being able to deliver in the race. It was something very special.
During the race you were able to keep Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull behind you and you were even able to drive away from him. So how do you feel about this car and how excited are you about what’s possible this year?
FN: I was a bit surprised to see that happening. I knew the car had the potential to do it but to hold back Red Bull was unexpected. It could only show that the car has… the engine has done a good improvement over the winter, over last year. I think we need to take the profit from these early races to maximise our potential and getting the opportunities right. I think there are still teams struggling out there to finish races and we need to use that as an advantage for us.
Coming to you Daniil, obviously a challenging first weekend to say the least for you and Red Bull, you qualified behind the Toro Rossos and didn’t even manage to take the start. What progress have you made with Renault since Melbourne in particular on the driveability of this power unit?
Daniil KVYAT: I think we will only find the answer tomorrow to be honest. I hope we did. The whole team now is working really hard to overcome the difficulties we are facing right now but myself and the whole team we are used to working realty hard and that’s what we are going to do and we are going to try our best to put ourselves in a strong position once again.
Last year, of course, you were in the points on your first visit to this Sepang circuit. What features of this track do you enjoy?
DK: Well, generally, it’s quite a challenging circuit I think for all of us. It’s famous for the heat, for the warm, hot conditions. Generally this track has been good to me, I have been here a few times. I enjoy driving it here. It has a few fast, high-speed sections that you usually enjoy quite a lot as a driver. I’m looking forward to this weekend and hopefully we will keep moving forward.
Nico, Melbourne looked like Mercedes had doubled the advantage in terms of relative fastest laps across the weekend over your nearest rivals compared to the start of 2014, but do you expect a smaller gap on this type of circuit?
Nico ROSBERG: I don’t think it’s right to say that. Of course qualifying pace was very strong, yes, but more important is the race pace, especially from Kimi we saw an extremely strong stint, so not really fair to say that I would say. I think Ferrari especially have definitely closed the gap and are closer than our nearest rival was last year.
Specifically this type of circuit, do you expect the gap to be smaller?
NR: It’s very difficult to say. It’s early days, we need to wait and see how it goes here.
You said after the race in Melbourne that you could follow Lewis but it was hard to mount an attack, so presumably qualifying is crucial to get the advantage this weekend to make sure you start the race on the front foot?
NR: Qualifying is definitely important in this internal battle especially since we have the same cars but it’s not everything, because we have seen in the past, even in races, playing around the tyre order or things like that it’s still possible to overtake and this weekend here, there might be a bit more leeway in the strategy to try to launch a better attack.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Andrew Benson – BBC Sport) Fernando, how long after the accident did you start to get memories of the accident back, what did you learn about it when you went to the factory last week and do you now believe that there was no problem with the car?
FA: Everything was more or less as a normal concussion. So, I had this concussion, went to the hospital. I went to the hospital in good conditions. There is a time that I don’t remember from two o’clock to six o’clock or something like that, but everything again was normal due to the medication that they give you to go into the helicopter and to do some tests in the hospital.
Everything was normal. I didn’t wake up in ’95, I didn’t wake up speaking in Italian or all these things that probably they were out there. I remember the accident and I remember everything that following day.
Obviously with the team we have been very close working on that and with the FIA, they were very helpful all the times, and we were in close contact, all three parts constantly and yeah, there is not in the data anything clear that we can spot and we can say it was that, the reason. But definitely we had a steering problem in the middle of turn three. It locked into the right and I approached the wall I braked in the last moment, I downshift from fifth to third, and yeah, unfortunately on the data we are still missing some parts. Also the acquisition of date on that particular part of the car is not at the top so there are some new sensors here at this race and there are some changes we do on the steering rack and other parts and yeah that was the main thing. The last week at the factory was more a work on the simulator and trying to explain to me these new sensors and these new parts that will go on this race.
Q: (Jaime Rodríguez – El Mundo) Fernando, after this episode, have you got more respect or more fear to your job?
FA: No, not really. You know, at the end of the day we know motorsport is dangerous. We know that sometimes you have a big accident, spectacular and the car is completely destroyed and nothing happens, and sometimes you crash in a low speed corner or something, and it depends on the angle, depends on how you hit, or which part of the body you hit, you have more or less injuries. It is the same in the normal day life: sometimes you live an extreme life and nothing happens and sometimes you walk on the street and have a big issue. So, no more respect than before, it’s just, y’know, a very normal thing. I felt ready to go to Australia as well but I understand also the recommendation from the doctor that it was maybe too early and, yeah, we wait for one more race. That, obviously, creates even more feeling, no? But happy to be here, happy to help the team. Obviously we’re struggling a little bit at the moment and the winter has been quite difficult and the same at the first race. It was hard for me to watch on TV with the team not performing so well. So yeah, we are here to help and to give McLaren and Honda the experience that we can have, Jenson and me, and trying to recover from this form as soon as possible.
Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto Motor und Sport) Fernando, you said “the steering just locked”. The steering is for a racing driver, let’s say, a very delicate thing in the car, like the brakes if it fails. If you still don’t know why there was a problem with the steering is that a thing that is worrying you despite the new sensors you have on the car?
FA: Not really. I think, as I said before, together with FIA and with the team, we were constantly doing some checks, investigations, some possibilities, and as I said, there are some areas in the car that, instrumentation-wise are probably not at the level to see this problem. It’s like a problem that may occur, in this phrase, 20 years ago, Formula One did not have the technology to spot that problem. I’m sure that we are missing something on the data acquisition that we will spot in ten years’ time or whatever when the technology is available. So, that’s one reason and, yeah, I have zero doubt or zero concern.
Q: (Daniel Johnson – Daily Telegraph) Question for Fernando. Given that you remember the accident, as far as you are concerned, it wasn’t a driver error or, as the team put it, a gust of wind blew you off course in any way?
FA: No, no, definitely not. I don’t know if you see the video but even a hurricane will not move the car at that speed. Also, if you have any problem or any medical issue, normally you will lose the power and you will go straight to the outside, never to the inside. In a Formula One car you still need to apply some effort on the steering wheel. So, that’s one thing. Honestly, y’know, obviously with an accident, with the repercussion of the accident, the news, being in Spain, a lot of attention on that day and probably the first answers or the first press conference that the team have, my manager, whatever, all the stuff around in these early days, it was just some guess. The wind, maybe other possibilities. That creates a little bit of confusion obviously – but you cannot say nothing for three or four days until I remember everything because these three or four days then will become even worse. So I think they say the theory of the wind, etc., but obviously it was not a help.
Q: (David Croft – Sky Sports) Apologies to the other five members of the panel but it’s another question for Fernando. With everything that’s happened over the winter and to yourself personally and to the team as well, one of the big things that’s been debated by the fans and I’m sure many journalists in this room is whether you’ve made the right decision, returning to McLaren. What would your reaction to that debate be?
FA: I’m one of the happiest persons in the world. Yes, I am. I have a challenge in front of me. A tough challenge clearly. I think it’s difficult but it’s going to taste better when we do it. I grew up watching TV with McLaren-Honda domination and Ayrton Senna in the cockpit. I understand that we are now too far back and we will be heavily criticized and it will be fair to receive that criticism because we are not at the level we will be – but it’s nothing we can do now, just work, it’s a long-term project and all my career I experience some beautiful moments – even the last five years – with Ferrari we didn’t win the championship but it was a fantastic experience. But five was enough – I didn’t want to be seven years second or third so I prefer to risk and challenge for victory. Even if you need to take some risk for the first year.
Q: (Ralf Bach – Sport Bild) A question to Fernando. Coming back to the accident, can you remember one thing, if you lost consciousness before the first impact or not, and when, why?
FA: No, I remember everything obviously. I don’t want to go through every detail because it’s going to be long but I remembered everything. It was Sunday morning, all the setup changes, the lap times, I think Vettel was in front of me before Turn Three but cut the chicane to let me go, exiting the pitlane. After the hit I was kissing the wall for a while and then I switch off the radio first, because it was on, and then I switch off the master switch for the batteries to switch off the ERS system just because I saw the marshals coming and, if not, they cannot touch the car. So, yeah, I was perfectly conscious at the time. I lost consciousness in the ambulance or in the clinic at the circuit but the doctors said this is normal because of the medication that they put you, just for the helicopter transportation and the checks that they do in the hospital: the MRI and the evaluation needs this protocol, needs this medication so this is normal that maybe you don’t remember.
Is is normal the marshals didn’t touch the car?
FA: This I don’t know.
Q: (Manuel Franco – Diario AS) Two questions, the first for Fernando, the second for Fernando and Carlos. Fernando, what had you learned from the accident? About people, about you, about life? Second question. In this race will be three Spanish drivers: you and Roberto Merhi. With England and Germany it’s the country with most drivers in the race. What do you think?
FA: What I learned is that I have so much support from so many people. It’s been amazing how many messages from people I’ve received. So many warm wishes from all the sport and government and everyone. Everyone was so interested. And in the Formula One paddock as well because even from the flight on Tuesday that I arrived here until today has been a very nice experience to see really, truly, wishes of health for me. That was something that I learned, probably, after the accident. You don’t realize until you have a problem, or you miss one or two races that, y’know, so many people are behind you and are supporting you. And then, about the race, yes, it’s nice to have three Spanish drivers. Hopefully we can see for many years. We had three previously with Marc Gené and Pedro [de la Rosa] and now hopefully we can have many more years because Carlos and Roberto, they are very young and they have good possibility and a good future and I wish they can stay very long.
Carlos, your view on that?
CS: For me it’s obviously great. I’ve always had a good relationship with Fernando and I now have a very good relationship with Roberto. I think the more Spanish the better and, yeah, that’s it.
Q: (Dan Knutson – Speed Sport) Accidents can happen to experienced drivers, so Nico, and Kimi, do you every worry about having accidents? Has there been a time in your F1 career where you maybe thought ‘I don’t want to go out?’
NR: Yeah, of course sometimes I think about it and there is a certain element of fear when I’m driving sometimes but that, I think is natural, and holds me back sometimes to go too far beyond the limit. But it doesn’t make me slower in any way.
Kimi?
KR: I’ve had quite a few accidents in the past and last year one not so nice one. But it’s part of the game. If you make a mistake, you pay a price. It’s up to you. If you’re not prepared to take the risk or if you’re scared, I’m sure there’s plenty of guys that are willing to jump in a car and race. So, no, I think you… obviously it’s part of the thing but I think you have better chances to get hurt in normal traffic than on the race circuits.
Q: (Byron Young – The Mirror) Fernando, the team was saying even up to a couple of days ago that there was nothing wrong with the car, and yet you’re saying the steering locked. How do those two statements work together?
FA: Yeah, as I said before, I think it’s clear that there was a problem in the car but it hasn’t been found on the data at the moment. It’s one of the things that I did also in the factory last week, not only the simulator but going – with all the engineers and all the data available – going through the moments and there are some spots here and there but there is not a clear answer. So I understand completely and support the team until they find a clear answer that it was this or that, it’s impossible to say or to lie that it was this or that. They need to go much further. If they will find something any time, I don’t know because if after one month we didn’t find anything on the data, it is maybe because whatever part was the problem, it was not available on the data, so maybe it will never be.
Q: (Byron Young – The Mirror) But they have gone further and say there is no problem.
FA: Well, I don’t think that they say this any more.
Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Kimi, can you expect this circuit to give your car the same chance to have a good position , as you had at Melbourne?
KR: Well, I hope it’s better than Melbourne for me. Like I said, we had the speed and I think things are running smoothly, we just have to avoid mistakes. We had some bad luck at the start but the car’s been quick at every circuit we’ve been to so far so I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be here. I think it could be even better than it was at the last race. It’s a proper circuit and I think it will be good, fitting well at this circuit so we’ll just wait and see.
Q: (Anne Giuntini – L’Equipe) Fernando, do we now have a precise idea of the violence of the impact that gave you such big concussion?
FA: No, I don’t exactly know the details.
Q: (Ben Hunt – The Sun) I’m a bit confused by this: there’s no problem, there’s nothing on the data, you’ve lost consciousness, someone said you didn’t lose consciousness, your team also said there was a gust of wind. It’s all just very confusing but one thing for me, if there’s no data and the team haven’t found anything, could the problem happen again?
FA: Well, as I said, I think some of the confusion comes from the very early quotes and very early explanations because the attention was very high at that moment. The stress was very high, I was in intensive care, there was some urgency to say something because there was a lot of attention so that was probably part of the confusion. On the data, as I said before, I think there was some lack of instrumentation maybe on the car, to miss the exact problem and there are some actions taken for this race which are probably not necessary but there is extra care with some parts on the car that were unique to me, that I requested because of my driving style when I joined McLaren and here we will go back to the normal steering rack and things that they’ve been using with Jenson and Kevin for the last couple of years. Of course, there are some actions for this race and as I said, there is zero problem, zero worries on my side. Everything is OK.
Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Fernando, could you tell us exactly what happened this morning during the test?
FA: Today, we’ve been through the normal processes as we have during the last month. As I said before, everything that I did or that happened in the last month were completely normal, the concussion, the rehabilitation, the checks, the extra checks, the recommendation to wait two or three weeks before any dangerous activity again, so everything went normal and this morning, again, it was a normal procedure after a head injury to do an impact test with the FIA and some reaction tests and some examinations with the Malaysian Grand Prix doctors. Everything went as smoothly as possible and I have the green light, so that was a very positive moment.
Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) You’ve partially answered this before, Fernando, but seeing Ferrari is so strong, do you think that maybe you might have waited a little bit longer before leaving and achieved some results?
FA: Obviously, as I said, with the performance that we have right now, it’s easy to criticise our team and my decision, whatever, but as I said, I’m first of all so so happy that this is the most important thing. When you’re happy with yourself or you’re a healthy man inside, that is the first victory and that is what I am now, because I’m following my dream now. And secondly, I could wait and achieve some nice results as you’ve said probably yes, but after 14 years of Formula One and two championships, a podium or fourth place or fifth place is no longer a nice result.
Q: (Carlos Miguel –La Gaceta) Fernando, I would like to know your feelings after 14 years, watching a race on TV?
FA: I don’t think I pick the best race to watch, probably. One, it was very early in the morning, so that didn’t help the enthusiasm for the race, and secondly, the number of cars on the grid and after the first couple of laps was obviously not ideal. Yeah, it was a strange feeling, no doubt that I missed being there, I missed driving. It was strange but luckily I’m here.
Q: (Carlos Miguel –La Gaceta) Carlos, is it a big motivation for you to beat the new Ayrton Senna as you did in the first race?
CS: For me the first motivation is always to extract the maximum potential from myself, focus myself and with self-confidence and knowing that you can extract the full potential from yourself then you should believe that you are in front of your teammate. I believe Max is a great talent, I believe he’s going to perform really well this year and he will be a very tough competitor but my main focus, as I said, is not to beat him but first of all extract the maximum potential from myself and that will put me in a good position for sure.
Q: (Byron Young – The Mirror) Fernando, I’m a bit confused: how can you not be worried? From what you’re saying to us, the steering was locked, heading towards the inside wall. You’re fighting with the steering wheel so that’s a car problem, and you’re getting back in the car this weekend and you don’t know what caused that problem. How can you not be worried?
FA: I fully trust the team. They’ve been looking at every single component of the car for a month, they’ve been simulating the efforts, they’ve been doing so many tests, they’ve been changing every single part that they had some doubts about so I think we have the safest car right now, because of all the studies that they’ve done. And after one month, I’m probably the most medically checked driver in history so we should be fine, both of us.
Ends.
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Hulkenberg, Perez raring to go as Force India gets ready for the Sepang heat
Sepang: Sahara Force India gets ready for this weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang.
Team Principal Vijay mallya reflects on Melbourne and looks ahead to this weekend’s race in Malaysia saying: “Starting our season in Melbourne with both cars in the points was the ideal way to open our 2015 account. Those seven points were an important reward for all the hard work of everyone in the team over the winter and give us something to build upon as we head for Malaysia.”However, with main rivals Sauber back in their elements, the Indian liquor baron sounded a word of caution: “Despite scoring well in Melbourne, we know the VJM08 is only just beginning its development journey and that we need to add performance if we want to finish consistently in the points. There will be some small tweaks this weekend before bigger steps can be made during the European season.“Malaysia is an interesting track for us. We had a good race there last year with Nico and it’s a track that generates good racing. The hot weather usually plays to our strengths and the risk of rain can add another dimension to the strategy. Hopefully we can capitalise on these elements to be competitive and come away with another strong result,” he added.Meanwhile, Nico Hulkenberg gets ready for racing in the heat of Malaysia.Hulkenberg said: “I am really looking forward to getting back to action in Sepang after a fairly positive start of the season. We knew the VJM08’s reliability was one of our strong points and we were able to play that card well. We didn’t make any mistakes and we had a good strategy, and that helped us capitalise on a day when others ran into trouble. We need to keep our feet on the ground, however, because we know the circumstances in which we got this result and we know the next races will be tough.“The track in Sepang is quite challenging and is very different compared to Melbourne. The various sectors have unique characteristics: there is a nice variation of high and low-speed corners and two very long straights. You need to balance your setup between top speed and downforce to make the most of your car in each of them. The high temperatures and humidity add to the challenges of this track, and you always have a threat of rain, especially at the start of the race.“I have spent the week after Melbourne in Indonesia, having a bit of a holiday, but also training and getting used to the climate. It’s always better to stay on the local time zone and I’m feeling in good shape for this weekend.”Sergio too is raring to go.“Malaysia is a very special place for me. It is where I got my first podium in Formula One, in one of the best races of my career in 2012, so I will always have happy memories about this circuit. The track is really interesting and the three sectors each have their own character. The track is physical but it has some very technical parts as well. You also have some very long straights at the end of the lap that offer a lot of opportunities for overtaking.“The weather always makes it interesting. When you are racing in Sepang it is something that is always in the back of your mind, because you know a sudden rainstorm can throw up some unexpected strategies and opportunities you can exploit. The heat and the humidity are a big challenge, but as a driver you are prepared for this. You work really hard during the pre-season and every day with your trainer to be at your best in these circumstances, so I know I am ready.“I am looking forward to going racing again after our first run in Melbourne. We are still learning a lot about the full potential of the VJM08 and every time we hit the track we are going to find some improvements. We are aware of the work needed to make our car more competitive, but we also know it is going to take time. The car feels really promising but it needs development and I look forward to getting some upgrades soon.“Malaysia is a very beautiful country, but I can’t say I have any favourite spots. You don’t get to see much of a place when you arrive for a race weekend, but sometimes you manage to squeeze in some nice experiences. I heard Kuala Lumpur has a lot of great dining opportunities so I hope to be able to try a few – I really like Asian food!”eom -
We (F1 drivers) all train very hard; People don’t realise we are athletes: Lewis Hamilton
DRIVERS
1 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)
2 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)
3 – Sebastian VETTEL (Ferrari)
PODIUM INTERVIEWS
(Conducted by Arnold Schwarzenegger)
Congratulations.
Lewis HAMILTON: How do you doing? What an honour to meet you. Arnold Schwarzenegger, man! Wow!
It’s wonderful to be here in Melbourne, to be in Australia, and I was just asked to conduct the interviews with the winners here. I’m so excited about it as just for the last two days I was interviewing the fittest, the strongest people, the most energetic people in the world at the Arnold Classic and now I’m interviewing the fastest people in the world. So, Lewis, what does it feel like having won last year’s world championship and now winning the first race again.
LH: Well, it’s obviously a real pleasure to be here, we have the greatest fans here today, thank you so much for all coming out. My team did an amazing job today and it’s an incredible feeling to continue on from last year but also to be up here with you man? I thought you were taller! You were taller in The Terminator.
I’m not wearing my high heels! Let me just ask you how much physical training do you have to do to be in that kind of shape and to go through a race like that?
LH: We all train very hard. People don’t actually realise that we are athletes. We have to train a lot. It’s incredibly physical in these cars. So I’m very honoured to be up here among these great drivers and with this team that’s doing such an amazing job.
Well thank you very much, congratulations. Now a question for you [Nico Rosberg]. What does it feel like being second and do you think you are going to make up [ground] and maybe beat this man this year?
Nico ROSBERG: Well, it’s a nice feeling to be second today because it’s an awesome start to the season for us as a team. Absolutely stunning car they’ve given us – unbelievable. Lewis has done a fantastic job this weekend. He drove like a world champion all weekend, so couldn’t quite beat him but for sure I was trying every single lap, all the way to the maximum, and I will do all year. I will give him a big run for his money and hopefully beat him. Also thank you very much to the organisers, you’ve done an amazing job this weekend, I’m sure you’ll all agree it’s been a fantastic weekend for everybody. And also, all of you, you’ve been great and put on a great atmosphere. Thank you.
How much does concentration have to do with it to win this competition, this race?
NR: Yeah, a lot of it is in the head, of course. Not only in one race but during the whole season, to keep your energy, your focus, but especially during one race. It is very demanding in the head, to not make a single mistake, and it’s challenging physically too. It’s tough.
Well you’ve done a great job, congratulations, and I’m looking forward to seeing you in the next race. [Sebastian] what does it feel like now, being with Ferrari?
Sebastian VETTEL: It feels great. It’s a very, very big honour. I’m very happy. Obviously it’s a great start to the season for us. We had a very good winter already; the team has worked phenomenally hard. We can very proud, I said to the guys, thank you very much,grazie mille, abbiamo una machina bella, we have a great car not only in qualifying but for the race as well and it’s great to join them and I’m really proud. There’s a lot of work ahead of us trying to beat these two and beat Mercedes but I’m sure we will.
How much preparation goes in every day to prepare for a race like this?
SV: It’s our job in the end. It’s not just turning up the weekends and doing the job, but all week. As Lewis said we have to be fit, so we have to train, we have to look after each here and there. I think I can spare pizza especially this year. It’s a full time job.
Congratulations and for sure I will be watching you in the next race. I know [Lewis] that you are going to say now.
LH/AS: ‘I’ll be back’.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Many congratulations Lewis on a fine 1-2 finish to start the season with and 34thcareer victory for you, your first win in Melbourne since 2008. The gap throughout the race between yourself and Nico opened and closed between a second-and-a-half and 3.5 seconds but did you feel totally in control from start to finish.
LH: Nico was very quick throughout the race and it was really trying to manage the fuel and all that, and also the tyres, not really knowing where the limit of the tyres is in terms of how far they can go. But once you’ve got a two-second gap you try to manage that, there’s no need to eke out more. But when Nico turned up the heat I was able to react, which was good. Otherwise, it was a phenomenal race for both of us, Nico drove really well. Obviously Sebastian must have done a great job to be where he is today.
Nico, coming to you, there was a message to you to save fuel at one stage in order to attack Lewis at the end of the grand prix. The attack didn’t seem to come, but how was it from your point of view and sum up you weekend?
NR: No, no, the attack was most definitely there! Maybe you didn’t see it but it was there, for sure, inside the cockpit. But Lewis made no mistakes so it was just not possible to get closer than that, let alone try some of attempt to overtake. It was just a matter of saving a little bit of fuel in the middle of the race to then be able to go full on at the end of the race but I think Lewis did a similar thing. As soon as I started to save a little bit he saved as well, so he could push, so it didn’t really help me unfortunately.
Sebastian, congratulations on a podium on your Ferrari debut. You did it largely through strategy. Massa pitted first, you put the hammer down for a couple of laps and it was enough to get you in front. Tell us about the emotion, first of all, on your Ferrari debut and how you achieved it?
SV: It’s great. I’m over the moon in many ways. It’s great already on the parade lap to see… I don’t know, I think the Ferrari flags have been there before but I didn’t pay much attention obviously. But it’s great the support through the whole weekend. It’s an honour to sit in the red car. Obviously when your head’s down and you race and you try to push every single lap you don’t realise the colour so much but certainly when the chequered flag came out it was great to see and a great feeling, a great reward for the team. I think the car is a lot better than the team had last year. I think we can be very happy as a starting point. Still we lose a lot of time to those guys but I think in the race, potentially, we are a little bit closer than in qualifying trim but overall it’s great for sure. Very, very happy, very pleased and very proud of the way the team is tackling the grand prix. The atmosphere is great, the motivation is very high and everyone knows where we want to go. We want to make sure that life is not that easy for those two in the future.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Vincent Marre – All Race) My question goes to Sebastian Vettel: how will you rate this third position, emotionally inside you? Because you won a lot with Red Bull but this is a new challenge, a new team. How would you rate this one?
SV: I think this was a great race for us. Obviously the start was not ideal, I was very close, I did not succeed to pass Felipe straight away and then we had a great strategy and were able to save some tyres to, yeah, go the opposite of the usual strategy to overtake someone through the pitstop, so that worked very well. Generally it has been very calm, very professional, led by the pitwall throughout the race. Of course it’s not a victory but for us today it feels like a victory. Obviously it’s a great relief after a horrible season last year to know that the car in general is working. People have done a great job both on engine and chassis sides, so big compliments to Maranello obviously. I’ve secretly been a fan, now official I can be a fan of Ferrari and since the day I got there, there is something magic about the place. I feel very happy. I had a very good time with Red Bull and certainly was able to learn a lot, the experience I can now bring into the new project as well. So, as I said, people are fired up and we know where we want to go.
Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Sebastian, what happened in the first turn with Kimi? Did you touch, the two cars?
SV: No… I don’t know. I think he had a better start for sure, I got a little bit back under braking and then I think I was side-by-side with him. I don’t think it was great for him because he lost a little bit – I saw that immediately. I couldn’t make corner one as tight as I wanted to, which made him lose a couple of positions but I understand we didn’t touch and I didn’t feel anything so…
Q: (Ian Parkes – PA) Question to both Lewis and Nico. We’ve seen dominance in qualifying, dominance in the race today. Is this it for the season? A two-horse race between you two for the title or can you envisage any of your rivals making in-roads into your supremacy?
LH: I think Nico was just explaining… I didn’t know, I didn’t see the times or anything but I think the Ferraris have taken a huge step forward. It’s clear they’ve made one of the biggest steps. So we definitely cannot back off because I’m sure they’re going to be pushing. And I anticipate we might have a good fight with them at some stage this year…
Nico?
NR: I hope we can have a good fight. That would be awesome. I think the next couple of races we’re going to be leading the way for sure, and we’re going to try and keep it that way, but we know it would be good if they can come a bit closer, as long as they don’t come too close…
SV: Be honest. Do you really hope so? Seriously? You finished 30 seconds ahead of us and you hope it’s going to be closer? So you hope you slow down? Is that what you’re saying?
NR: I hope that you can give us a challenge! Because it’s important for the sport and for the fans. And I do think about the show. Half of me – or a part of me – thinks about the show because I want to give people a great time at home watching on TV or at the track. If you do come a bit closer, that would be awesome for everybody.
SV: First suggestion, if you don’t mind, I think your garage becomes public for Malaysia and everyone can have a look. No? I’m joking.
NR: You can come if you want, we can invite you…
SV: OK, thank you for the invite, I’ll come.
NR: Friday Malaysia, OK.
SV: Engineers’ room? Debrief, I’ll be there.
Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto Motor und Sport) Nico, in the final stages you were asking your race engineer about Lewis’ fuel consumption. You didn’t get an answer – but for both of you how much is it a race into the dark when you don’t know where the other stands with the fuel consumption – on a race where fuel consumption is really crucial.
NR: Yeah, so, I put the question because I wanted to know exactly where Lewis was but he’s not allowed to tell me, so I never got the answer. I hadn’t thought of that at the time – but obviously that was not good. Because I thought if I would know if he was down or something, that would be really motivating and it would be great. But I had no idea. So yeah, I don’t know, not ideal in that situation, not very helpful. But anyway, all I could do is push flat-out and hope he had less. Which wasn’t the case…
Q: (Paul Gover – News Ltd) So Sebastian, you, then, think it is a two horse race for the championship between these two guys
SV: Well, first of all, they don’t have a horse on their car, they have a star so it’s a big difference, as I learned. You have to be realistic: this weekend it was in their hands and they did a great job, not just as a team, both individually. I drove the car to the limit. Lewis, as I think Nico said, had the upper hand so well done to him. For sure, as I said, they have a great package at the moment, existing from car and drivers which will be difficult to beat, it’s a big gap. Thirty-four seconds down the road is a lot for everyone else. You can turn it around a little bit for the next Grand Prix, we can be closer but it could be even worse. I think in the first three races you really have to try and understand who is really strong and what are the gaps. So they are the favourites; they had a huge advantage last year and I think they did a good job in increasing that advantage for this year. It will be difficult but not impossible for us and the rest to catch up.
Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) To all three of you: before the race started five drivers were already out of the race: Bottas injured, two Manor and then Magnussen and Kvyat, so a quarter of the drivers were not on the grid. Don’t you think that Formula One is risking to lose some appeal when we have so few cars racing?
LH: I don’t know what the circumstances are for the drivers that couldn’t start. I think two didn’t have a car but the others… All I know that in MotoGP, those guys are pretty hardcore. They drive with collarbones broken, ankles and all those kind of things. I would still hopefully drive if I had something damaged. I don’t know how it is for the spectators but of course we should have more cars. When we drive up to the back of the grid, before the formation lap, it’s a real long way from the last corner to the back of the grid. It used to be a little bit shorter run when there’s more cars. It would be great if we could get some more cars.
NR: The fans looked like they had an awesome time today so that’s great to see. They were going crazy on the start/finish line under the podium, so that was nice. Great to have Arnold (Schwarzenegger) on the podium, that was very very cool. Other than that, yeah, of course, we need to keep on re-inventing the sport and keep moving forward and keep adapting. But the process is in place, it’s a normal thing. There’s ups and downs, we just need to ride the wave and push on to keep improving the show as things change in the world.
SV: Well, first of all I hope that Valtteri is OK. I don’t know the circumstances that led to the fact that he couldn’t race today but we hope that he’s back on the grid in Malaysia because that’s where he belongs. So all the best for his recovery. For the other cars, obviously it was strange to see people struggling to do the laps to the grid but I think it’s difficult. I think it shows how complex it really is, how difficult it is to master the challenge of making the car reliable for a Grand Prix and for the entire season so that’s why you really have to saychapeau to these guys and everyone who is able to extract clean races but also it’s great to see that this year we have a new competitor in the game with Honda. I think they have been very brave to face that challenge, even though now the price they’re paying is very high, but I’m sure they will come back. I think everyone has, more or less, been through that process with the exception of those guys (Mercedes) last year, so it seems to be part of the game but for sure it’s not great for the people. They want to see the cars and if the cars break before even starting the race that’s not right but what can I say? It’s a difficult challenge, it is complicated, maybe got a bit too complicated but for now it is what it is. The people still enjoy it so we need to do the best to keep it up.
Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Sebastian, Kimi had problems in both pit stops with his tyre changes; did that put any extra pressure on your stops?
SV: I don’t know what happened. Obviously in the end he didn’t finish, I don’t even know what kind of problem he suffered, which is a shame because 50% of the team didn’t finish today; that’s not our target, I think it could have been a great race even if Kimi had a bit of a bad first corner. Still, I think he could have had a great recovery because the speed was there and as far as I understand he was on the way back. Regarding the pit stops, as I said, I didn’t see his pit stops. My pit stop was OK. Next time, though, I’m sure that he wants to have cleaner pit stops if that was the case.
Q: (Vincent Marre – All Race Motorsport) Sebastian, among the races to come, which one do you feel will be the one that is easier for you, for Ferrari to catch up to the Mercedes? I think Malaysia will be difficult but what about Bahrain or Shanghai?
SV: Easy, for us? I think if you look at the gap, nowhere is going to be easy. I think we have to focus on ourselves, make sure that what we learned this weekend we’re able to take into the next races. The most important thing now is that if we finish – we did finish right behind Mercedes today. We need to confirm that in the next race, that’s the priority number one, so we need to make sure that I was not just a one-off. We improve reliability. As I said, Kimi didn’t finish, which is a shame. We could have scored a lot more points today.
NR: … that you find it a shame that your teammate didn’t finish?
SV: Yes. I don’t know how much you like each other but Kimi and myself we get along, so I think it is a shame.
NR: I though as a racing driver you might like it that you have a couple of points advantage over him now. I don’t want to get you off the foot there, sorry. Oops. Look at him, look at him go…
SV: I can see your point. No, no. I can see that at the moment, where we are, we want to make sure we catch you guys and to do that we both need to score. Yes, I honestly think so and I honestly didn’t want to see the second car not finishing today.
NR: Because I’m ready for it now, you caught me a bit off guard before but now I’m ready for it!
Q: (Chris Medland – F1i.com) Seb, obviously you’re very relaxed, very happy after this result. You look very comfortable at Ferrari already. Can you just compare the emotions for yourself compared to 12 months ago, going into a tough season with Red Bull and this is like a real fresh start for you?
SV: To be completely honest with you, 12 months ago I was already at the airport by now. Different story, obviously, I’m much happier to be here now, finishing the race, seeing the chequered flag. It’s a great Grand Prix so I think we all like coming here for a start but then, as I said, you cannot really compare, it’s a completely different situation. Last year, we had a very tough pre-season and on my side, a very tough first race so this year, as I said, changed teams, there’s a lot of new things, lot of things that I need to learn. I’m not yet on top of which will have to improve in the next couple of races but for now I’m very happy.
eom/FIA press release of the Transcript
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Hamilton takes dominant Melbourne win; Rosberg, Vettel complete podium
Lewis Hamilton put in a controlled drive to win the opening round of the 2015 Formula One World Championship, finishing just over a second ahead of team-mate Nico Rosberg, who handed Mercedes a dominant first one-two finish of the season.
Sebastian Vettel finished third, 33 seconds behind the Mercedes drivers, to hand Ferrari its first podium finish since Hungary last year and claimed his first appearance on the podium since Japan 2014.
Race day began in eventful style, as just an hour before the race Valtteri Bottas was ruled out, the Finn being deemed unfit to race due to a back injury sustained in qualifying. Williams reported that Bottas had suffered has a very small tear in the annular part of a disc in his lower back and FIA official ruled that he should not start.
The incidents mounted in the build up to the start when the McLaren of Kevin Magnussen and the Red Bull of Daniil Kvyat expired on the way to the grid.
When the lights went out at the start Hamilton got away best, comfortably holding the lead from Rosberg. Behind them Felipe Massa kept his starting place of third but fourth-on-the-grid Sebastian Vettel tangled with team-mate Kimi Raikkonen resulting in the Finn having to back off. That lift resulted in the Ferrari man being tapped by the hard-charging Felipe Nasr and the Brazilian then connected with the Lotus of Pastor Maldonado. The Venezuelan driver was pitched into the wall and out of the race.
Maldonado’s team-mate Romain Grosjean soon joined him the garage, the Frenchman pulling into the pits to retire his E23 as the Safety Car led the field around Albert Park. Just 13 cars would resume action.
When the Safety Car returned to the pits Hamilton again maintained control, quickly building a 2.6s lead over Rosberg. Massa held third ahead of Vettel, while Sauber rookie Felipe Nasr has gained the most following the start, the Brazilian rising from tenth on the grid to fifth. The sole Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo was sixth ahead of Carlos Sainz, who was in his starting position of seventh. Raikkonen remained in eighth after his bruising start and the final two points positions were filled by Toro Rosso teen Max Verstappen and Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg.
Raikkonen soon passed Sainz and began to chase down Ricciardo, but the status quo remained until the Finn was the first to make his way to the pit lane for a change of tyres. Raikkonen opted for more soft tyres but a problem with the rear left delayed him significantly. He rejoined in P11.
Massa was the next to pit, from fourth on lap 21. Unlike Raikkonen, the Williams driver took on medium compound Pirellis. At the front Hamilton was still in control, the Briton now 3.5s ahead of Rosberg, with Vettel still third, a distant 13.5s adrift of his compatriot.
Daniel Ricciardo pitted from sixth place on lap 23. He too took on medium tyres, as did Vettel when he pitted a lap later. The German’s in-lap and stop were good and Vettel was able to jump past Massa to claim third place.
Sainz was the next in but his race was severely compromised by a disastrously slow stop owing to a long delay in replacing his left rear tyre. He dropped to 12th place.
Hamilton finally made his first pit stop on lap 25, taking on medium tyres in a clean visit to the pit lane. Rosberg followed a lap later and he also took the harder compound tyres.
Verstappen was the last man to visit the pit lane, the Dutch driver taking on soft tyres on lap 32.
The order at the top after the first round of stops was Hamilton 2.2s ahead of Rosberg, with Vettel third, 13.9s behind the second Mercedes. Massa was third but being hotly pursued by the flying Raikkonen who was running almost seventh tenths of a second quicker than the Williams ahead.
Nasr, meanwhile, had dropped to sixth, with Ricciardo seventh, ahead of Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg. Verstappen rejoined in ninth place but was soon out of the race, an engine failure almost immediately after his pit stop ending his debut race. His car’s demise put Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson into ninth and Perez into the points.
Raikkonen made his second stop on lap 40, taking on a final set of medium tyres after his two soft-tyre stints but the Finn was quickly out of the race after a second error with the rear left that meant he had to pull over and retire from the race.
The Finn’s retirement meant that Hamilton now led by 2.3s from Rosberg, with Vettel third, 2.9s ahead of Massa. Nasr was fifth ahead of Ricciardo, with Hulkenberg now seventh. The final points positions were taken by Sainz, Ericsson and Perez.
And at the front that was how the order stayed. Rosberg kept Hamilton honest, pushing to the last to finish just over a second behind the world champion, who took his 34th career win.
With Vettel third, Massa took fourth ahead of compatriot Nasr, while Ricciardo salvaged some pride for Red Bull Racing with sixth place ahead of Hulkenberg.
Sainz tried to cling on to eighth place but his tyres were deteriorating quickly and on lap 56 he was passed by Ericsson. Perez took the final point on offer, while Jenson Button, the last finisher, completed a race distance for Honda-powered McLaren in 11th place.
Hamilton on top to greet fans after winning season opener in Melbourne on Sunday. A Mercedes AMG Petronas image -
Lewis Hamilton claims pole as season opens in Melbourne
Hamilton took pole in the season opener at Melbourne on Saturday. A Mercedes AMG Petronas image Melbourne, 14 March 2015: Lewis Hamilton claimed his first pole position of the 2015 season with a blistering lap of Melbourne’s Albert Park that put him more than half a second clear of closest rival, team-mate Nico Rosberg. Third place went to Williams’ Felipe Massa.
The first period of qualifying saw Hamilton finish at the top of the pile with a lap of 1:28.586, three tenths clear of Rosberg, both having only used the medium tyre.
Third spot in Q1 went to Massa who claimed the place late in the session with a lap on the soft tyre. Behind him, Max Verstappen was an impressive fourth for Toro Rosso, with Sebastian Vettel fifth. Both he and 10th-placed Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen had opted for the soft tyre from the start of the session.
Romain Grosjean made it through to Q2 in eighth place, ahead of Carlos Sainz Jr, Valtteri Bottas and Nico Hulkenberg.
Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo was comfortably 11th on the soft tyre, with his time set well before the end of the session, but team-mate Daniil Kvyat left it late, the Russian only getting a single timed run in the session after being restricted to the garage for the bulk of the session for repairs to an exhaust fire in FP3. It was enough though to see him through, in 14th place, behind Sergio Perez and Pastor Maldonado.
With Felipe Nasr scraping through in 15th place, the drivers eliminated were his Sauber team-mate Marcus Ericsson, the twin Honda-powered McLarens of Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen and the Manor Marussia pairing of Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi, who did not take to the track during the session.
In Q2 Hamilton led at the end of the first runs, the champion lapping two tenths quicker than Rosberg, with Vettel now third, just over six tenths of a second down on the Mercedes and two tenths clear of team-mate Raikkonen. In danger, from 11th to 14th, were Kvyat, Nasr, Hulenberg, Perez and Maldonado.
Mercedes opted not to make a second run with their drivers comfortably retaining the top two spots. Vettel held on to third with his lap of 1:28.742, while Bottas slotted into fourth behind the Ferrari driver. Raikkonen made it through in fifth place ahead of Massa and Grosjean. Sainz delivered an impressive lap to claim eighth place, while Daniel Ricciardo could only manage ninth place. The final Q3 place was claimed by Maldonado.
Out went Sauber’s Nasr and Toro Rosso’s Verstappen. The 17-year-old was set to progress but a big moment in Turn Five spoiled his lap and dropped him to 12th. Also eliminated were Red Bull Racing’s Kvyat, and the Force Indias of Hulkenberg and Perez.
After the first runs in Q3 Hamilton still held sway with a lap of 1:26.419, ahead of Vettel whose lap of 1:27.757 put him ahead of Felipe Mass and Raikkonen. Rosberg was forced to abandon his lap after he went briefly off track in the final corner. Bottas too abandoned his lap, complaining of a problematic bite point with his brakes.
But when Rosberg did string together a final run it was no match for that of his imperious team-mate. The German’s only timed run netted a time of 1:26.921, almost four tenths slower than Hamilton’s opening Q3 run, and when the Briton crossed the line moments later the gap widened to almost six tenths.
Third place went to Massa, who finished almost 1.4s adrift of Hamilton. Sebastian Vettel was fourth, just over three hundredths of a second clear of Raikkonen. They were followed by Bottas, Ricciardo, Sainz, Grosjean and Maldonado.
Australian Grand Prix Qualifying
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:26.327s –
2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:26.921s 0.594s
3 Felipe Massa Williams 1:27.718s 1.391s
4 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:27.757s 1.430s
5 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:27.790s 1.463s
6 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:28.087s 1.760s
7 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:2;8.329s 2.002s
8 Carlos Sainz Jr. Toro Rosso 1:28.510s 2.183s
9 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:28.560s 2.233s
10 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1:29.480s 3.153s
11 Felipe NasrSauber 1:28.800s –
12 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso 1:28.868s –
13 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull 1:29.070s –
14 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:29.208s –
15 Sergio Perez Force India 1:29.209s –
16 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:31.376s –
17 Jenson Button McLaren 1:31.422s –
18 Kevin Magnussen McLaren 1:32.037s –eom/FIA press release
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I feel incredibly blessed to have this car: Hamilton after taking pole
DRIVERS
1 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)
2 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)
3 – Felipe MASSA (Williams)
TV UNILATERAL
Lewis, it’s always good to start the year with a pole position no doubt, tell us how you did it and particularly by the margin with which you did it?
Lewis HAMILTON: Well, it’s been a great start to the weekend. It doesn’t feel like it’s been a long time since the last race we’ve already had and a big rush and a huge effort from all of the guys back at the factory to enable us to come here and have this performance, so I feel incredibly blessed to have this car. And then today we found a good balance and today was just about pushing those laps. It’s so much fun when you get into qualifying, you have those single laps which you have to push. So I’m just massively grateful for all the hard work that’s gone in.
Very well done. Nico, coming to you, obviously not really your day today. You mentioned on the radio in Q2 that you had an engine cut-out issue and you had a lock-up in Q3, what was the story of your qualifying?
NR: The story was that… well, first of all Lewis was in impressive form today, he did an awesome job and nailed it all the time. And then, for me, the speed was there but I just didn’t get it together today. So it wasn’t a great day today. But of course I’m really thankful to the team for the car that they have given me – it’s unbelievable. It’s a pleasure to drive and it’s a pleasure to be in this situation with this team. That’s really great to see where we are again now – leading the pack. P2, I have to live with that today, still a long day tomorrow anyway and we still have all the chances.
Very well done. Coming to you Felipe. It’s been a very close battle all weekend with Ferrari for best of the rest status behind the two Mercedes and you personally definitely saved your best for last?
Felipe MASSA: Yeah, it was a very tricky qualifying, especially when you have four cars fighting for very similar times, all the time. So if you see the difference in the lap times between me, Sebastian and Kimi and also Valtteri, it’s pretty small. But I’m happy. I’m happy that I did a good lap. It was the best lap of the day, the last one, which was not so easy, especially with the wind changing. It’s so easy to have front locking in corners that I had – not on this lap – so maybe I just prepared everything for the last try and it worked. It worked pretty well and we’re there. It will be a big fight tomorrow with Ferrari especially but I hope we can do a good job.
Coming back to you again Lewis. As we mentioned, it’s your fourth time on pole position here in Melbourne but you haven’t won here since your first championship year of 2008. Clearly some unfinished business tomorrow?
LH: Well, we had a difficult season last year here, so definitely as a team, as a whole, we’re hoping for a better start, for both cars to succeed tomorrow. So we’re going to work as hard as we can to make sure we do that and lots of work to be done tonight for the race tomorrow, because that is going to be a huge challenge still and obviously a good fight, hopefully, with Nico.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Lewis, last year you converted six of your seven poles into victories. Can you tell us what the secret is of making that happen? Obviously a good start strategy – but what is the real secret?
LH: I think there isn’t a real secret. It’s hard work in the evening before and on the day just really understanding the strategy, understanding your limitations and strengths. Fuel, tyres, diff settings, all of those things. You need to be able to juggle those and obviously you all need to be on form as a team and capitalising on the opportunities that you do have. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. You try to make it the first one more often.
Q: Nico, one of the things that was really noticeable about that qualifying hour was how much the temperatures dropped from the beginning to the end. It got a lot cooler and the wind was gusting quite a lot. How much do you have to adjust yourself, and in the car?
NR: It was difficult because the wind, again, had changed from the session this afternoon and so it was just different again. And it really has a big impact on the car so we all had to adapt again to it. And that’s why it was particularly difficult out there. But my balance was good and the car was really good.
Q: Felipe, it’s clear that Williams have picked up where they left off at the end of 2014 in terms of qualifying pace – but how are you feeling about the race pace?
FM: I feel good. I feel that I still… in the race we can do a good job. Definitely the fight is really tough with Ferrari. We are in the similar pace, it won’t be easy, the race against Ferrari but I think we are there. We are there in the right and I’m really looking forward that we can start well the season with both cars and I really hope what’s happened in the last race of the season we can repeat straight away. Would be great.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action) Felipe, as you say, a great start to the season. Do you see in the next couple of races the car making even a better improvement from what it is now?
FM: Yeah, I hope so. We’re working for that, working to improve the car, working to try to bring as many upgrades in the parts, working as close as we can with Mercedes to see if we can also get some improvements on the engine as well. So it’s definitely just the start. We know how much we improved last year and we really working and we need to try to repeat the development we did last year from the first to the last race but even more intense. So that’s the work I’m doing together with the whole team. I’m really looking forward that we can do that.
Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto Motor und Sport) Felipe, P3 is good on the one hand, on the other hand, there’s 1.4s to Lewis. How much of a worry is that? It seems to be a bigger gap that last year even?
FM: Yeah, it is! They’re in different categories. They’re in the same category between them [Lewis and Nico] but in different categories between the others. For sure it is not great to see this difference but we keep working, we keep fighting and I hope we can get as close as we can.
Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Felipe, since you have the same engine as they have, where is the difference? Is it just in the car, or…?
FM: I guess so! If we have the same engine the difference should be in the car, or… I hope we have the same engine. I believe we have the same engine, so it’s the car. Maybe.
Q: (Chris Medland – F1i.com) Question for you Lewis. I know before this weekend you were saying it wasn’t that important to get off to a much stronger start, it’s a long season, but now you’re on pole position it’s clearly going to be a two-horse race tomorrow. Is it crucial that you don’t have a race like last year where you failed to score?
LH: Similar to what I said yesterday really, it wasn’t that I said it’s not important, it’s just that last year showed that even though I didn’t have a good first race, that it wasn’t the end of the world. But, of course, the plan tomorrow is to have a better start to the season – and today’s the first step in that direction.
Q: (Vincent Marre – All Race) Felipe, which team is Williams fearing the most: Ferrari now or Red Bull?
FM: Well, I think Red Bull is not really there for the moment. I’m sure Red Bull will get there because they are really strong. We know last year that they finished in front of us. The rules are similar this year so I’m sure they’re going to come, but for the moment Ferrari is really strong and they made a big step forward compared to last year so I’m sure tomorrow we need to be a bit more worried about Ferrari but we need to keep our eyes open for Red Bull and even for the others.
Q: (Paul Gover – News Limited) Nico, the margin to Lewis today is fairly substantial. Do you think that you will be able to close that down tomorrow and turn it into a proper race?
NR: It’s not indicative of the pace difference. For sure Lewis was quick but I didn’t get my laps together today so I’m not too worried about pace – I’m not worried about pace at all to be honest. But the race is always a different thing so maybe I can even turn it around tomorrow. On Friday, in the long runs, my pace was very strong so yeah, hopefully it can be the other way tomorrow. I’ll definitely give it everything and put on a good show for everybody.
Q: (Ralf Bach – Sport Bild) Nico, do you think it’s easy to overtake here?
NR: The tyres are going to make the… (they’re) my opportunity or the start but also the tyres because if the temperatures drop like they did just now, then with the soft tyre (there) could really be a big problem with the graining so that’s my chance.
Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Nico, did you have a problem with the engine in Q2?
NR: No, no. It’s fine tuning. I cannot say I had a problem. It’s more things here and there to perfect everything.
