Tag: Red Bull

DRIVERS

1 – Sebastian VETTEL (Red Bull Racing)

2 – Fernando ALONSO (Ferrari)

3 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)

PODIUM INTERVIEW  (Conducted by Eddie Jordan)

Q: [to Vettel] Three World Champions, I’m spoilt for choice here. What a great win, a text book win, pole position, you seemed to win it at ease. Tell me about it.

Sebastian VETTEL: Thank you. Thank you everybody. I think it wasn’t that bad for us, I think. Yeah, great race, I had a very good start, which was important and then I was able to really go with the car and yeah, obviously on the supersoft we saw the tyres were falling apart but I think we were just as good as everybody else. I was able to build a gap and then kept that gap basically the whole race. At some stages we had a full pitstop on hand and it’s a little bit easier then to control the race, control the gaps etcetera. Great race, great job by the team. I had perfect pitstops even though we had some time on hand. And also for North America, I think it’s a great race for Infiniti. All in all, a very important race for us to win. Finally we get it off the list. Very proud of that. The sun came out today. Couldn’t get any better. Racing in front of the crowd here is always…

Q: …I have to ask you about that because it seems quite unbelievable to us that you’ve never won here before, nor indeed has Red Bull. So what does it mean to get the monkey off the back?

SV: Yeah, obviously we’ve had good races before but it didn’t come together to win. Two years ago I was very close. I lost it in the last lap, it was my mistake, so made up for it today. Great feeling, as I said. Great car today by the team and I think we were able to really pull away from the rest of the field, which was most important to then control the race. I could really enjoy every single lap. Difficult at stages through the traffic but as I said, great and …

Q [to Alonso] …When I read your report yesterday when you said that you thought you may have a chance to come from sixth position to hopefully get a win here, I was saying ‘how’s he going to try and do that?’ And you nearly did it. Magic, magic tenacious drive.

Fernando ALONSO: Hello everybody first of all and bonjour. Yesterday obviously we didn’t have a good qualifying, I didn’t put the lap together and also the conditions didn’t help but we knew that the pace in dry conditions of the car on Friday was good, so we had some hopes. Obviously we are fighting with top drivers and I have a very good fight with Mark, with Nico, with Lewis at the end. And it’s not easy. Even if you have a little bit more pace, they are super-talented ones and it was difficult race. But at the end I think the second place has a victory taste because we scored some good points after a very difficult weekend.

Q: You seem to have a lot of fans here Lewis.

Lewis HAMILTON: I have a great time here every year, and thank you for all the support, I have a great time.

Q: I’ve got to ask you, we all were enthralled how clean, how correct and yet how exciting the fight was with Fernando. What did you damage on the car?

LH: I think some small part of my wing came off. It was very, very close, we had a good battle, he was very, very fair and I hope we can get a bit quicker in the next race.

Q: You qualified in front of your team-mate, you raced in front of your team-mate. That must have been a bit of a help after Monaco, I presume. You feel really good about going forward with this team?

LH. Yes, the car’s getting better and the guys are doing a fantastic job, so we just need to keep pushing to close the gaps to these guys.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Well done Sebastian that must be, not a relief necessarily, but you must be very happy first of all to have won here finally and for Red Bull Racing as well. But there were a couple of moments where you very nearly touched the wall and you went wide as well. What happened in those two instances?

SV: Obviously I was pushing very hard at the beginning to get away and open a gap and yeah, I think it’s Canada, you obviously go close to the walls here or there, sometimes a little bit closer than I wanted but fortunately I didn’t brush the walls. I’m really just trying to just open as much of a gap as I can. I felt I had more pace in the beginning of the race, it’s difficult to foresee what’s happening later on, when you swap tyres, also in terms of range – how far we were going to get on each set of tyres. We weren’t sure if it was a one-stop or a two-stop. So all these things you don’t know so it’s good to have a little bit of time on your hands, which was the reason why I pushed very hard in the beginning. Obviously it was clear quickly after the first stint that we had a good gap and controlled it. Obviously it was difficult with the traffic etc, but I think we had a great car and we always had enough pace on hand to react and control the gap. In the end I went straight in turn one. I think I could have saved or caught the car, but I didn’t want to risk a spin. So I decided, should I stay should I go, then I decided to cut the corner, slowed down. Obviously there was traffic again with a backmarker, so I let him by to really make sure I rejoined the track in a safe way, which cost a lot of time. But yeah I was just a bit too late in the first corner heating the brakes.

Well done. Fernando, you had some great battles and it took quite a while to get past Lewis. Was it just the speed coming out of the hairpin? It took quite a while, even with DRS.

FA: I think it was the pace difference was very, very small. With other battles we did maybe I was a little bit more fast, a little bit faster than the people I was catching. With Lewis we were really very close on the pace and there was some moments going out of turn eight to see who had the detection point and then in turn 10 the same thing, at the last chicane, so there was some action there. But it was nice to have these battles, particularly this race with so talented drivers, so intelligent drivers, that, you know, you fight wheel-to-wheel at 315km/h and you feel safe. You feel you are racing and you are competing. It can go your way or it can go the other way, but this is real racing. So, very happy to see this back after Monaco. It’s a little bit different.

Lewis, once again on the podium here in Canada. We thought you might be trying to get Fernando back again. Was that a possibility?

LH: Clearly not, because I didn’t get him. He was massively quick and it was very difficult to keep him behind. I tried my best. I got close once he got past me, but he was just generally took quick for me. But you know, it’s still a good result for me considering that these guys are massively quick.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action and National Speedsport News) Lewis, earlier this week you talked to us about your brakes. How were they in this race, maybe the best they’ve been all season?

LH: No. Not really. Generally, again, very similar to other races. Still need to improve and that’s where Fernando was really catching me everywhere.

Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Fernando, how much has yesterday’s qualifying been hurting you because starting sixth getting to second was a big race.  Could you have done better, do you think, if you had started on the first or second row?

FA: I don’t know really. I think you will never know. Qualifying is qualifying and it’s better to be on pole position but I think the last pole position in dry conditions was September 2010 so it’s not the strong point of the team. On Sunday, we normally pick up the pace a little bit about which we are happy because the points are gained on Sunday, but it’s true that at some races, if you start too far behind, it’s difficult to recover, but we will try to improve next time.

Q: (Kate Walker – GP Week) Sebastian, you had a dominant victory today. You’ve won three of seven races so far this season and you’re leading both Drivers’ and Constructors’ championships, but despite all this, you’ve probably been the most vocal critic of the tyres. I was wondering if you had revised your opinions on the rubber, given your performance and your continuing strength.

SV: Well, I think it’s pretty simple. The criticism we had or I expressed was not based on performance. I think it was based on safety and I’m sure if you ask other drivers, maybe they weren’t that strong in the press, maybe they think they have an advantage with this sort of tyre, but we had some occasions this year where the tyre suffered delaminating, the top layer came off for not exactly known reasons, probably debris but you will always have some pieces on the track. I think it’s not possible to have an entirely clean track everywhere and I think that has been the criteria. Every time I complained about balance or the tyres and their behaviour, every time as I said as well that on that day there were other people doing a better job and first of all we had to get to their level to start complaining about performance but obviously when you say something, it’s in fashion, these days to take what you like instead of probably publishing the whole answer.

Q: (Nicolangelo Cioppi– Cittadino Canadese) Sebastian, what happened again on lap 52, I don’t understand exactly?

SV: As I said, I was a little bit too late into the first corner, lost the rear on the way in. I could have stayed on the track but I wasn’t sure. It was quite tight, obviously you have the right hander following immediately and I didn’t want to risk a spin so I decided to cut and make sure. I lost four or five seconds in that corner compared to normal, so I think it was fine. It just seemed to be the safer option to avoid the spin and carry on that way. I was just a little bit too fast. That’s what happens. Fortunately there was no wall so I was lucky.

Q: (Nicolangelo Cioppi– Cittadino Canadese) Fernando, in Monte Carlo we talked to one another and you were very confident for Montreal, and you said to me ‘I’m going to be on the podium.’  Congratulations, and I would like you to say something to the Italian community here because there’s a very very big Italian community.

FA: In Monaco we were not competitive for different reasons. In a way, we were not competitive here on Saturday, maybe for the same reasons, for the conditions that we need to do a better job compared to the others. In some conditions we are not competitive enough, so we need to work on that. And then for the Italian people here in Montreal, I think they support Ferrari all the time, they enjoy Formula One. You see the atmosphere in this race is very very unique, not only here on the track but from the time you land at the airport, you see a very enthusiastic people about this race. You put the TV on, they are talking about the meteo for the Grand Prix. They’re talking about the qualifying, the practice, the shops on the streets are full of flags, Ferrari flags etc, so it’s very nice to race here. We didn’t give them a win today but I think we put on a good show for everybody and hopefully we give a win for them in the next one when they are watching TV.

Q: (Carlos Miguel Gomez – La Gaceta) Fernando, are you worried for the British Grand Prix, with your pace in qualifying because normally it’s cold weather; do you believe you can be OK in Silverstone?

FA: I believe so. I think it’s a different circuit, completely different asphalt, generating a lot of stress in the tyre: Silverstone, Nurburgring compared with very easy tracks on tyres like Monaco, Canada where you are looking for one or two stops. Silverstone will be different, I think. We know that the temperature is not helping us at the moment, but we cannot say anything because there are other people going very fast in those conditions, so it’s up to us to improve. We have some ideas and hopefully at Silverstone we can improve on that.

Q: (Bill Beacon – Canadian Press) Sebastian, after you took the chequered flag, you sounded that you were very pleased to finally win in Montreal. Was that important to you and the team?

SV: Yeah, I think it is important to us, but not because… I wasn’t desperate to win here. I think we’ve had strong results in the past and I wasn’t ashamed coming here having not won this race, so I wasn’t desperate when I got up this morning and thought ‘I have to win, I have to win.’ But I was very pleased because it’s a very nice race. I think Lewis had the privilege to win here three times and I think that in terms of atmosphere – Fernando touched on it – the whole city enjoys the Formula One Grand Prix. We have a lot of spectators. I think it was good today to have sunshine, it was quite bad in terms of weather yesterday, but there were still a lot of fans and obviously today, again, a fantastic atmosphere and to me this race belongs one hundred percent to the calendar, because I think for all of us drivers we enjoy a lot seeing grandstands completely sold out, a lot of enthusiastic people, the whole town living the Grand Prix. I think it’s similar to the Grand Prix in Melbourne in a way which is also not a race track, it’s in the middle of the city as well, so I think we enjoy that, and I think that’s why we were very happy or we are very happy today.

Q: (Jeff Pappone – Globe and Mail) Fernando, when do things started getting desperate? Seb seems to be gaining points at every race now and you’re falling further and further behind. When do you really have to start winning?

FA: I think we are eighty or eight-five points behind. It will be a very critical situation, which is more than three races. In the past –  I touched on this in Australia or Malaysia – in the last six or eight years, there were people recovering from more than 30 points on the old points, which is three races so it’s 75 or 80 points. So hopefully we’re going to arrive to that number.

Q: (Jordan Irvine – NextGen Auto) Lewis, Mercedes dominated second position for 63 laps of today’s 70 lap race and then you lost out with seven to go to Fernando. Was there any one thing that you didn’t have that meant to you lost that position with so little time left?

LH: I guess it’s just grip, just lack of grip. The car was fantastic, I’m assuming those guys had even better than that. But generally it’s been really good. I was just lacking a little bit of grip in the lower speed… perhaps the chicane. Fernando seemed to be particularly quick in the lower speed corners.

Q: (Massimo Lopes Pegna– La Gazzetta dello Sport) Sebastian, how important is this win today; beside the win, how important is to gain seven points in the standings and maybe to get quicker to the critical point that Fernando was talking about?

SV: To be honest with you, I care for the win today. Obviously you don’t have to be a genius to know that you get more points than anybody else for that result but as Fernando said, the championship is still long and obviously I was in a different position last year at this time and I was able to catch up quite a lot towards the end. I had very strong races. Fernando was a little bit unlucky here and there and we were able to beat him, so we were able to come back but this was ten races from where we are now so I think there are so many things that can happen at that stage of the championship, I’m happy to stand on the grid and focus on the race, trying to win, and the rest we will see later on if we are still in a strong position. I think there’s enough of you reminding us if we’re not, you are there as well.

Q: (Livio Oricchio – O Estado de Sao Paulo) Lewis, OK, the last two circuits were not demanding in terms of tyre wear. It looked like Mercedes made a step forward in terms of the tyre wear, that was the weakest point you had. Can you explain this development you’ve made on the car, what happened exactly to make this step forward?

LH: I think it’s just been a work in progress. We haven’t really… we haven’t cured anything, it’s not been a long period of time since Barcelona where there was big trouble. I guess we’ve just been to two tracks where it’s not got high speed corners, so therefore it’s not really been a problem. We’ve worked on a couple of techniques to look after the tyres a bit more, brake cooling and all that kind of stuff has been added as well, which helps.

Ends

DRIVERS – Valtteri BOTTAS (Williams), Daniel RICCIARDO (Toro Rosso), Esteban GUTIERREZ (Sauber), Sebastian VETTEL (Red Bull Racing), Fernando ALONSO (Ferrari), Sergio PEREZ (McLaren)

PRESS CONFERENCE 

Sergio, sixth in Bahrain, was that a breakthrough result for you with McLaren? 

Sergio PEREZ: Considering where we started from, I think it was pretty much the maximum we could get. We came very close at the end, [fighting] with Lewis [Hamilton] for fifth place. We did a good strategy, good race pace – better than expected – so it was definitely a very positive race, especially after all the tough start to the season we had.

And what’s happened in terms of discussions between you and Jenson [Button] after the disagreements over your battle in Bahrain. Where do you stand going into this race?

SP: It’s very clear between us, between the team. We had a very good chat, Jenson and myself, but also with Martin [Whitmarsh] and Sam [Michael]. We sat down after the race and, yeah, I think we were a bit too aggressive, both of us, between us, and we risked quite a lot to the team… to damage to the result of the weekend. Especially, we needed so much those points. We both apologized to the team and it was cleared. It was a nice chat to have.

Thanks very much. Esteban, Monisha Kaltenborn said after Bahrain ‘he’s struggling at the moment’. Can you put your finger on why and what positives have you drawn from your experiences so far?

Esteban GUTIERREZ: Well, generally it has not been the ideal start to the season. Especially for myself, I would have liked to have a more consistent four races. When you’re competing you’re taking risks. Especially at the beginning it’s important to find the right equilibrium between being conservative and taking risks. I have made some mistakes and definitely it has not been very positive but I’m determined and focused to work, myself and also as a team. It [Bahrain] was not a great track for us and hopefully it will be better for Barcelona.

Obviously qualifying seems to be the particular problem, you’re a few slots behind your team-mate on average this season. What are you experiencing now on Saturday afternoons?

EG: Of course on Saturday morning, in Bahrain for example, we decided to do a race simulation and this is not an ideal preparation for qualifying. We thought we could get some information for race performance. And of course also my driving, there are some little bits I need to improve, be more confident in the corners with the car that I have and get the most of the car.

Fernando, you challenged for the win here last year and you’ve won twice on home soil. After all these years of racing in Spain, does the emotion that you feel help you, or is it something that you have to master first and keep under control in order to do well?

Fernando ALONSO: I think it motivates you to race at home and you give an extra 10 per cent on what you normally do, to take care of every detail of the weekend, starting from tomorrow’s practice, qualifying, race. You try to do everything well because you know that a nice result here, a nice podium finish or whatever will make you happy, will make the team happy, make many people in the grandstand happy. So, it’s a special weekend but after all those years I think you’re OK with that extra motivation and it’s not anymore a pressure or the emotions you maybe felt in the first year, that you really worry to do well here, for everybody that comes to support you. Now you’ve proved for many years that there’s not a pressure or anything that will stop you doing well. After doing very good results at home, so now you want to keep doing like that to really make everyone enjoy Sunday afternoon.

From 22 Grand Prix here only two have been won from outside the front row, the stats say it all. Have Ferrari prioritised that in the approach to this weekend?

FA: Not really. I think this year we see how important are the races, the race pace. The tyres are a key factor, more than previous. Obviously it’s good to start at the front and if you start on the first row you know that your chances are high and the podium, you can really touch with your hands if you start on the first row.

But I think we need to have a very, very normal weekend like we did in the first four races and try to find the right balance between qualifying and the race. Maybe the first really important qualifying will arrive in two weeks’ time in Monaco, when we know that qualifying is extremely important. I think here is still more or less a normal circuit and you need to find a compromise.

Sebastian, championship leader with 77 points, three front-row starts, three podiums out of four starts, including obviously two wins, and yet one senses that you and the team have not been completely happy with the level of competitiveness so far?

Sebastian VETTEL: Disagree. I think if you look at the results that we got, we can be extremely happy in terms of how competitive we were. I think we can be equally as happy because we had a car that was good enough to finish on the podium and fight for victory, not in all four races, but yeah we won two out of four so it’s not that bad and even the third place in Australia was very strong and the fourth place in China. Obviously we didn’t have that many races yet but I think from a result point of view we can be happy but surely you’re not looking at the raw result and you’re looking at the way you achieved the result and here and there I think we had some room for improvements and that’s what we are targeting. But I wouldn’t say that we are unhappy with what we got so far.

Pirelli has obviously changed the harder compound tyre to something more like last years. As a team that was calling for changes, how do you feel about what’s happened?

SV: Who did we call? I think there was more talk than action from our side – as in I think we said what happened to us as a team, what we felt happened to us as drivers, just like everybody else. But surely there’s a lot of attention and then people try to make their own stories but I think you could for the whole grid that people were struggling with the tyres, it’s not a secret, it’s not just us. I think we also learned to deal with the tyres, with the situation. Sometimes you succeed a little bit more, sometimes less, but then again it’s the same for other people, so yeah, up to a certain point where you feel, as a driver, it’s obviously different racing. It’s the same for everyone but you know, I don’t know, for example in the race in China where we struggled with tyres. I had the occasion that Fernando approaches from behind. I was on a different strategy to him and so on, so I was on different tyres. But there was no point fighting with him because in the end I only slow down my own race. So, I don’t wave him past but I’m not really resisting and it’s a different style of racing and I think that’s what we, if anything, criticised in the past.

Q: Valtteri, you got your big break this year but I’m sure you didn’t expect it to be quite the struggle it’s been. What has held Williams back so far, would you say?

Valtteri BOTTAS: Yeah, it’s not been a start we wanted – that’s for sure – but I think we all the time understand more and more the problems we’ve had. It’s just some of the paths in the development of the car we took in the winter proved to be a bit of a dead end and we understand it much better. We had a good aero test last week and I really feel we are on the right path now.

Q: And what about your own performances against your team-mate? It’s 2-2 in qualifying, you both have a best result of 11^th, does that satisfy you?

VB: I think from my side it’s not been a bad start. It’s still my first season racing F1 and there’s a lot to learn. It’s been quite a smooth start, of course there’s always things you could do better and willing to improve a lot during the next few races and during the whole season.

Q: Daniel, a breakthrough result for you personally in China, qualifying and finishing seventh. Is that the limit though for Toro Rosso at the moment, or can you do more?

Daniel RICCIARDO: I’d like to be able to do more. I think seventh was the best we could have done in China. Obviously the week after wasn’t anywhere near what we showed a week earlier in China but I think yeah, that’s probably where we were at that time. We brought some updates this weekend – along with probably every other team – so we have to see now which direction it favours. Hopefully it can push us further up the front. We’ll have to see but I think for us to just try to get some more top tens more consistently. It was great to have a one-off good result but we want to finish in the points more often. So, we’ll see what we’ve got this weekend, really. We’re all excited to see how much of a gain we make and hopefully the others haven’t made any big gains.

Q: What has the Red Bull management said it expects from you – and do you and they feel you’re on target at the moment?

DR: I was waiting for one of these questions! For them what they expect is, I think, what they’ve always expected from us juniors since I started in the junior team a few years ago now. Just to maximise our equipment, to show some signs of being a potential winner, a potential champion and just to make the most out of what we’ve got really. I definitely felt China, that was achieved, but doing it once isn’t really going to stick for 19 races. It’s got to happen more often. I think it’s along those lines really, just to maximise it and get some good results like I did there. Want more now, that definitely…  not only for them but for me, that’s what I want.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Kate Walker – GP Week) Valterri and Esteban, you’re both rookie drivers; Valterri you came  with a number of Friday drives under your belt whereas Esteban you had GP2 experience. What have you both learned in the first four races which has been different from your previous roles last year, and how are you going to take that on to improve further over the course of the rest of the season?

EG: Well, basically one of the biggest differences from GP2 is the complexity of your work with the team. There’s a lot more development, there’s a lot more communication and you have to be more precise as a driver on that side. Also, from the atmosphere, there’s media attention, there’s more followers and everyone is looking more into detail and into everything so it’s quite an interesting experience and something that is inclusive of being a Formula One driver.

VB: I think Formula One racing is something different to anything I’ve ever experienced before. The longest races I did before was F3 in thirty minutes or something and now it’s one hour 30 minutes minimum, so it’s a different style of driving, different style of adjusting the car’s set-up and you really need to focus throughout  the weekend to maximise the car both for qualifying and for the race to find a compromise. There’s so much more other technical stuff; you can adjust the car and you need to be very focused on every single little detail if you want to improve your driving and make the car better. I’ve really learned a lot; I can’t say just one thing but I’m sure I will be learning more and more all the time and at every race I feel I’m getting better and better.

Q: (Alex Popov – RTR) It’s about the back straight, between turns nine and ten. It’s quite short so can you really overtake into turn ten (with DRS)?

SV: It definitely helps. I think in the race it will be possible to overtake, not only on the straights, and not only on the two straights where we have DRS, especially when, similar to the last races, when we’re in trouble with tyres etc, I think you will find more than one or two places on the track to pass. It can only help if you have DRS available there. But surely, if you look for one lap on fresh tyres it’s not going to be easy because turn nine is quite fast, so it’s difficult to follow, as usual.

FA: Same.

SP: Same.

Q: (Alex Popov – RTR) Sebastian, would you comment on the rumours of you and Mercedes? What’s the story?

SV: I was surprised when I read it as well. I don’t read that much, usually just the headlines. It’s pretty funny.

Q: (Luis Vasconcelos – Formula Press) To the three in the front row, because they are the most experienced: what effect can it have on a team when it loses its technical director in the middle of the season and what do you expect this to do to Kimi Raikkonen’s challenge for the championship?

SP: Well, I think they (his neighbours) are fighting for the championship, they should be the ones to answer this one. I think it depends on certain teams. It isn’t the same in every team. In some other teams the technical director is more important than in the others. Obviously he’s a very key person in that team, so I don’t really know what effect it’s going to have on Kimi’s team to lose the technical director. But I don’t think it’s a big thing if they have very capable people who can do a good job.

FA: I don’t know really.

SV: I heard it yesterday. I think there’s always a reason and probably reasons that we don’t know, so it’s difficult for us to judge. I don’t think it’s our business. It can be negative, but it can also be positive. As I said, I don’t know the background.

Q: (Toni Lopez – La Vanguardia) Fernando, one year ago I think you were ten points behind the leader. Now I think the gap is thirty but you look more confident, more optimistic. Can you explain your different feelings now?

FA: Well, last year we were one to one-point-five seconds behind the top cars. Whether we might have won the Malaysian race with luck this year but this year we have finished two races without problems. We finished second in Australia and we won in China so it’s a very different feeling and a very different package that we have this year which brings us optimism  and some confidence that we can have a good championship. We need to deliver, we need to do some consistent results now and gain some consistent points for the next Sundays but we are more optimistic now that we have some points behind us, but the championship is long and there are many many examples, as we said many times last year – I think the most recent was Sebastian’s recovery last year. He was 43 points behind us after the summer break and was leading at Austin in Texas, so in five or six races you can recover 45-50 points if you get some consistent results. Same with us in 2006 when I was 33 points in front of Michael, which means 75 or 80 points with the current points system, and he was leading the championship in Suzuka with two races to the end. Until we are 75 or 80 points behind, we should be optimistic, until that point.

Q: (Valenti Fradera – Il Nuovo Sportivo) To both Sebastian and Fernando: how do you think the new hard compound tyre will suit your car?

SV: I’ve no idea. We will see tomorrow. I think we know what to expect a little bit, given the information we received from Pirelli so after all, I don’t expect a miracle. I think we will still have to work a lot around the tyre and make the tyre last so whether it helps us or not and whether this is the compound that we carry on using – talking about the hard tyre – I think we will know a little bit more after Sunday.

FA: Yeah, same, more or less. A learning Friday for us tomorrow, we will put that tyre on the car and try to have as much information tomorrow in practice, to analyse data and to have some good points, good information for the race and then after Sunday afternoon’s race we will have more information on the hard tyre that we will use in the future and we will see. I don’t think it will have a big impact on the car’s performance. It’s just up to the teams, up to each of us to make the most of the tyre and I think to get the benefit you need to work around them. We know how important the tyres are this year and we need to find the most information we can tomorrow.

Q: (Felix Gorner– RTL TV) Sebastian and Fernando, have you watched the champion’s league games and who is your favourite for the final?

SV: I’m not going to start.

FA: I’ve watched (the games) and it was sad for the two Spanish teams – especially for Real which is my team – but they didn’t play so well in Germany and in Madrid they played better but the gap was too much in the first game, unfortunately, and now in the final, who knows? I think it will be close. They’ve played in the national league and they were close so I’m expecting a close final as well.

SV: So, I’m Sebastian from Red Bull Racing. Yeah, I think it was obviously, from a German point of view, very successful. Quite surprised to have two German teams in the final now. I think, on paper, Bayern Munich should win, they have an extremely strong team this year but I cross my fingers for Dortmund. Let’s see what happens in the final. Nevertheless, I think it will be decided on the day and not on paper so depending on how well they play on that day.

Q: (Jens Walther – ARD Radio) Fernando, with football and Formula One in mind, how would you describe the sports relationship between Spain and Germany?

FA: Good. I think we don’t have too many games together. It was this semi-final this week that was Germany – Spain for two games but in some other sports we don’t play much together, because the sports that are good for Spain like basketball or tennis, the Germans are not so good. The sports that the Germans are very good at on snow, in skiing, where there aren’t Spaniards, so we don’t play much and in Formula One, I think we are in the minority because there are always four or five Germans in Formula One and one team or two, I don’t know how many German teams: Mercedes and… I think Mercedes only. I’m happy for Germans to keep winning in football.

Q: (Jerome Pugmire– AP) Sergio, you said it was important to have a talk with Jenson and with your management and you said it was a nice talk. Can you talk a bit more about what was said in that talk?

SP: Jenson and myself talked firstly to apologise to the team because we were quite aggressive, we were close to having an accident. The chat was mainly to clear the air, to say everything that we thought between us and to clear the relationship, because at the moment, especially, we need to be together to come out of the position that we are in where we are not quick enough at the moment, and we have to keep working very closely, Jenson and myself, and I think the chat that we had with Sam (Michael) and Martin (Whitmarsh) helped to keep the relationship strong and to keep the team together and get out of the difficult moment. The chat was mainly for that.

Q: If you had the same situation again, what would you do differently?

SP: The same, but risk less with your teammate. We were far too aggressive with each other, we lost time and I think that has to be a little bit different between us. Don’t waste too much tyre, especially as this stage of the season where the tyre is so critical. We are wasting too much tyre if we fight that hard, so I think we have to be more flexible in the fight. We are thankful that we are in a team like McLaren which lets you fight as teammates, so in that respect we have to respect each other a bit more.

Q: (Livio Orrichio – O Estado de Sao Paulo) All teams brought components, new parts for this race. Do you think that we will now see a different picture than what we saw in the first four races this season?

DR: Yeah, normally once the European seasons starts, it’s the start of the F1 calendar. It normally creates a bit of a picture, the top teams are normally established here so I think now, for a few races probably, you will see the top teams and they’ll stay there for a bit of time. Then maybe around Silverstone, there’ll be a second set of updates from a lot of teams, but normally what happens this weekend will draw a picture for the next couple of months, let’s say. Hopefully we’re in that picture, from my point of view, but I think that’s more or less the situation and as it has been the last few years.

VB: I really hope that we can really fight for better positions that we did at the beginning of the season. I really hope places will change and it will be better for us but as for everyone else, it’s just unknown. We will see how it goes. I’m sure we’re moving forward step by step, but it’s in a week or something so we’re bringing updates to every race now.

SP: I think it’s the same. It’s important for us to keep improving. I think we have improved quite a lot since the first race, so I think we’re going in the right direction. We don’t expect a big gain here. I think when you are so far away from everybody in front you have to bridge the gap and to start closing the gap is a priority. I think this race will be very important for us to learn a lot more about the car as well.

FA: I don’t think the picture at the front will change much this weekend.

SV: I don’t think there will be a big surprise. I think ideally everybody makes a step forward and they’re in the same boat.

Q: (Paulo Ianieri – La Gazetta dello Sport) Fernando, do you feel that for the first time since driving for Ferrari that you come to this race as one of the favourites and ready to attack rather than being the underdog and trying to profit from the misfortunes of the others?

FA: Yes. Maybe yes, first time that we arrive with a competitive car but that doesn’t mean that you will fight for top places, even if you do everything right and if you don’t put together a good weekend. It’s also true that we need to check how the car responds with some new parts that we brought here. Same with the other teams. Our competitors make the biggest step that they do and after that we see. As I said, in the first four races we felt competitive, we felt that we were able to fight for the top places if the race was without problems and what we will try here is to have a clean race with no problems Friday, Saturday, Sunday and if that will be enough to put us in contention for victory it will be nice. If it’s not possible, we will try to be as high as possible, but it’s a weekend that we approach with a positive mentality and maybe not as a defensive mentality as my first three years with Ferraris.

Q: (David Croft – Sky Sports) Fernando, you worked very closely with James Allison when you were at Renault. He was deputy then technical director. How highly do you rate him? Is he the sort of man you would like to work with again and could you tempt him to come to Ferrari?

FA: I don’t really have an opinion on that. He will chose what he prefers. He may chose to stay at home. I don’t know. We just know the news from yesterday and we don’t have any more news. For sure, I worked very closely with him and was World Champion with him two times. Then I came back to Renault in 2008/9; in 2009 he was already technical director and we were not so successful with that car, but we saw the Lotus car in the last two years and no secret that he’s one of the top men here and we will see what future he has.

Q: (David Croft – Sky Sports) Would you like to work with him?

FA: I would like to work with all the technical directors. It would be nice to have all of them in our team and see how our competitors create their cars because this is impossible. We are working well and this year things are going much better so we are happy with what we have but it’s always welcome, any extra help.

Ends