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DRIVERS: Sébastien BUEMI
(Toro Rosso), Heikki KOVALAINEN (McLaren Mercedes), Robert KUBICA (BMW
Sauber), Nico ROSBERG (Williams)
Q: Sébastien, your feelings so far about Formula One, having gone through a
third of the season?
Sébastien BUEMI: I would say that they are quite good. We had a good couple
of races at the beginning of the season. The last two races didn’t go the
way we wanted but in the end it is always experience. We seem to be more
competitive, so we are going in the right direction but we still have a lot
to learn.
Q: You or Sébastien (Bourdais) have been in the points most races. What is
the potential do you feel?
SB: I think we are a little bit out of the points as if you look at it we
struggle to go to Q3. We did it once and in Monaco we were really close to
it, so we have a good car. But we still need to improve a bit and it is
really close, two-tenths can make you stay in Q2 or even go to Q3, so we
need to see what we can do to improve it and be as much as possible in the
last part of the qualifying. This is the only way to be able to score points
at every race.
Q: As a Formula One driver coming in at the start of the season you haven’t
been here in an F1 car but you have been here in a GP2 car. What difference
is there between an F1 car and a GP2 car, especially when you are coming to
a circuit for the first time?
SB: I would say from the point of view when you are driving the car it is
not such a big difference. Okay, you are faster, you brake later and you
carry more speed into the corners. But I think it is more the way you work
with the people around you. It’s quite a big difference because you work
with only one engineer in GP2 but when you arrive in F1 you have got so many
people around you and if you want to be competitive you need to be doing a
good job with all of them and I think this is the biggest difference and it
is what takes a bit of time to be learnt.
Q: Is that confusing in a way? You don’t seem to have had a problem with
that.
SB: No, but I think you see there is some potential there and there and in
the end when you want to do the lap time you just need to use everything.
After the race it is always ‘there I could have been better and there as
well.’ I think this is experience, just to be able to take everything
together and then to put it in the qualifying as this is where it counts.
Q: Robert, you have the double diffuser here. What are you expecting?
Robert KUBICA: Well, I think how to be better than Monaco. I think this will
be easy. Now we have to see how much gain the double diffuser will bring and
how our performance will be better than in the last races. In Barcelona it
was not so bad. Unfortunately in two very important moments of the weekend
we had two problems. But Monaco was quite difficult. I am expecting, of
course, better performance but I don’t know how much.
Q: How much have you been pushing the team for the double diffuser? Are you
using KERS this weekend? You seem to have so many variables to play with.
RK: No, we are not using KERS here. As we have the double diffuser we have
to concentrate on it. It can have quite a big influence on the car balance
and on the set-up, so we have to work as much as possible on this tomorrow
and try to extract the maximum from it. We will have to see.
Q: You are known for being quite demanding of the team.
RK: Me? No, not really. Why?
Q: From various sources last year particularly. Do you push them hard? Do
you ask for a lot of things?
RK: I don’t think so. I think every driver is asking for as much as he would
like to get and that’s all. Everybody is pushing very hard. The driver from
the driver point of view and the team from the team point of view. I think
that is quite normal.
Q: Any particular expectations this weekend? You have twice qualified fifth
and finished fourth here.
RK: Yeah, if you look at last year’s results it would be good to repeat them
in nearly every track of the season. But we have seen already this year that
it is very difficult. In the beginning of the season it was a bit easier
when McLaren and Ferrari were behind us and we were behind the double
diffuser group. But then we have lost the ground in the last races. We
struggled quite a lot in Bahrain and in Monaco. We were not so bad in
Barcelona. I think this track will fit our car better and I hope the double
diffuser will bring the expected results and we will at least be able to
qualify in Q3. But it is very difficult to predict, so we will have to wait
and see.
Q: Nico, this is going to be your sixtieth Grand Prix; what do you think of
that?
Nico ROSBERG: That’s pretty cool. I didn’t know. I didn’t look at how many
races I’ve done. It’s quite amazing, really, to already have sixty Grands
Prix. That’s nice.
Q: There have been stories since the last Grand Prix that you’ve been
looking around at the possibilities for next year. Is that the case, and how
difficult is it with the current hierarchy in Formula One?
NR: It is very difficult to understand for next year, what is the best team
to go to and things like that. It is very, very difficult to understand but
anyway, for my situation, yes of course, I’m looking around because my
contract ends at the end of this year but more than that there’s nothing to
say and at the moment I’m just concentrating fully on this year because we
really need to push hard to get points at every race and we’re in a good
situation to be able to do that. We’ve scored now in the past two races, so
I really hope that we can continue that form in the next couple of races and
then that’s it, so I’m just following this season for now.
Q: How frustrated are you though, because even though you’re in the points,
do you not think you should be just a couple of places higher up?
NR: Yeah, but in the last few races there were always a few things that
didn’t go quite right. In Monaco we should have been one place up for
example. It could have been possible. Barcelona, for sure, we also had a few
issues, so we could have been one or two places up there but that’s just the
way it is. Other than that, I still think that we have a good platform and
it’s important for us just to continue scoring now in the next few races, to
always be up there and I’m very confident. We have some good updates for
this track here and I’m confident that we can at least keep our position and
maybe even move up a little bit. You have to compare to Barcelona. Monaco is
another thing but in Barcelona we were top eight and I think we should be
able to repeat that here and I hope it will be a little bit better.
Q: And you’ve been so quick in so many free practice sessions as well.
NR: Yeah, well, that doesn’t count because we just run less fuel than
everybody else, so that’s why it’s unfair. We look quicker than we are, so
it’s not important at all.
Q: It looks good…
NR: That’s not the reason why we do it! We just do it because it’s the best
way for us to prepare for our weekend.
Q: Heikki, is the McLaren progressing, is there light at the end of the
tunnel?
Heikki KOVALAINEN: Yes, absolutely. I think we are making progress all the
time and since the beginning of the season I think we made huge progress but
there’s obviously still work to be done. We’ve just got to stay focused and
keep on doing that same process that we’ve been doing and eventually it will
pay off but it’s not easy and it won’t happen overnight. Some races it might
look like we’re not making progress but I think we made progress at every
race.
Q: What are you expecting here?
HK: I think potentially a more difficult weekend than in Monaco for example,
in terms of overall performance. This circuit has more high speed corners
and that’s the area where we are struggling a bit more but you never know,
anything can happen. At some other circuits, Bahrain for example or China,
the pace was OK, so it could be an OK weekend but perhaps not like in
Monaco.
Q: How much have things changed within the team? From the outside it seems
there is a different approach; is there a different approach within the
team?
HK: Not so much. I think we’re still focussing on the work, the way that the
team has already done for many years, working with the engineers and with
the whole team back in Woking. That’s the way we have always been doing it,
so I haven’t noticed a big difference.
Q: Can you say when you expect to see a bit of a breakthrough?
HK: I think it’s difficult to say, it’s impossible to say when it’s going to
happen but, as I say, it won’t happen overnight, it will be a steady
progress. I think that at the moment it’s important to just analyse and
understand where the main problems are and I think we have already figured
out a lot of things that we know need to be corrected and need to be done
differently and it will take some time but eventually there’s no question
that the whole McLaren team will be back on top.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Joris Fioriti – AFP) Nico, you were talking about your expectations for
next season and the team where you would like to drive but are you sure
there will be a next season? Are all of you sure that there will be one?
NR: I’m very confident that there will be a next season, yes, just because
of the past really. F1 has always had some big political things going on and
it’s always come through, out on the other side, Formula One has always
continued. I just have that impression and I’m just very confident that
things will get sorted out and there will be Formula One.
HK: I think you’d better go and ask Martin (Whitmarsh) and Norbert (Haug).
I’m just here to race.
RK: I think it’s best to ask the people who are involved in it. |
