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1. Jenson BUTTON (Brawn GP),
1h31m48.182s
2. Sebastian VETTEL (Red Bull), 1h31m55.369s
3. Jarno TRULLI (Toyota), 1h31m57.352s
Q: Jenson, the dream start to the year continues. And this was a dry race,
this was a race all the way.
Jenson BUTTON: It was indeed. This was a tough race for us. You might say I
was leading for most of it but this race we had not the pace we had in the
first three races. I don’t know where it has gone. I guess these guys have
just caught up and maybe passed us. But the first lap of the race I knew was
very important because Sebastian was going longer, so I made it work and I
came out of the first corner in third. From then on it was a tough race but
very enjoyable.
Q: Sebastian, a great result for you too. A hard race and in a lot of
traffic. A tyre defined race in many ways but in the end you are on the
podium again.
Sebastian VETTEL: Yeah, a very good result for us. Good points, but as you
said we will keep pushing. It was a difficult race. The start was quite okay
but then I was surprised as all of a sudden there was Lewis (Hamilton) next
to me. When I first looked in the mirrors he was not there but then I guess
he pressed his special button and that gave him a bit of an advantage. At
the first corner there were three, me in the middle and Jenson on the
outside, so I had to give way and lost two positions in the first lap and
then unfortunately I got stuck behind Lewis. I mean you might have a chance
immediately to pass someone but then when you follow a car your tyres just
go down. There is a lot of degradation. You start to slide and then you
never really come back. It is quite difficult here as it is always hard
braking, so you need the tyres, you need the stability, so therefore it is
difficult to pass. I knew I had a longer first stint which put me just
behind Jarno, so that was a bit of a shame as I was on soft tyres and I
could have gone a bit quicker. Then I got stuck behind him again but then I
was able to overshoot, staying out a little bit longer, which put me in
front of him. But then it was the other way around and I had to defend from
him. The whole last sting he was very close in my mirrors. I think he was
pushing hard but I made no mistakes, so in the end we came second.
Q: Jarno, a relatively early pit stop and unlike most runners a switch to
the hard tyre for the middle stint.
Jarno TRULLI: Yeah, I am a little bit disappointed because I was waiting for
the first win for Toyota. Unfortunately at the start I think I had oil
spillage which cost me the first position. From then on it was a hard race
as I was following my team-mate. I was going longer and then during the
second stint we used a very long stint on the hard tyres, so I was trying to
fight and it was really hard fighting with a lot of cars. I was not
extremely quick but competitive being on the hard tyres and then eventually
Sebastian took the position after my last stop. He was on the hard tyres and
I was on the soft and I was pushing him. I was quicker but there was no way
to overtake him, so that was how the race was. I want to thank the team as
they have done a very good job, so let’s wait to fight again for the next
race.
Q: Jenson, as Sebastian said, he did get stuck behind Lewis Hamilton. But
you had an interesting battle with Lewis and managed to get the better of
him very early in the race and that proved to be decisive.
JB: It was. He is very difficult to overtake anyway but on the first lap he
made a few mistakes and I dived down the inside of him at many different
places. And on the straight I thought I could get alongside him and I did
out of the last corner and then he pushed his button and pulled back in
front and I had to tuck back in behind again and get the tow off him and I
was able to get him into turn one. That move really made the race for us. I
knew I had to make it stick and I did, so I am very happy. This race win for
us is probably the best out of the lot as we don’t have that competitive
edge. And also it is the fourth flyaway. We have got a lot of bits that need
to be changed and it is all getting a bit aged now, so to come away from
this win it is great going back into Europe and we can look at improving the
car.
Q: Sebastian, you were held up behind Lewis Hamilton for a lot of the race.
Let’s have a look now and talk us through what the conditions were like for
you at that moment, what the tyres were like and the difference between the
tyres and what it is like in traffic.
SV: The problem is when you follow a car for more than one, one-and-a-half
or two laps then your tyres really start to go off, front and rear. You
start to have a lot of sliding and that was the problem, so both stints on
soft tyres I was not able to use them really. The best car I had was with
the hard tyres at the end which is unusual as that option wasn’t the better
tyre. But it makes a huge difference if you are able to run in clean air or
not. That was the problem today and apart from that we had a good car. I
think it is very positive anyway as I think we did a very good job in
qualifying and we are getting closer to these boys, so not long and we will
be very, very close.
Q: Jarno, you started from pole but it did not translate into a lead at the
first corner. Let’s have a look at the start and perhaps you can tell us
what was going on.
JT: It was a good start in a way but unfortunately as you can probably see
from the front I had an oil spillage, so basically the engine stopped when I
was accelerating out and this cost me the position. Then I was basically
following my team-mate. I knew I was going longer but obviously being behind
is not always easy. I was struggling a little bit with the rear end of the
car and just trying to push as hard as possible. In the end the race wasn’t
too bad but we expected a little bit more.
Q: It seemed from the calculations before the race that you stopped a little
bit earlier than you might have and then there was that decisive switch to
the hard tyre. What was the thinking at that point?
JT: Well, to be honest it is difficult for me now to judge. I need to go
through it with the engineers. In a way they calculated everything and in
general they have done a very good job for me, so I have to praise them as
we managed to put both cars on the front row and we managed also to get on
the podium. I think all in all the strategy wasn’t too bad but we needed a
little bit more pace.
Q: Jenson, Ross Brawn was very concerned before the start of the race about
the heat factor, particularly with your change at the last minute going into
the season with the Mercedes engine and the data you had. As it turned out
both cars were fabulously reliable and of course the heat was a factor for
you too. Talk us through your emotions now after this third win of the
season.
JB: For us it is very difficult because of the heat. But this is one of
those circuits that isn’t really that physical, so we could cope. The
engine, we were a little bit worried about, as the temperatures have been
very high in testing and in qualifying and I wasn’t able to do the running I
would have liked, so to come away with the win at this point of the season I
am chuffed to bits. The whole team should be very proud of themselves. They
have worked so hard. As you probably know we are much smaller than we used
to be and they are having to work doubly hard to get the job done, so I am
very proud of all of them and they should be also.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Jenson, you are surprised to have won here. What made the difference?
JB: The first lap. To start with I got a poor start. I did a practice start
coming into the pits and I was struggling with clutch slip and off the line
I had exactly the same thing, so it was very lucky that I didn’t lose more
place. At the start the clutch slip wasn’t too bad and then it was at turn
one I had to make a move to get past Sebastian because they were obviously
stopping later than us and it would have made the race very difficult. I was
able to get around the outside and then the chance came up of getting past
Lewis which was very difficult I must say because he was blocking very well
but then at the last corner he made a slight mistake, so I pulled alongside
him on the straight and I knew as soon as we got to the start-finish line he
was going to push his KERS button and he did and he pulled away again, so I
had to jump in behind and then did him into turn one. The first lap was what
made the race really.
Q: Your fight back in the early laps was action packed for all of you.
JB: Good. The end of the race may not have been so exciting but the start of
the race was very good for me and chasing down the two Toyotas. They seemed
very quick on the option tyre and I was surprised a little bit by the pace
and I wasn’t sure how it was going to work out. I didn’t even know that
Jarno was behind Timo at that point in time. But it all worked out well and
Sebastian got stuck behind Lewis which helped us but the biggest problem for
me was backmarkers. I am sorry if my radio was played live as I might have
said a few words that weren’t good for TV but the traffic was terrible out
there. They were a long way in front but I just couldn’t get any closer.
Plus when I exited the pits and went down to turn four and (Robert) Kubica
shot past me with his KERS and overtook me and unlapped himself which was a
little bit frustrating. That was the most difficult thing for me, trying to
stay on top of that.
Q: Was the tyre wear roughly the same with the two different sets of tyres?
What about the brakes? Any problems with the brakes?
JB: Brakes weren’t too bad. We were worried going into the race a little bit
about temperatures. On Friday and Saturday we were struggling a little bit
and we thought we might have to run the race with reduced revs which would
have been a disaster. But lucky enough we had clear air for most of it. We
kept the engine reasonable cool and the brakes were fine, so we were in good
shape. I think if Sebastian did not have the traffic it would have made the
race very interesting as I think our pace was very similar but that was not
to be and we obviously came away with the win which I am very happy about.
Q: And were you conserving things at the end basically?
JB: Yeah, the last sort of 15 laps we had to conserve it a little bit as
this is a lot hotter than what we expected. It is not just the engine but
everything on the car including the driver, so conserving it a little bit.
And with the way the regulations are these engines have to do a lot more
running than normal, so you have to look after them a little bit.
Q: Sebastian, obviously early on you had a battle with Lewis as well. You
feared the KERS as well.
SV: Yeah, it was difficult to pass him. The problem is in both stints, in
the first and second stints, we were on the soft tyres and the soft tyres
here were the quicker tyres, as I think more or less for the rest of the
field. Coming back to the first stint the start was not ideal, maybe I was
not careful enough. I should have gone maybe more to the right and tried to
defend on Lewis. When I looked in the mirrors immediately after the start he
was way behind me but then I underestimated his little button he had on his
steering wheel and all of a sudden I had him on the right. I couldn’t run on
the outside as Jenson was already there, so I was stuck in the middle. I had
to give way to both of them. It was very close but basically then I was
fifth. Very early in the race maybe I had a good chance to pass him. I was
preparing for the last corner but I locked up the rear and all race it
seemed very difficult to get a clean exit out of the last corner. It was
very slippery there. Then I lost the momentum again. He pressed his button
and that was it. Basically from then onwards, as I just described, when you
have to follow a car, your tyres suffer a lot. You get a lot of degradation
and that made it difficult then to pass and to use the pace we had behind
Lewis in the first stint and behind Jarno in the second stint. The only
stint I had in clean air was the last one but I had the hard tyres.
Nevertheless for me the best stint was the last stint as the car was very
consistent, getting quicker each lap. I was able to feel it more and more.
Then I could play with the tyres. Obviously I had Jarno so I tried to save
them in the beginning, so that at the end I had something to defend and it
worked out well. But unfortunately the first two stints were behind traffic
which spoiled our race a little bit. But nevertheless I think we are getting
stronger. We are getting very close to these guys, so I hope not long, a
couple of bits added to the car. Back in the UK, back in Milton Keynes, the
people are pushing very hard and soon we will be able to fight them a bit
more and give them a bit more of a hard time.
Q: Jarno, we talked about your start just now and you also had quite an
interesting battle with Fernando Alonso banging wheels with him.
JT: Yeah, it was an interesting and tough race for me because I always found
myself in a difficult situation. At the start, I was very unlucky because I
think I had an oil spillage, so basically the engine didn’t pull away and I
lost position there. I lost a lot of ground and I was lucky enough to get
out of the first corner second. Actually, I had to fight back against Lewis,
firstly because he had KERS on the straight and secondly because the engine
wasn’t pulling at that time, so it was really hard. Going into turn four
already wheel to wheel it was a nice battle, I didn’t give up because I knew
it was again important for me to stay ahead. Actually I started following my
team-mate. The car wasn’t too bad, the rear end was starting to go away, so
I was struggling a little bit. Then, during the second stint, I had hard
tyres and I was defending a lot of cars, as you say, a lot of battling
there, obviously with cars that were lighter than mine. We were there to
stop after a few laps. We were fighting with Sebastian until the end. I was
on hard tyres and he was on soft, so actually he was biting my tail for most
of the race and at the end, I was on soft and was quicker than him and he
was on hard and I was trying to bite his tail and there was basically no way
that he could get past. It was a nice race. It was a shame at the start but
I’m happy because I did fight very hard and it was a good podium for Toyota.
Q: You had problems with the brakes yesterday but they were changed for the
race; how easy was it to have a brand new set of brakes?
JT: It’s not the fact that I had a problem with brakes because they were
worn, there was something wrong with the brakes during qualifying, there was
a problem and actually we changed them. I didn’t have any problem during the
race as well as during the whole weekend. So it was just a safety issue
because we saw during qualifying that there was something wrong with the
brakes and we didn’t want to blow them up. It was maybe something with that
particular disc. During the race it was fine.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Ed Gorman – The Times) Anthony Davidson told the listeners of Radio Five
Live that he considered this to be the finest race drive that you’ve
produced in your career. Would you agree with him on that?
JB: I’d certainly say it was the finest first lap of my career, for sure. I
was very happy with the race. I didn’t feel that I put a foot a wrong at
all. It’s nice to be in a car where I can show what I can do, even in a
difficult situation because it wasn’t a perfect situation. It’s a very
special feeling to have got this win. And thanks to the Ginger Racer, as I
call him, for those nice comments.
Q: (Ed Gorman – The Times) Can you just tell us a bit more about the
overheating issues because we heard that you’d had to cut away some part of
the bodywork to help the cooling in the car.
JB: There’s nothing different this race to the last race. We didn’t expect
it to be as hot as it is here. All weekend we’ve been struggling a little
bit and even in qualifying I couldn’t do three laps hard. I had to do a
quick lap, slow lap, quick lap. It made it very difficult in practice as
well because you couldn’t get the long run pace. It’s been a tough weekend
from that point of view and if we were sat behind a car for a stint like
these two were, it would have been no way. We would have had to drop back
two or three seconds to get some clear air. So that’s a weakness but luckily
enough I had the clear air and our reliability was very good. I’m sure we’ve
got to look at what damage it’s caused for the next races because you know
these engines have to do a lot more mileage than normal, so we will see. But
the win was more important, I felt, and we came away with a very special win
this weekend, for sure. As for the heat, my feet were warm and I’ve burned
the top of my left buttock on a box – there’s an electrical box there. It’s
a little bit burned, so hopefully we can solve that issue. I’ll get you
stroking it later, Sebastian, don’t worry!
Q: (Flavio Vanetti – Corriere della Sera) To you all, your teams proved to
be the most competitive ones so far but starting from Barcelona, your
competitors will introduce some changes in the cars. Do you expect a
different story for the championship?
JB: Well, at the moment you would say that these three teams sat here have
been the most consistent, you’re right, but I would say that the McLarens
seem to be a lot more competitive this weekend. They made a step forward in
China. Supposedly they haven’t had anything new on the car here but they’ve
moved forward a lot and Lewis ended up fourth. They’ve obviously done a good
job, so you can’t forget McLaren. When we start in Europe I’m sure they are
going to have some new parts and they are going to be very competitive. It’s
positive that we’ve got some points on them already.
SV: There’s a long, long way to go, we’ve done just four races. As Jenson
said, I think his team has made the strongest impression so far. We are
pushing very hard, we are getting closer, so especially on Saturdays we seem
to get much stronger. Today, obviously, I was sometimes stuck in traffic but
I think all the teams are pushing, the championship is very interesting. You
may not forget the teams (that were dominant) the last couple of years,
McLaren as well as Ferrari. They have a lot of resources and they have
proven in the past that even if they have a bad start they can come back
very quickly, so we have to keep pushing and for us, we want to be the best,
and there is at least one team still in front of us, so we have to keep
pushing hard.
JT: Well, it’s definitely going to be an interesting season because of the
changes and it gives quite an open window for development from all teams. I
have faith in my team, they know very well that four races is very little.
We’ve got a lot of races to go until the end of the championship, so we need
to develop the car, get better and I can see already some signs of
improvement from other teams. If you look at these races, there are some
teams that made quite a bit step compared to the first two races, so I
definitely expect a big fight during the season and I also expect quite a
mix of leading cars and teams during all the races. This is nice, it’s nice
for everyone. I was on pole, Sebastian won the last race and obviously the
most consistent car and driver at the moment is Jenson with the Brawn but
also Toyota and Williams are doing well, Red Bull but there are some teams
which are really getting close, so we need to keep pushing.
Q: (Ian Parkes – The Press Association) Jenson, I think it’s pretty much
accepted that every team is going to have major upgrades for Barcelona. Is
it a case that the fight for the title will really start in Spain now?
JB: We’ve had four races; they’ve been pretty important to us, especially at
the start of the season when people have got reliability issues or making
mistakes, we’ve been able to pick up the points which is great. When we get
to Europe we don’t know where anyone is going to be. We know that these two
teams alongside me here are going to be competitive but we don’t know how
and the same for McLaren. We have an upgrade coming in Barcelona, I just
hope it’s enough. We have to wait and see. Nobody knows. And the thing is we
can’t go testing either, so we don’t get that chance to get the feel for it.
So it’s exciting going back to Europe and I think that for Formula One this
is great. There’s so much change already in the sport and going back to
Europe it’s going to be even more change. I think that’s what this sport
needed and I think we’ve got it.
Q: (Tom Cary – The Daily Telegraph) Jenson, I know you expected it but when
Lewis pulled up alongside you so quickly off the start did you fear the
worst?
JB: Well, he didn’t actually use his KERS to get me, I don’t think, because
he was past me before he actually got to 100kph. You don’t really think
about it at that point in time, you just get your head down and see what you
can do at the first corner. Our braking is good here and I knew that I had
looked after the tyres and got them in good shape for the first corner under
the brakes, so I knew that I could brake very late and it showed in turn
one, so yeah, I knew that I had to get past Sebastian, that was the main
thing, and if I could get past Lewis that was a bonus.
Q: (James Allen – Financial Times) Jenson, you looked very comfortable
leading the race. Is there a feeling now with three wins that you feel that
this is beginning to feel more and more my thing, I feel like I expect this,
I belong here?
JB: Well, every race is exciting and if you can stand on the top step
afterwards it’s exhilarating but if I don’t win a race… for example in
Shanghai I was happy to finish on the podium but when you’ve won two races
the win is exciting and that’s the same for all of us. We’re all racing
drivers, we all want to win the race but it’s still not easy at the front.
Our car is competitive but it’s still not easy to drive and that’s something
that we need to work on because I had a lot of moments during the race where
I was wide, locked up rears or fronts. Maybe it’s not just the way that our
car was balanced, maybe it’s just a new set-up on the car, the way it works
but you see a lot of people getting out of shape now. It’s tough for us but
maybe good for you guys to watch.
Q: (James Allen – Financial Times) Jarno, just before you made your stop we
heard Lewis’s engineer say to him on the radio that it was clear that the
harder tyre was a second a lap slower today than the soft and then you came
in and put hard tyres on. Could you just explain what the thinking was
behind that? Was it because you were going to do a 25 lap stint and you
didn’t trust the soft tyres on that length of stint?
JT: Yeah, we were not sure about the soft tyres. Obviously the team had a
better idea than me with all the data collected during the winter and this
season we were not actually sure about the soft tyres, how many laps they
could remain competitive. That was one of the reasons behind the choice. It
didn’t work out but in the end it is still a podium, still a good race but
obviously the target was to win a race but I think we still have to improve
our pace. |
