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1 - Sebastian VETTEL (Red
Bull)
2 - Lewis HAMILTON (McLaren)
3 - Mark WEBBER (Red Bull)
Q: Sebastian, a totally dominant performance. Half-a-second faster than last
year’s pole position and you didn’t even use the KERS button. You must feel
on top of the world?
Sebastian VETTEL: Yeah, I mean it was a bit of a funny winter. A lot of
things changed. The cars changed a lot. Winter testing has been busy and we
all try and work our way around the tyres, the new Pirelli tyres, but coming
here we were all surprised how well they were working on one lap and also
what we have seen on Friday with a bit more fuel in the car was quite
promising for Sunday, so we will see how we get on. Surely we have done the
first step and starting the season that way is like you want to and it is
just a good sign for all of us in the team. We have been working very hard
to get that new car, the RB7, where it is now, so I think it is mostly down
to the people back in the factory plus the people Down Under now preparing
the car and making it ready. I think it was a pleasure today, quite fast,
and I am very happy with the result. But if you look at the points we have
zero points just like everybody else so we will have to see tomorrow.
Q: Lewis, eight-tenths off Sebastian is a lot but after the very poor winter
testing you had I bet you couldn’t even dream you’d be sitting on the front
row for the first grand prix.
Lewis HAMILTON: Absolutely. I’m absolutely thrilled to be up here today. The
guys back at the factory have done an unbelievable job. Really a massive
step this weekend. The car is feeling fantastic. Of course, we still have a
lot of work to do but I think we have really got ourselves on the right
track and a great foundation for us to build upon. I know the guys back at
the factory will keep going but a big thank you to everyone at home. Keep
pushing.
Q: Mark, it was seven-one-hundredths-of-a-second between you and Sebastian
here last year. It is a lot more than that this year. What went wrong?
Mark WEBBER: Yeah. Couldn’t do the times today. I was disappointed,
obviously, with my performance. Seb put in a very good lap. Obviously,
disappointed to get bumped off the front row as well. Tried my best.
Mystified to the gap to Seb, to be honest. I will have to go through it and
have a look at where I can improve and go from there. So bit frustrating, of
course, but credit to the team. The guys have done an incredible job. It is
not the best day for me. The bar is high but I would like to have done
better today but we still have to reflect on the performance of the team
today and what they have done over the winter is a great effort.
Q: Sebastian, in the race tomorrow looking after the tyres is going to be
crucial. It is a step into the unknown really for all of you on these new
tyres. What are you looking for and what are the key indicators going to be
for tomorrow’s race.
SV: Well, I think the key is always to finish the race, to see the chequered
flag. Last year, half-way through, we had to retire. But I am quite
confident. We had a very, very good preparation in the winter. We hardly
suffered any reliability issues. The car was reliable from the first minute
and obviously not too slow, so things are looking good. But it is a hard
race with the new tyres. It is a bit racing into the unknown. We kind of can
guess how the tyres will behave, but in the end we have to see how it is and
also racing all the others, having probably more than one stop, it will be
quite entertaining for us as well. A lot of things that we need to keep an
eye on and focus on, so looking forward, but today was the base and couldn’t
have been any better.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Sebastian, that margin over the rest of the field. Does it come as a
surprise to you?
SV: Yes. I just said it was a long winter and we all tried to find our way
with these new tyres, which always wasn’t easy. Coming here, since Friday
onwards, we were surprised how good the tyres worked. It should be fine
tomorrow. We were a bit afraid after what we have seen, the degradation we
have seen in Barcelona, so that’s positive and, car wise as well, we came
here with a good feeling but never kind of knew where we would be. Even
though the gap now might appear to be very big, it is a long season, a lot
of things can happen and today no-one has scored any points. It is a good
position to be in, it is the best position, pole position, so I am very
happy with that. I think for all the guys who have been working very hard on
that car, some were a bit, how can I say, surprised that not a lot of things
changed in the car compared to last year but we have proven that things
changed and we have done a good step. As I said we need to keep our feet on
the ground and see how we get on tomorrow.
Q: James Allen just said you didn’t use KERS? Is that correct and, if so,
why not?
SV: We didn’t use it in qualifying, that’s correct.
Q: Reason?
SV: Not fully charged.
Q: You were particularly good in the third sector. Is that something you
have concentrated on?
SV: Well, third sector I think, end of sector two, is just before the
high-speed section, 11/12, so after that there is not that many straights
anymore. We know that we are probably not the fastest guys on the straights
for couple of reasons but in the corners we tend to do not too bad. If you
look sector one, sector two there are some straights or more straights and
maybe that is the reason. I don‘t think today, even though the result looks
for some people quite clear, you know, I think we don’t get over-excited
what happened now. We have to keep on working and we want to improve the
car. We have things coming up, good things coming up, so let’s see what we
can do.
Q: Lewis, a phenomenal effort by the guys to transform what was a difficult
car into a front row car?
LH: Absolutely fantastic and superb effort from the guys back at the
factory. It was a very brave and tough decision for us to kind of pull back
from what we had been developing over the winter test and after the last
test to decide ‘okay, we are going to come back in another direction’. I
think since I have been here we have never ever done that before but the
results from the wind tunnel looked good and the guys worked harder than
they have ever pushed before to get the components here and the car feels a
huge improvement for us and a great stepping stone for us. A great
foundation for us to really push on. I know we have got some good things in
the pipeline from this base where we are but, of course, the gap. If he
didn’t use KERS, that is another half-a-second so that is 1.3 seconds, which
is not normal.
Q: You talked about that margin. Are we going to see that margin eroded and
how soon do you think you can do that as, obviously, the pace of development
is massive?
LH: It is, yeah. We, as a team, have good development rate. I think over the
years you have seen us come from quite far back and be able to develop a
little bit faster than some others. At least we are in the fight and from
there we can score good points, continue to work on our reliability and, of
course, closing the gap is going to be very tough. It is a big gap still,
but the car feels fantastic so I can’t even imagine what he (Vettel) feels
like round the corners.
Q: You were shaking your head when we were talking about KERS. Is that
because you didn’t use it or were thinking ‘wow, without it’.
LH: No, I used it for half my lap and I ran out towards the end of the lap.
I didn’t have any more. No, I had probably, like, 40 per cent still left.
That is a little bit of time but nothing which would get me close enough to
them. That is a staggering lap time they did, so well done to Sebastian but
like I said I’ll catch you up.
Q: Mark, third, not where you hoped to be, but some people are saying that
qualifying isn’t quite as important as it used to be, due to the factors
introduced to liven up the race. Do you agree?
MW: Well, today didn’t go to plan for me, obviously. I’m not overly rapt to
be third on the grid. Seb did a very very good lap time, so I need to… It’s
our first qualifying of the year. We’ve had some reasonable exposure with
this car in performance runs, but today’s obviously absolutely serious and
everything counted, so we put everything forward. I wasn’t in the fight for
pole, clearly, so we need to address that and take it into tomorrow’s race.
You have a point, obviously. It’s not like last year in terms of qualifying,
how powerful it was, but nevertheless it’s still important, you know. I
would rather to be here than eighth or ninth. I think the most important
thing out of today is that we can see the potential of the car. It’s the
first time that everyone’s got into things. The team have done a phenomenal
job, so I’m looking forward to a good race tomorrow, get some good points
and we will come away from here having learned a lot, as we already have
done today.
Q: How unknown is the race tomorrow? How much are you going into the
unknown?
MW: We got a snapshot on Friday, what we might expect on Sunday; there’s
still some questions, for sure but not as many as… We’ve had a reasonable
build-up in testing. Seb and I had a smooth run on Friday so the team’s got
some good data to lean on, to go into the grand prix tomorrow, and obviously
we’ll put everything forward to get the best result for us.
Q: Can you beat Sebastian tomorrow?
MW: Well, it’s never impossible, but unfortunately I’ve let Lewis onto the
front row as well. Obviously I’m not happy with that for the team. It’s a
long season, so today you can be disappointed, of course, but we’ll go into
tomorrow’s race hoping to get the best result possible and as the boys have
already said, it’s a long grand prix, a lot of things can happen.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Ralf Bach – R&B) Seb, do you think Melbourne is the best track for your
car?
SV: I don’t know. There are a lot of tracks to come, that’s for sure. Last
year we were competitive here, the year before as well. We seem to like the
place. I like coming here as well, the track is a challenging one, it’s
quite rough in some places. It’s a demanding track for the driver and the
rhythm is right, so after one lap you feel happy, I would say, not that you
don’t feel happy at other tracks but I think here the satisfaction you get
is quite good. You feel and you sense the speed around here, so that’s
something I enjoy a lot and obviously our car likes it as well. All in all,
I think that’s a good match. So far it has been quite good.
Q: (Ralf Bach – R&B) What I mean is that the aerodynamics are not that
important here.
SV: I don’t think so. I think aerodynamics are very, very important
everywhere.
LH: That’s the only place where’s he’s getting a gap to us, the
aerodynamics, otherwise it would be even better.
SV: I think the bottom line is that we have a good package and we’re happy
to be where we are. We didn’t really know, after the long winter, so that’s
a good and a positive surprise which we take on board. As I said, there are
no points yet and there will be a lot of races and there will be races where
it will be difficult for us to beat some other teams. We’re not looking to
those, but we go step by step.
Q: (Paul Gover – Herald Sun) Mark, were you using the KERS in your car
today?
MW: No.
Q: (Paul Gover – Herald Sun) Would it have made a difference to getting you
on the front row if you had been?
MW: Maybe. We didn’t run it today for reasons we will keep in the team.
Q: (Joris Fioriti – AFP) Lewis, one week ago you were saying that you had a
car that was far from being a winning car and a week later you come up with
a very fast car which could be a winning car, so what happened? I don’t
understand.
LH: Well, I was never saying that the car was bad, it already felt better
than last year’s car. It was just lacking downforce. What downforce enables
you to do is brake later, to attack the corners faster, to get on the power
earlier so in improving your downforce you improve your minimum speed, so
you can improve your kilometres per hour through each corner by ten
kilometres. That’s a lot of time, because you carry that all the way down
the straights. So we’ve improved the rear end of the car which means that
I’m able to attack corners a lot more, massively faster in the higher speed
corners and so we’ve basically just fixed an area of the car which was
lacking and it clearly shows, this weekend, that by fixing that one part,
the rest of the car is working quite well around it. But we still have a lot
of work to do, but it’s really due to a fantastic job by the guys back at
the factory.
Q: (Livio Orricchio – O Estado do Sao Paulo) To all of you: are you
surprised by Ferrari’s performance?
SV: Yeah. I think they had a very good run in the winter. Yesterday it was a
bit difficult to judge. I thought they’re reasonably competitive and more or
less there. I was surprised in qualifying. Q1 I saw that they put on some
option tyres already. It was quite tight for Felipe to get through - not
tight, but he had one last shot. And then it’s difficult to judge from the
inside of the car what was going on, so that’s really all I saw, more or
less. After that, you focus more on yourself. In Q1 you have a bit more time
to watch TV, I would say. Yeah, I was surprised.
MW: Well, yeah, a little bit but I think today it’s pretty clear that people
are still getting used to the tyres and maybe it’s not the right window for
some people, so this is moving the lap times around a lot. I think we saw
Nick Heidfeld go out very early. Some people are still finding their way.
Maybe Ferrari are in that boat.
LH: Yeah, I think they’ve got a great car. I find these tyres very easy to
use, and obviously these guys have found them quite easy to use, but I guess
some people down the field have not really been able to switch them on how
they would like but this is very early, we’re all learning as we go along.
At the end of the testing, it was obvious that they (Red Bull) were the
fastest, they were the championship winners the previous year, they were the
fastest and won the last race, so clearly, rolling into next year, they were
going to be the most competitive, so it was no surprise that they were the
quickest this weekend. I would have thought that Ferrari would have been a
bit closer to us but I think, again, it’s just the tyres. Maybe if they got
the tyres working they would be able to close the gap.
Q: (Matthew Cochinos – pitpass.com) Mark, how hungry are you going into your
home grand prix tomorrow?
SV: You’ll have lunch before, no?
MW: Yeah, Seb said I would have lunch before the race! I think you want to
do well at every grand prix, clearly. I think there’s a little bit extra
emotion, obviously, as both these guys can relate to: Germany for Seb and UK
for Lewis. That’s normal. Any sportsman competing in a big event at home,
there’s a fraction more emotion attached to it. It shouldn’t really make you
perform better, you’ve got to perform everywhere you go, but also keep in
mind that it’s a long season this year. You need to get off to a good start
in the championship. I didn’t put myself into the best position today but
I’ve had tough Saturdays before and Sunday… it’s a long, long day, so I hope
I will see you guys again tomorrow. |
