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Drivers – Marcus ERICSSON
(Caterham), Pastor MALDONADO (Lotus), Sergio PEREZ (Force India), Kimi
RÄIKKÖNEN (Ferrari) Adrian SUTIL (Sauber), Jean-Eric VERGNE (Toro Rosso)
Q: First of all, a question to all of you about the ban on large amounts of
radio traffic between the team and the driver. What’s your reaction to this?
Sergio, perhaps you could start.
Sergio PÉREZ: Hi everyone. I don’t think it’s ideal that they, suddenly from
one race to another, they change it dramatically that you cannot get certain
calls. But it doesn’t influence it much. I don’t see it as a big deal, it’s
something that we as drivers need to get more used to. We will have,
definitely, more information and we’re going to be a bit more busy
throughout the race to basically try to keep everything under control – fuel
loads and engine modes, all that kind of stuff. I don’t see a problem to get
used to, it’s just a dramatic change from the last race to this one.
Kimi, you famously told the team “leave me alone, I know what I’m doing.”
Does that mean you welcome this change?
Kimi RÄIKKÖNEN: Well, obviously we don’t speak a lot on the radio in my case
usually, when there are no issues – but obviously it might get quite
complicated if there are some problems with the car and you have to change
certain things to try to finish the race. I don’t know how the rule goes at
those times. Obviously it makes it more complicated for us but it’s part of
the game so it’s OK.
Pastor, your thoughts on it.
Pastor MALDONADO: For sure it’s not a great thing, especially with all the
complex systems we have at the moment – but it’s the same for everyone so it
doesn’t matter.
What about from a rookie perspective. Presumably there’s been quite a lot of
coaching going on over the radio Marcus, so far this season. Are you going
to miss it? Particularly on the approach to the start, getting everything
prepared for a start, for example?
Marcus ERICSSON: No, I think… I like the idea, to be honest. I think it’s
good to get the drivers more in focus. I think it’s good. But for us as a
small team I think it’s a bit more trickier because our steering wheel, we
don’t have a big display. A lot of the other teams, I think they have a big
display, so they can show a lot of stuff on this, whereas we have a very
small one. So it’ll be a bit more tricky – but yeah, like I said, I like the
idea and I think it’s good to make us drivers a bit more in focus.
Jean-Eric, are you supportive as well?
Jean-Eric VERGNE: I don’t mind it. I think it will be more or less the same
as before. I like to do things by my own and many times this year I changed
the settings before my engineer told me, so yeah, I will be a bit more
lonely on the radio – but it should be fine.
Adrian?
Adrian SUTIL: No problem really. I think all manageable. It’s a bit more
work but we’ll handle it.
Q: Kimi, coming back to you, obviously this season hasn’t been quite what
you expected it to be – but did you expect to have your problems sorted out
by now? And what’s your focus for the remaining six races or so?
KR: Obviously to do as well as we can and have good results for the team and
for myself. I expect it to be difficult. Probably the team didn’t expect to
have such difficulties over all. We expected to be more stronger overall.
It’s part of the game and we have to try to sort things out. I think we have
done pretty good improvements – compared to where we started – as a team and
obviously then I’m getting more happy with things but obviously still not
where we want to be in the end. Still a lot of work to do.
Q: Pastor, front row qualifier here two years ago with Williams, it’s always
been a strong Lotus track – so is there some optimism there for a top ten
result maybe this weekend?
PM: I hope. For sure, the qualifying pace is always a bit tricky for us but
during the race, for any reason we are able to recover the pace and
sometimes we are much more competitive. So hopefully here we can be a bit
more competitive than Monza for sure but it’s difficult to say something
before we get in the car.
Q: Sergio, you’ve scored points in all three of your appearances here at
Singapore and you’ve come off the back of two strong results, so your
thoughts on this race and also how close you are to committing to Force
India for another season?
SP: I think things are settling down and I think we should be very close to
committing for next year with the team but you never know; I have experience
from the past so you never know what’s going to happen. Yeah, we are really
optimistic for this weekend. We have a good upgrade package and I believe we
can be competitive and definitely our target is the McLarens which we are
fighting with really closely and hopefully we can score more points than
them this weekend with both cars and the upgrade package gives us some
boost.
Q: Adrian, like Sergio you’ve scored points in your last three races here in
Singapore but there’s no getting away from the fact that Sauber is yet to
get into Q3 this season, so what’s the rescue package and what lies ahead
for the rest of the season?
AS: We have a good package here, the last one, but it should give us a
little bit more speed. We have to try it out on Friday. We’re not so far
away - especially in qualifying – from the group in front and it’s just
missing a little bit to the top ten normally but Monza was quite tricky,
especially in the race. We were losing a bit too much time and our
performance was a bit slower but this track is very special and very
different so I hope it suits our car. There’s a lot of work, we need some
points and this is the main target for the moment.
Q: Marcus, since the last round, obviously the team principal has moved on
so can you tell us a bit about the structure now at the team and the plan
for upgrades and so on?
ME: We’re still pushing hard like we’ve done the last couple of races and
bringing some more updates for here, so not much has changed. Obviously
Christijan left which is a shame, we got along very well, but still I think
the team is pushing on quite a lot and it’s a positive atmosphere from
everyone. We just have to wait and see this weekend, see how it suits our
car but in general I have a good feeling. I had a really strong race last
time out on a street track so I think hopefully we can try and repeat
something similar to that.
Q: Jean-Eric, still six races to go but you’ve already scored points more
times this year than you did last year so what’s the plan now for you for
the rest of this season and what about next season? Have you made any
progress yet with your plans for 2015?
J-EV: Yuh, talking about this weekend and the race and the season, I really
want to end the season strongly. I think we should have had a lot more
points with our team if we didn’t have so much bad luck but I think now
that’s behind. I really want to make the best out of the last six races with
Toro Rosso and then find a good option for next year.
QUESTION FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Heikki Kulta –Turun Sanomat) Kimi, it’s two hours in very humid
conditions; Nico Rosberg said that the last laps are always very painful
here because it’s physically so demanding. How painful are they for you?
KR: I don’t know. Everybody has their own feelings so I can’t know how they
feel like but in the past it hasn’t been a problem. It doesn’t feel as hot
or humid in the last years unless the course has slowed in the race, so I
don’t see why it should suddenly be a problem. |
