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1 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)
2 – Sebastian VETTEL (Ferrari)
3 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)
TV UNILATERAL
Lewis, your first Bahrain pole – you said on Thursday how important it would
be to be on pole this weekend – and an emphatic one as well. How are you
feeling?
Lewis HAMILTON: I feel great. Feel very happy. Obviously coming into the
weekend that was the target – to really try and kind of master this track
and get the car into an area I’m really comfortable with and that’s
generally how the weekend’s gone. You know the laps were pretty good; you
can always improve. I’m obviously really grateful to have this beast
underneath me, which I can really attack these corners with. I think last
year I wasn’t comfortable with the car to be able to do so, so it’s a great
feeling.
Well done. Coming to you Sebastian. Obviously you have a front-row start
here tomorrow afternoon and with the race pace that you have, what can you
do from here?
Sebastian VETTEL: Well, I think first of all, I’m very happy with second
today. It was a tough session. At the beginning I didn’t really find the
rhythm that I had also in practice but then towards the end, more and more,
I think it was getting better. I was feeling happier in the car and I felt
more comfortable to push. So, for now, very happy for the front row and
hopefully tomorrow we can have a good start and a good race from there. I
think in the race we are maybe a bit closer, so we will see what happens.
Thank you. Coming to you Nico, obviously you’ve been on pole here for the
past two years in Bahrain, but it wasn’t your day today. Why not and are you
surprised that in dry conditions Ferrari got in front of you in qualifying?
Nico ROSBERG: Yeah, for sure, it was just strategy-wise today that I got it
wrong, because I was thinking too much about the race and I underestimated
Sebastian’s speed and also how much it would cost me, and what I mean is
that taking it easy in Q2 on the race set of tyres that we start the race
with. I just lacked the rhythm as a result. I didn’t into the rhythm and I
just had one shot at it at the end with a new set, starting Q3 with a used
set. So that’s where I went wrong today. Disappointed, because Sebastian
beat me. If I was second it would have been, still, damage limitation, but
being third, that’s realty not ideal.
OK, thank you. Coming back to you Lewis, what sort of race do you expect
tomorrow? Obviously from Malaysia you have the painful memory of having been
beaten by Sebastian, what did you and your team learn from that to avoid it
happening again tomorrow?
LH: Well, we’ve gone over it tons of times already about what we have
learned, but it doesn’t get us away from the fact that they are very quick
this weekend and they are going to be very hard to beat tomorrow, they have
great race pace. Hopefully, with our positioning, hopefully that does help
and we’ll be taking all measure to make the tyres go as long as they do, but
I think we’re in a good position. Looking forward to the fight.
Q: Lewis, I wonder if we could just talk a little about two words:
confidence and consistency. Because, looking at the way you’ve performed in
the first four qualifying sessions of this year so far, obviously you have
supreme confidence in the car, and you’ve been able to find that consistency
in Q3 first runs and then more often than not, growth from there.
LH: Yeah, I don’t know how I can pinpoint how that has come around. It’s
just working at it, trying to improve. I guess I’ve got a nicely calm
approach to the way I drive nowadays and ultimately that confidence in your
own ability does help. And I guess things that I do outside help me do that.
Y’know, the work that I do with my engineers, the notes and all those kind
of things. So, I’ve generally been happy so far but I know I can be better.
So, I plan to be that in Barcelona.
Q: Sebastian, I guess the question really for you and Ferrari is the speed
of development of this car. You’re here on merit, in dry conditions in
qualifying, your race pace yesterday looked very, very strong. Tell us a bit
about the work that’s going on to make that happen.
SV: Well, I think we are progressing as a team. For this race we didn’t
bring any updates in particular, so it’s really that the circuit is maybe a
little bit better for us – one. And, as I said, continuously working with
the car, getting on top of what to do with the car and learning how the
changes are reacting on track. So, I think that’s the area where we are
making most progress at the minute. We are trying to push on all areas but
for now I think we can be very, very happy with where we are. Today is the
first time we were able to split them in true dry conditions in qualifying,
so very happy.
Q: Nico, from what you were saying from your first answer in the unilateral
there about being very focussed on the race tomorrow, it was clear in Q2,
you were 1.2s slower than Lewis with the time that got you through into Q3,
that you were taking less life out of that set of tyres, that you’d start
tomorrow’s race on – but from the rest of your answer, does it imply that
you didn’t really expect in Q3 at the end to be able to get the pole?
NR: No, I did. But I didn’t expect to go on used in the first part of Q3. I
thought we’d go to new tyres. And I also didn’t expect the used tyre to be
so slow, like the used tyre was really, really poor. I thought used tyre
would be pretty good, especially because I took it easy on that used tyre as
well in Q1. But it was really poor. So that meant that I only really had a
shot there at the end. And that was poor management. Really, really poor
management. Especially because Sebastian’s in front of me. Otherwise it
would be sort-of OK still but…
Just to be clear, poor management on your side…
NR: My side. Well, together, we always do it together – but I’m definitely
largely responsible for that.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Dan Knutson - Auto Action and Speed Sport magazines) Seb, the wind
wasn’t as bad as forecast, but even still, there was quite a bit of wind.
How sandy was the track and if it’s windy tomorrow, how will that sand play
into the race for you?
SV: Well, I think the wind was pretty intense. I think we felt it in FP3 but
obviously we knew that it would calm down a bit but still, it was very
strong, so if you looked around the track, the flags were still pretty alive
and obviously every time you have the wind from behind, for all of us, we
feel... it easily upsets the car. Tomorrow the forecast is a little bit less
so it should get a bit easier.
Q: (Dan Knutson - Auto Action and Speed Sport magazines) Was there sand on
the track?
SV: Sand, for me was no issue. Off-line obviously it’s a bit critical when
you let people by on the out lap etc but yeah, nothing out of the ordinary
compared to previous years.
Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Sebastian, you have a second
engine now, how is the advantage to use the engine looking at the race? You
have a practical advantage to using a new engine comparing to other guys who
are using a used engine? What are the advantages to using a new engine
compared to a used engine?
SV: Well, I don’t know. Obviously for us it was always the plan that we do
that for this event so obviously not the plan for those guys and others,
probably, so I think in the end it’s tough for all of the teams to manage
the season with the engines we have available. Some teams maybe play around
a little bit to use the engine more on Friday and a little bit less on
Saturday and Sunday, but as I said, it was always the plan.
Q: (Luigi Perna – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Seb, yesterday you said that
Mercedes can turn up the engine in qualifying. Did you use something similar
today with the Ferrari, can you do something similar with your car or not?
SV: Well, I think in qualifying you always try to get everything perfect but
I think we’ve also seen last year that Mercedes-powered cars seemed to be
able to get more out of their package for qualifying. It’s not a secret. I
think also if you look in terms of the other teams... with Williams, Force
India etc so I think it’s pretty common knowledge by now. How much? We don’t
know. I think they know but as a fact they do... they are able to turn the
engine up more than others.
Q: (Livio Oricchio – Globo Sport) To all drivers: all of you used the softer
tyre in Q3, Q2 and Q1. How is the situation with tyres for the race? And to
Sebastian, can the tyres here be an advantage to Ferrari, as they were in
Malaysia?
LH: It’s the same as most... there’s nothing any different in this session.
We’ve saved a new set of options, option is the better tyre here by far and
so that would be the most used tyre tomorrow, most likely. My tyres are
good, I think that would be the same for all of us.
NR: Same. Saved a new set of course, for the race, a new set of soft tyres
in case the soft tyre is likely to be the better race tyre tomorrow and just
need to see. The prime is also a good tyre so both... it’s not really too
much of a big thing here this weekend, the tyres. Of course tyre
degradation, yes, and Ferrari is going to be strong there so that’s going to
be tough competition.
Q: One additional aspect of that, Sebastian, do you expect as big a
difference between you in race conditions as we saw in China, soft to
medium, because it was quite big there? Do you expect that again tomorrow?
SV: Yeah, I think we’ve seen all weekend that, as Lewis said, the option
tyre is the quicker tyre, that’s why people make an effort to save one set.
And then the second part of the question: I think Lewis said earlier that we
will be difficult to beat and I hope he’s right. |
