photo courtesy of Pirelli

Q: Mark, after qualifying 18th yesterday you said given your luck on the Saturday you might get hit by a truck. It seems you drove that truck straight the way through the field today. A storming performance from third.
Mark WEBBER: Yeah, it was an interesting grand prix. I think we decided to start on the prime, the hard tyre, in the first stint which we know was not the most desired tyre for everyone in the field as it doesn’t really have the characteristics of a hard tyre in terms of sometimes duration and lots of things like that so got that out of the way. But that was quite tricky actually as even with the guys I was with it was not easy. Everyone was using the DRS at the same time, which we pretty much predicted, because of the type of cars ahead of me and how they qualified. It wasn’t easy to come back through those guys and I had a mistake in turn two on my in-lap, the tyres basically did not have much left of them, but I got the car back. We really started from there. When you still see P17 on your board after 15 laps, or whatever it was, you think ‘how is this going to come?’ But then all of a sudden I just felt comfortable with the car. I had a few sets of tyres left from after qualifying so that helped a bit. Maybe that is the best way to do it all the time, not even take part in qualifying and just go from there. But all jokes aside I think the guys did an incredible job. Back-to-back races for us and it is clear we have not had the smoothest run with my car, but they haven’t given up and that was a drive for them today and everyone back at the factory. Again congratulations to Lewis. It was good that someone finally, of course Seb is in the same team but he has been on a phenomenal run and we are all here together fighting for victories. Shame McLaren won in a way but also we can’t let Seb get too far away, so it was good day for the racing and good day for us in terms of points for the team.

Q: Lewis, your first grand prix race win of the season and the first non-Red Bull race win of the season. Is this game on in the title now?
LH: I think we have still got a long road ahead of us but we are working very, very hard to close the gap. I think the race pace we are quite similar but in qualifying we still have got a lot of work to do. But I am absolutely overwhelmed. It feels like a long, long time since I was sitting here. Feel very proud and extremely grateful for all the hard work the guys put in and I will continue to push. These guys do a fantastic job and I am looking forward to many, many more great races like this.


PRESS CONFERENCE


Q: Lewis, we were just talking about trying to remain calm in the garage with everyone rushing around wiping up whatever it was on the floor. But you had no idea what it was?
LH: I really didn’t know. The car just wouldn’t start. I was very, very curious. We have had it not start initially several times in the past so I thought it was nothing. But when they kept trying it was becoming more and more of a concern for everyone. I could see everyone was doing their best to find out what the situation was and also fix it so I didn’t want to be asking questions all the time, saying ‘what is going on, what’s going on’ so I just said ‘how long have we got until the pit-lance closes?’ It was six minutes at the time so I could relax really. I think I could relax at the time as I just have real confidence in the guys that they would figure it out. I didn’t think it was going to be too big a problem, but it was right on the limit. I don’t know how long?

Q: Thirty seconds.
LH: Thirty seconds, yeah. As I was driving to the light I was nervous that just as I got to it, it would go red, but fortunately we got out and there was no problem. Then there was a bit of a rush on the grid with the guys but as always they did a professional job, kept their heads cool and thanks to that we are sitting here having won. 

Q: Combined with the fact that it has been a car that you have made into a winner in three weeks really from Australia where there were brand new bits on it. In itself, that is phenomenal.
LH: It is and that’s really a true showing of the strength of our team. We came out to Barcelona with the upgrade package we had there and it really wasn’t working and the reliability was a disaster. We couldn’t even get past 20 laps. Then they pushed very hard in the space of a week-and-a-half, two weeks, and it was just incredible what they were able to bring to Australia. Australia was our first race distance and the car has been great. It really has been great. Red Bull are doing a fantastic job. They are very, very fast. They have got a wonderful car and they are doing the job and we are having to push with absolutely everything we have to try and close the gap. I think today we were similar pace perhaps in the race, I think they were generally a little bit quicker, but I think it was just due to us just trying to be a little bit smarter on the strategy and making it work and fortunately it did today. Other times perhaps it won’t work out but today it did so we are very happy.

Q: Was that the reason for the emotion at the end. The relief of getting on to the top of the podium?
LH: I think the emotion probably comes from the desire to win, the desire to be better and the desire to compete against the toughest drivers in the world. When you haven’t won for a while, I can’t remember the last time I won but when you haven’t won for a while it feels like an eternity so you just keep pushing, trying to keep your mind fresh. I think with the whole thing that happened in the pit-lane, I was confident going into the race but perhaps I wasn’t even going to be in the race. I thought I was going to be back with Mark and obviously just the way the race turned out. I came out behind someone and I think Sebastian came past me at one stage. I wanted to pit at one stage and Jenson was pitting so I couldn’t pit as he was pitting. I had to try and keep things up and I was just able to pull through several cars. I couldn’t believe I was catching Sebastian. He was doing a great job to stay ahead. He put up a very, very fair and strong fight and I am very happy I was able to get by.

Q: Was it an enjoyable race for you as it was for us?
LH: It was absolutely, every inch of the race, every second, was incredibly enjoyable. I love being able to fight with different drivers and have the battles and have them at their best. I really felt that today. Whilst the tyres were going off on some of the cars I felt they were really performing and driving very well to defend their position, so it made that even more exciting.

Q: Sebastian, there was only one retirement. Can I ask you about traffic. Was it really busy out there?
SV: As usual I would say. The track is fairly long so it spreads out, but it depends which cars you talk about. There are some cars you come across a bit more often than others so it wasn’t too busy.

Q: After your run of wins is second a disappointment?
SV: To be honest I don’t think so. I have not seen all that happened but from the bit that I saw I think there is a very important lesson to be learnt today. The strategy that I picked was not the one that was meant to be the best but these things happen. You never know until you cross the line. If the race is a little bit shorter, if the tyres are holding, we are talking two laps every stint holding together a little bit more, then it could be different. But in the end I was struggling a lot. You just wait to turn the car around, wait to get on power as you haven’t got much tyres left. It was quite a nice fight with Lewis, twice down the long straight I was able to just stay ahead and also for the next corner but I saw that there were seven laps to go so not much that I could do. To be honest I was quite surprised by his move into turn seven. I think he did a very good there and surprised me. Congratulations to them. I think we have given it our best and I don’t see second today as a disappointment. Mark proved the car was very quick today. For us with a different strategy you cannot always show everything you have. First stint I was very happy. Even though we lost the start, being third, I had the feeling I could have gone a bit longer but for strategy reasons you pit earlier. But all in all we are happy with second. First was not meant to be so second is the best we could do today.

Q: Looking at the start, did you use KERS at the start? 
SV: I did, but to be honest, my initial launch was not 100 per cent. I probably had problems to really start going; you feel that inside the car. It’s hard to wait then and I was probably a bit too aggressive later on. You can’t use KERS straight away, you have to wait until you reach 100kph, so I saw that I immediately lost a position to Jenson, which wasn’t nice and then Lewis behind. I tried to defend hard into turn one, but at some point you have to give up and let the guy go. As I said, in general, the fight with him today was very fair. It was quite entertaining and good fun from that side.



Q: Mark, a phenomenal drive all the way up from 18th on the grid. Was it enjoyable for you? 
MW: It was obviously a very interesting Grand Prix for me. We decided to get rid of the hard tyre in the first stint because we knew we were going to be in a bit of traffic. That worked out well, the guys made the best decision there to… it was their call to start on the prime and that worked out well. Well, I went off the track in turn one, I was struggling with the tyre and I thought “my God, this day is getting difficult” so I just kept my head down and focused on the next corner to give it everything. The guys did a good job in the pit stops; the first one was not the best, but after that they did a very, very good job. I got a bit lucky today – we didn’t have so much yesterday, but hey, look, I’ll take as much as I can get. I still had to do a little bit of driving today so it wasn’t too bad, so thanks to the guys.



Q: And a fair amount of racing; you could have done with a few more retirements rather than one, couldn’t you? 
MW: Absolutely. I was looking for more yellow flags, a few more retirements, a couple of Vodafone cars pulled over but nothing, no yellow flags, I had to pass everybody. Yeah, I really earned it today, I think. I think the DRS position was pretty good for the race, in terms of overtaking. Maybe we need to look at top gear for the sport, to get that right between low and high fuel, because sometimes it’s hard. We have DRS but we’re on the limiter. The DRS, basically, sometimes doesn’t work because you have the wrong top gear, it’s the same for everyone. So anyway, we learned quite a bit today, a great result for the team, second and third. Congratulations to Lewis, they got the race.