1 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)
2 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)
3 – Valtteri BOTTAS (Willams)
TV UNILATERAL
Nico, you were fastest in Q1 and Q3, fastest after the first run in Q3, on
pole by a decent margin. Are you pleased with that?
Nico ROSBERG: Yeah, for sure, I’m very happy. It’s been a difficult weekend
actually, because of the little running that we got; we didn’t get much
practice. Qualifying worked out really well; found a good balance on my car,
thanks to my engineers as well. We had to guess a bit where is it going to
be and it all worked out well. I felt comfortable, so got some really good
laps in and I’m very happy with that.
Very well done. Lewis, obviously you were trailing your team-mate after the
first part of Q3 and then you didn’t go for the extra lap at the end. Why
not? And I saw you looking around the Ferrari afterwards, did you learn
anything from it?
Lewis HAMILTON: No. I did go for my second lap; I just didn't finish it. I
made a mistake at Turn 13 I think it is. Yeah, a difficult weekend I think
for everyone. Nico did a great job on his lap. I wasn’t quite perfectly
happy with the balance that I had. But overall really happy. I think it’s
great for the team and yeah, as you say last year this is not such a bad
race for P2.
OK, thank you for that. Valtteri, you matched your result of last year, do
you feel you have the measure of Ferrari this weekend?
Valtteri BOTTAS: Well, it seems like it, at least today. We were quite
competitive. It's good to be third; it’s a good place to start here.
Obviously it has been a tricky weekend for everyone but I really think we
managed to use Practice 3, well, part of it, what we had, pretty well. I
managed to get some good laps in qualifying, consistently, and I pleased
with the laps and what we did as a team.
Well done. Coming back to you Nico, obviously you’re going for the
Constructors’ Championship tomorrow, trying to clinch it here for the second
year in a row, but have you personally got a plan for worked out for Turn
One. Lewis referenced it I his answer, after what happened here last year.
NR: No, not yet. I haven’t thought about that yet. At the moment just
enjoying being on pole and I’ll dig into that this evening or tomorrow
morning to work out a plan for that. Of course the Constructors’
Championship is a really important target for us this weekend – it would be
amazing to clinch it for the second time so early on in the season – so
we’re out to do that, but at the same time, of course, I’m out here to try
to reduce the gap to Lewis in terms of points.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Nico, you mentioned in your first answer about the lack of running this
weekend, the really unusual situation. We had it in Japan but even worse
here because of the curtailed Free Practice 3 after Carlos Sainz’s accident.
So what have you been able to find out in terms of long runs with this much
softer tyres than last year here in Russia and how much guesswork is going
to be involved in strategy and race performance tomorrow?
NR: Well, we tried to prepare as best we could. So this morning we did do
some high fuel running, everybody did. So we do have an idea of how it’s
going to be tomorrow, so it’s not completely just guessing. No, we’re quite
comfortable that we know what to expect and strategy-wise we think we have
got a good strategy, so it should be fine.
Lewis, I wonder if you could give us your view on what happened this morning
– the accident of Sainz and going under the barriers? Your thoughts on that
speaking on behalf of the drivers?
LH: To be honest I don’t know anything about it, so I couldn’t really
comment. I’m just glad he’s OK.
Q: OK, well I’ll throw a question maybe you can answer. You obviously
mentioned the fact you are quite happy to start in second place, based on
what happened here last year. So, obviously today didn’t work out for you in
the single laps but fro the little that you’ve been able to learn from the
high-fuel running, do you think you’ll be able to challenge for the win
tomorrow.
LH: I wasn’t saying I was happy, I mean I have no choice of being second
right now, obviously Nico did a better job in qualifying but I feel there’s
still all to play for, as you’ve seen in many other races where I’ve started
second. I think it’s exciting. It makes the race ever more exciting and, as
I’ve said, Turn One, it’s a long, long way down to Turn One. Probably one of
the longest ones of the whole year so it should create opportunities. But
there are other opportunities throughout the race as well.
Q: Coming to you Valtteri, obviously both these gentlemen managed to get
through Q1 without using a set of Supersoft tyres, just showing the
performance that they have. A lot of your competitors struggled, it seemed,
to get temperature into the tyres today as the temperatures actually came
down during the course of the qualifying session. Is that something you
struggled with – and can you articulate what it was like to use these tyres
here today?
VB: Yeah. We already saw last year it’s quite tricky to get tyres to work in
the first timed lap, and that’s why you could saw many people doing many
laps and longer running in qualifying than normal. What we did in the
practice and in Q1 also, we just tried to learn more about the tyres so
we’re sure we’re making the right decision what we’re going to do in Q3 in
terms of tyre temperatures, pressures and how many laps we do. So I think
everyone struggled with it today – but we got it right. We got the max out
of the car and the tyres.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Andrea Cremonesi, La Gazzetta dello Sport) Question for all of you about
the accident of this morning, car that went through the barrier. Would like
to know if you’re worried about it: the dynamic of the accident. The car was
inside of the barrier.
We’ve already asked Lewis that question so we’ll start with Nico.
NR: I haven’t seen it so difficult to comment. Of course we always need to
push to improve things. Apparently it’s not good, not ideal, so let’s see if
we can make progress on that.
Valterri?
VB: I haven’t seen it either, so can’t really say that much. Like Nico, we
always need to keep pushing on the safety.
Q: (Livio Oricchio – Globoesporte.com) Nico, in the last race you were very
conservative at the start and maybe that was one of the reasons you lost the
victory. How do you plan your start tomorrow?
NR: On the one side I don’t agree with your opinion – but that’s OK. On the
second, just work on it tonight and tomorrow. Work on the start, get
everything right there, look at last year’s start, learn from that. That’s
it.
Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) To both of the Mercedes
drivers: you were very aggressive – Hamilton was very aggressive – here last
year and you were very aggressive also in Japan. I would like to continue on
this matter, to know that if, as you have this goal tomorrow [the
Constructors’ Championship] does it change you approach for the first
corner?
LH: You said I was aggressive here last year? Here? I don’t remember being
aggressive. But whatever I did last year it worked so I plan to stay the
same really.
Q: I think the point of the question is that you have had a few starts where
you have been quite close, not least the last one in Japan and as you’ve got
the Constructors’ possibly tomorrow, is it going to change your thinking
going into the first corner. For both of you.
NR: No. Nothing changes anything. It’s one way and that’s it.
Q: (Livio Oricchio – Globoesporte.com) In Q1, only Lewis and Nico were on
soft tyres, all the others were on supersoft tyres. Is this some kind of
reference that we can expect in the race?
NR: Looks like we were especially quick on the soft which is always a good
thing of course in the race, because everybody has to use them once so that
can only help us.
Q: You’re expecting this to be a one-stop race tomorrow then?
NR: I don’t know about the strategy yet. That’s look into that this evening.
LH: Yeah, very strange coming into the weekend – people were making
assumptions that we would have a repeat of Singapore. Obviously I had no
idea what it’s going to be like and to think that now we have it the other
way round it’s very, very strange. I don’t have answer for it but the car
felt good otherwise on the tyres today. I don’t know how it will be for the
race. I think from our short long run, the seven laps that we might have
got, we have to take information from that, but it didn’t feel bad.
Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Valtteri you were a very consistent third
in every session; was this your strongest qualifying hour of the season?
VB: Well, I think compared to the number of laps I’ve got and everyone has
yesterday and today it was not bad from my side. I felt very good. I could
have been feeling very good in the car all weekend and managed to do
multiple laps in a very consistent way without any mistakes. Yeah, I can be
happy for the session but it’s difficult to say if it’s the best or one of
the best. |