1 – Lando NORRIS (McLaren)
2 – Kimi ANTONELLI (Mercedes)
3 – George RUSSELL (Mercedes)

TRACK INTERVIEWS
(Conducted by Jolyon Palmer)


Q: Lando, so it’s the last race here in Zandvoort. They’ve all been won from pole, but my word, you really had to work for that one. What a job.
Lando NORRIS: Yeah, amazing. A tough race. I think yesterday I said, “Need to put on a bit of a show for everyone for the final race here,” so, yeah, I made it tough for myself today. But a good race, well fought. Probably one of my better wins. We had to fight for it, but the pace was very strong and managed things incredibly well today, so over the moon, very, very happy, and nice to win the final race here in Zandvoort.

Q: Yeah, such great work. All of the drama at the start, the restart, obviously you lost the lead to Kimi, but talk us through the overtake because that was brilliant.
LN: Yeah, the move was good. I mean, I knew I was not going to get many chances. Every lap I spent behind him my odds were getting lower and lower. So, I saw Lewis defended and I knew that was my moment. I did a couple of clicks of brake balance. I knew I was going to commit to the braking, and that move won me the race. So, well played from my part. I knew I had to make it, and I probably had one chance to really make it happen, and I made the most of it. So, yeah, another win here. Very, very happy.

Q: Superb. Well done, Lando. We’ll come back to you in just a moment. Don’t go anywhere. Kimi, championship leader, you put on a show there. Not quite to be in the end. You were talking about a little bit of aero degradation. You felt like the car went away from you?
Kimi ANTONELLI: Yeah, I mean, it was a very intense race and managed to get the lead, and stint one I felt actually okay. But then from stint two onwards, just didn’t have the feeling with the car. It was sliding a lot, a lot overall. And, yeah, at the end Lando passed me and I knew I had no chance after that. But then, of course, George was, you know, a great team player and really happy for him to hold on to P3 as well, and still great points.

Q: I mean, it doesn’t feel like that long ago we were talking about your starts being really difficult, but we had two of them here today and both times you moved forward, so things are looking good on that front.
KA: Yeah, definitely. In that regard, we’ve done a tremendous job and improved a lot, and today paid off, so really happy with that. But, of course, now as a team we need to find a little bit of time because McLaren have done a huge step. So, yeah, we’ve got to keep pushing.

Q: Well done, Kimi. Thank you so much. George, I mean, it’s been a good weekend for you. Started on the front row, you had a Sprint win, you’re back on the podium. The start was difficult, the end was tense, but talk us through the battle with Lewis to start off with.
George RUSSELL: Yeah, it was a difficult start for me, obviously losing the position, and these two were very quick in the beginning. I mean, Lando was just exceptionally fast towards the end of the race, so it was tough to hold on with those old tyres. Happy to be standing here on the podium because it could have gone either way.

Q: And you weren’t very happy with the team later on. We heard you trying to get a little bit of team orders to stay ahead of Kimi, I guess to help the defence. In the end, the team might feel exonerated because your defence was superb. It looked like the tyres were going away, but you just positioned the car exactly where you needed to be.
GR: Yeah, I mean, Kimi was ahead of me anyway, so he deserved to finish ahead. And, of course, when you’re in the race, you want to fight for every single position, but with the pace, with a new tyre, he would have overtaken anyway. So it’s the right decision and, as I said, just happy to be standing on the podium. It’s been a little while for me. It’s been a strong weekend overall, so I take the positives.

Q: Yeah, well done, George. It’s been a good weekend. You’re right. Thank you. Lando, if I can interrupt you two for just a moment, what a weekend it’s been. Back-to-back race wins for you, upgrades working, championship lead just sniffing down. Are you thinking at all that this might be on for the big Max Verstappen-esque comeback?
LN: I mean, it sounds boring, but one race at a time. I know a lot of people say it now, but it’s the truth of it. There’s no point thinking that far ahead. I need to concentrate now on having a nice little break. Obviously, two great weekends, but, yeah, we just need to reset, to learn as much as we can. I think there’s still plenty of things we can do better, and we need to do better if we want to fight for a championship. So, I’m very pleased with the team. I’m pleased with how much work everyone’s doing and so happy that I can deliver it for them and bring two wins in a row. But it’s still harder than I would like, and I don’t want a bigger gap, so we have to keep working hard. There’s still plenty of races, plenty of opportunity for everyone. So, keep my head down, keep working, and they’ll keep coming.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q: Our race winner, Lando Norris, will be joining us shortly, but we thought we’d kick things off with our second-place finisher, Kimi Antonelli, and George Russell in third. Kimi, let’s come to you first. How hard did you have to fight for this P2?
KA: Yeah, I mean, it was a difficult second half for me, especially in the last stint on the Hards, just really struggling. Had little confidence in the car and, yeah, it was not easy. And then obviously we pitted, and also that was a bit tricky. But then also George, you know, I have to thank him because he made my life a lot easier. But I still think probably could have stayed out and gone until the end with the same set because it put us a little bit at risk. Also, I feel we put George at risk with having to let me by and everything. But I still think, at the end of the day, it was a great team execution with how things were, and I think today P2 was the maximum we could have done because the pace of the McLarens, especially in the second half, was just too strong.

Q: You say great team execution, but tell us a little bit about your car. Judging by the radio messages, you weren’t that happy. Was that the case all the way through the Grand Prix?
KA: No. It was really weird because I felt good with the Medium. I felt decent on the first Hard, but then on the second one it just felt really odd, really odd to drive, and just sliding a lot. I need to see why it was that, but for sure it’s something that we need to look at because the drop in pace was quite significant. I mean, I think in the first stint I was almost matching my second Hard in terms of pace, so for sure I need to look into it and why it went like that. But, yeah, happy with the P2 today.

Q: Contrasting fortunes for the two Mercedes drivers at the start. You did very well. Were they the best starts you’ve made this year?
KA: Well, they still didn’t feel great, but, I mean, the conditions were very sketchy, very slippery, and I think together with the team we did a great execution, especially trying to read the grip in the best way we could. So, I think, in that regard, probably the best start of the year, yes, because I did gain places finally, so I didn’t just lose them.

Q: Now, Lando Norris was very quick today. Just how do you view the threat from him and McLaren now?
KA: I mean, for sure, we’re clearly not the fastest car anymore on the grid. We’re probably second or third, at least in today’s race, and McLaren has taken a huge step, especially since Hungary, since the big upgrade package they brought. But I’m confident with the team. You know, the team has been working super hard on this next package that is coming up, and they just want to make sure that it’s going to work out well once we put it on. So for sure, in this race, it’s going to be more difficult, it’s going to be challenging, but we’re ready to do our best and to maximise every opportunity. And then hopefully it’s going to be our turn to bring the package that’s going to give us a little bit of the upper hand again.

Q: Kimi, very well done. Thank you for that. George, let’s come to you now. That was a hard-fought P3. Can we start by talking about those closing laps when you had Lewis Hamilton filling your mirrors? Just how tough was it to keep him at bay?
GR: Yeah, it was tough. The first VSC came at a pretty awkward timing for me because I felt really strong on the hard. I think Kimi’s and my race was kind of the opposite. I had a tough medium stint, he had a very strong medium stint, then I had a strong hard stint, he was struggling. But that VSC gave Lewis the free pit stop and obviously Kimi pitted as well. And from there on in, I knew I was going to be under threat, but I was managing enough in the high-speed corners to allow me to be fast in Sector 3 and defending into Turn 1. So I was pleased with that performance. But as Kimi said, it’s been a challenging couple of weekends now for us as a team. McLaren are mighty impressive and Ferrari’s race pace today also looked really strong.

Q: And given your pace in the Sprint yesterday, what’s your assessment of your own car’s performance here?
GR: Yeah, I think, you know, when you’re out front, things are always much easier and always very challenging for the car behind to overtake unless you’re on an offset strategy. But I don’t think it’s a major surprise for us, seeing how competitive Lando was this weekend, considering he won in Budapest. It’s a very similar circuit with the long corners, high tyre degradation, with the two-stop strategy, so there’s a lot of similarities between the two circuits. I think this may continue for the coming two or three races until we start to bring more to the car, and fingers crossed our competitors don’t.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Laurence Edmondson – ESPN) A question for George. Just on giving the position to Kimi, can you talk us through your thought process at the time? Because it sounded like you thought the best way to secure the podium was for you to stay ahead, but then you moved over pretty quickly. So did you at all consider just holding up Kimi? Because we saw how well you were able to hold up Lewis later on as well.
GR: We’ve always said as a team, when we’re on different strategies, we’re never going to fight and we’re always going to invert, and that’s always just been our sort of rules. And the fact is Kimi was ahead of me before the VSC and he tried something different to, you know, protect us as a team. He kind of copy-pasted what the Ferraris did. Yeah, could I have kept him behind? Maybe. But equally, you know, it could have been a P5 as well. So, in the end, you know, he deserved to be P2. I think P3 was a fair result for me and, yes, a long season.

Q: (Luke Slater – The Telegraph) George, you said yesterday you were feeling relaxed going into this weekend, and that certainly seemed to be helping you on Friday and Saturday. Do you feel relaxed after that race?
GR: Yeah, I feel good, to be honest. It’s been a very positive weekend as a whole, and I think, you know, I’ve not been on the podium in three races or so now. And given the fact that we’re nowhere near as dominant as we once were, I think this has been a very solid weekend all in all. You know, I was not on the podium at times when we had the best car and Kimi was performing right at the very front. Now, you know, the pace between the two of us looks very similar and, yeah, that’s a good step forward for me. It’s been a cleaner weekend. I’m not dealing with as many issues as I’ve faced at the end of that first half of the season, and it’s just allowing me to focus on the job. But, as I said, I think these coming two or three race weekends will be a challenge for us both, purely because we’re out of sync with the upgrades.

Q: Do you think Monza will suit your car, though, in its current form?
GR: I think we will be slightly more competitive there. However, I believe Ferrari have an engine upgrade incoming, and the truth is we just don’t know. But I do believe that these high-degradation circuits really suit McLaren very well, and especially Lando. He’s always been a bit of a specialist in those conditions. We also saw it last year. Monza may be slightly different, but I think they are the team to beat right now.

Q: (Laurence Edmondson – ESPN) A question for Kimi. Toto confirmed that there’s going to be an engine penalty in Monza. I just wanted to get your thoughts on that. And then also, on this weekend, you actually leave this weekend with a bigger points lead than you came into, so are you actually pretty satisfied with the way that this whole weekend has worked out?
KA: Yeah, at the end it was a good ending of a difficult weekend for me where I struggled with the feeling of the car, did a lot of mistakes on my side, Sprint quali, quali, you know, also in today’s race with Lando I could have defended a bit better. So for sure there were things that I didn’t do well this weekend, and for sure the feeling wasn’t as good. So today’s result is definitely very promising. And obviously going into Monza, engine penalty, I still think it’s the best track where to take it. Of course, it’s my home race and all that kind of stuff, but, you know, I think it’s the best race to do so. So, I think it still will give me a chance to do a great result and bring home good points.

Q: Lando, great job. You now have 13 wins to your name. How highly do you rate this one?
LN: Pretty high. I mean, pretty high just from a point of just very well fought in many ways. More than that is, you know, the turnaround from yesterday to today. I was pretty disappointed yesterday. It kind of took a little bit of the fire out of me, seeing how much we struggled in the Sprint. I know it’s just a Sprint, but, you know, every point matters and we just really didn’t have the pace. I didn’t have that something that gave me life inside the car. Last night we worked very, very hard. I spent a lot of time with my engineers to kind of understand what we could do better today, how to push more, save the tyres more, how to do everything in a better way than I’ve done and better than everyone else. And I certainly believe I did that today. So apart from the start, it was a little bit of a mix of races because the beginning in the first stint was pretty bad and kind of reminded me of yesterday. But we put the Hard tyres on and things came alive and the race really started to come back to me.

Q: When you say that little bit of something you didn’t have in the Sprint, can you just elaborate on what that something is?
LN: It’s just advantage, pace advantage. It’s just the knowledge of being able to win. I didn’t have that yesterday. I didn’t think we had the pace to win, or we didn’t have the pace to win yesterday, and that kind of didn’t give me a lot of hope for today, even with the pole yesterday, and certainly not after lap one and getting done off the line, and even the first stint. But, I don’t know, like I said, I know when the car gives me what I want, on top of that when I’m driving at the level I am now, I can win races. And that’s exactly what I went from the first stint, I didn’t have what I wanted from the car. We put on the Hard tyres, we were a bit more aggressive with how we wanted to approach the stint, we turned things around, and I had that feeling in the car that I wanted. And I went from just not feeling like I was going to win a race to, “At least we can force him to make mistakes.” He started to make a lot more mistakes when I was behind him. We forced Mercedes to do something with strategy. This opened up our availability to push, to extend. So, it’s just when I get what I need from a car, when I have the front I want, when I’ve got the confidence with the rear on entries, just when I get what I need to be able to know and predict every single corner, I’m going to win a race. But if I don’t have that, even like the first stint, then there’s not much I can do.

Q: When you get what you need, are you driving at a higher level now than you ever have done?
LN: I was driving at a high level the second half of last year. It’s tough to say, but I do think it’s a trickier car to drive this year in some ways. And I think you can see that because the gaps between teammates are often bigger this year, I would say, than it was last year. But I do believe so. I do believe I’m able to understand situations better, to understand the car in a better way. It’s still just horrible to drive, but I’m doing a better job at just understanding this, relaying this to my team, figuring stuff out. So, it’s not just I’m driving better on track. I’m certainly eliminating my weaknesses on track, and I don’t have so many, but it’s also how I work off the track. And for me, yesterday to today is a perfect example of the work we put in overnight transformed our race and gave me the opportunity to win. So, the work we put in away from the track is certainly a huge part of that.

Q: And, Lando, that’s two wins on the bounce now. How much confidence do you have going to Monza in a couple of weeks?
LN: I don’t want to think of it for now. I just want to enjoy this moment again, enjoy a few days off. I mean, I’m just not thinking of it. I know I have to because you’re asking me, I’m confident because we clearly have a strong car. We have a strong car in certain areas. It’s not like last year where we were pretty good everywhere. We’re very, very strong in high speed, and that’s the place we’ve improved the car the most, is high-speed performance. No one matches us in high speed, and that’s a good thing. My pace advantage to Mercedes in Turn 7, 8 was crazy, but their advantage that they have to us in slow speed is also crazy. And therefore, I don’t have the confidence to say, “Yeah, I can easily fight for a championship for the rest of the season.” I know I’ve just won two races in a row and had two poles in a row, but at the minute I don’t have the car I need to fight for a championship. And I know that’s quite a big comment, but I think last year I understood what is needed from a car and what was needed for myself. And I know the level that I am now and what I know I can perform at, and I know just what I need from the car. And I know what tracks we have coming up where we’re going to certainly struggle more, and I don’t want to struggle more. So I’m just doing my part to make sure, as a team, we don’t relax, we don’t get complacent in any way, and we work more than we’ve ever done before, even more than the last two years when we’ve won championships. I need the guys and girls to work and focus better than ever before to improve on these areas. If we can improve on these slow speeds, I’m confident that I can win every race this season. If we don’t, then it’s much more difficult to believe so.

Q: (Leonid Kliuev – GrandePremio.br) Could you talk us through the start and maybe the first lap? Is it still sort of a weakness?
LN: No, not at all. No. I’m one of the best starters on the grid. We saw already yesterday that from pole the grip was less than on P2. That was evident again today. I don’t know why. I need to go see. I’ve not seen what happened with my start, but of course I’ve got to review it with my team and understand what went wrong. But even on the first start, Oscar, I think, started on the inside on a more wet track, but he could attack the launch more than I could from pole when I was more conservative with my launch, and I had more wheelspin than him. So, it really made no sense why I had such little grip. And in some ways we were expecting it, hence we started on soft compared to a different tyre. But, yeah, I don’t want to just blame myself or the team at the minute. Certainly, a large part of it was we didn’t understand why I had such little grip compared to the right side of the grid. So sometimes it’s just a bit unfortunate. But, yeah, like I said, I’ve not seen everything, so I need to go and speak with the team. But I’m confident in my first laps. My starts have been very strong, so certainly not what you said.

Q: (Rodrigo França – Car Magazine Brazil) Lando, congratulations for the win. Some words about Zandvoort, the final lap, as they said, and your win. And the race showed that there’s a lot of excitement in the race despite being a track where overtaking is difficult. From a driver’s point of view, did you see the race very exciting today?
LN: I try. I mean, I try to watch the TV as much as possible just to see what people were doing, to understand who was doing well, who wasn’t. There’s quite a few TVs around the track here, so down to Turn 1, the middle sector, there’s a lot of opportunity for me to watch the race. And I certainly saw some bits. Of course, I was behind the Williams when they were having a good battle, and then I could see this on TV as well. I think it was a good race. I think it was a nice race to end on, at least with the excitement at the start, the good battles between me, Kimi and Lewis in the middle or towards the end. Zandvoort is still a very, very difficult place to overtake. I don’t think many people are going to overtake on pure merit, and I think when the guy ahead presses boost and you press boost behind, you have no advantage, and it’s worse than DRS was last year. So really, there is less opportunity to overtake than there was last year. But I’ve not seen everything. I’ve not seen how exciting it was for everyone else. But, you know, from my part it was still an exciting race to keep Kimi under pressure, to have different strategies in some ways, and of course to have the overtaking at the end. If the fans enjoyed it, then I’m pleased. You know, I’ve always said I’ve enjoyed it here. I enjoy the Dutch fans. They’ve always supported me very, very well. And, yeah, it was nice to kind of have a nice slow in-lap and appreciate and take in the whole atmosphere, because this is certainly one of the races with the most atmosphere and the most energy and everything, and therefore I always enjoy it here. So, yeah, it’s a shame that it’s the last one.

Q: (Laurence Edmondson – ESPN) Lando, given the weaknesses you were just talking about with the car, is it going to require a targeted upgrade to make it better, or is there hope that actually you can work towards it, especially given the step you made from yesterday’s Sprint to today? I mean, it looks like some of those issues were already kind of addressed to some extent.
LN: A little bit. We still struggled in the final sector. It was still our weakest part of the track compared to them. So certainly, the slow speed is still our biggest weakness, especially just this tight, twisty stuff. The kind of more flowing corners, we’re not so bad at. You know, there’s still some slow speed in Budapest, but the fact it’s a little bit more open and flowing, but still slow speed, things were better there. But as soon as it kind of gets proper tight and twisty, this is when the car doesn’t like it. So of course there’s a mixture of both. We have to understand what I can do behind the wheel to optimise things, what we can do with setup, short-term upgrades. You know, we just had a lot of our big stuff, so we’re probably going to have to wait a little while for other things. But there needs to be a bit of a focus, I believe, on more certain areas. I think a lot of our upgrades we brought lately have just – I mean, they’ve elevated the whole package in pretty much every single sense. But it’s clear where our weaknesses are and, yep, therefore we need to attack those things. And until we do that, it’s still going to be a very tough end of the season.

Q: (Xavier Prieto Astigarraga – La Nación Argentina) After the first half of the season, things look more even in the championships than in recent years. Is that related to the new regulations or has it nothing to do with that?
LN: What do you mean? Like it’s more even between teams?

Q: (Xavier Prieto Astigarraga – La Nación Argentina) Teams and drivers.
LN: I don’t know. We should be further ahead. We didn’t even start a race. You know, we’ve been pretty unlucky. We had a lot of problems at the beginning of the season. Mercedes have had a fair few as well. Ferrari are probably at the least. Yeah, I think it’s a new regulation where other teams have done a very good job. Mercedes to start the season, Ferrari then came on very, very strong and have continued to be, and are still very, very strong. Red Bull have had their moments for sure. They clearly were a little bit off this weekend, and then we’ve improved. I think we’ve easily done the best job when you look at everything from where we were last year. Like I said, we were always going to start behind this season because of how much we focused on last year. It was inevitable that we were not going to start on the pace this season. But for us to catch up, you know, we’ve out-developed them. You’re saying on a track like this, almost a second of our development from us as McLaren versus our competitors. So that’s pretty insane, and I think that’s the reason why we’ve also come on pretty strong. But I’m still 80 points behind, so I wouldn’t say it’s that close. But I think it’s close. It’s relatively close for a new regulation, that’s for sure. It’s definitely closer than what previous years have been with new regulations.

Q: (Koen Greven – ANP) Antonelli said that Mercedes is not the fastest car anymore, and they said McLaren is way too fast in Zandvoort, and Russell said McLaren is the team to beat. Is that to put pressure on you, or how do you see that?
LN: Well, they’re not going to say themselves, are they? So, yeah, no, they’re not going to say themselves. So they’re the team to beat if they just got beaten today, so I don’t think it’s true. I think if I didn’t get Kimi when I overtook him, I don’t think I would have won the race today. You know, it’s hard to say, but I also know how good of a job I’m doing behind the wheel. And of course I’m never one to over-talk about myself, normally always the complete opposite. But for once I would give myself a little bit of credit that I feel like I’m doing a better job than everyone, and I think that can also make a difference. We certainly have a car now capable of beating them. Even, like, we look at yesterday and in qualifying, but we didn’t win yesterday and we didn’t really change much. But I worked a lot on my driving. I want to believe more than everyone else again, and we turned things around today. So we certainly have a very similar car, I would say, all in all, to Mercedes, but I think they have a better all-round performing car than what we do. We are more specific in high speed. Turn 7 and Turn 8 were just our biggest two corners where I would gain time today. But, yeah, you know, if I make one mistake in qualifying yesterday and P3, P4, P5, I’m not going to win, and then no one’s going to be saying these things. So the fact I’m just doing a good job is, I think, why people are saying it.