|
1 – Max VERSTAPPEN (Red Bull
Racing)
2 – Charles LECLERC (Ferrari)
3 – Carlos SAINZ (Ferrari)
PARC FERMÉ INTERVIEWS
(Conducted by Naomi Schiff)
Q: Max, congratulations. This is your second sprint race win of the season,
this time in front of the orange army. How much energy are they giving you?
Max VERSTAPPEN: Yeah, it was great to see, got a lot of smoke at the end,
all the orange. But it was alright, it was, I think, a decent race. We had a
good pace in the beginning. I think after that, you know, we were very
closely matched. So yeah, it was good. It was, you know, like a sprint
should go, quite flat out.
Q: Now yesterday, the times between you and these two guys behind you here
were really, really close. But today, they couldn't seem to answer you. So
what did you pull out of the bag overnight?
MV: It was just the first few laps and of course they were also fighting a
little bit, so I had a bit of a gap. And after that, I think we were quite
similar in pace. So I do expect tomorrow that it's going to be a very
interesting battle again. Of course, you know, the race is going to be quite
a lot longer, so it's going to be quite tricky on tyres.
Q: Are you confident that your performance today can be repeated tomorrow?
MV: Well, we'll find out. I think the car is good. Just a few things to fine
tune but overall we've been really competitive again this weekend.
Q: Well, congratulations and good luck with tomorrow. Charles,
congratulations, you maintain your position today. I'm assuming your
expectations were a little bit higher for today?
Charles LECLERC: Oh, it was tricky. Obviously. The first part of the race
was all about managing, but Max was very quick. He was pushing quite a lot
at the beginning, so I was trying to control my tyres to attack at the end.
Then we've had a small fight with Carlos. And yeah, towards the end I
started to push, I was gaining a little bit, but it was very close overall.
So yeah, tomorrow is a race and hopefully we can have as good of a start as
today and put a bit more pressure on Max.
Q: Now we saw that little fight between you and Carlos in the race and as
much as we love to see racing. Do you think you guys can work together
tomorrow to close the gap to Max?
CL: I really hope so.
Q: Carlos, congrats. Our most recent Grand Prix winner. You had a pretty
good race today, you managed to take the challenge to Charles, but how can
you turn that around tomorrow to bring the battle to Max?
Carlos SAINZ: Yeah, I had a good start then a couple of fights there at the
beginning first with Max into Turn 3, then Charles into Turn 3 again a bit
later in the race, which was good, it was good fun, like it should be, good
racing. But then, yeah, probably I overheated a bit the tyres running behind
Charles and I had to back off to recover them on and finish the race.
Q: Can you work together with three DRS zones to close the gap to Max
tomorrow?
CS: We will see. I think first of all we will need to improve a little bit
the pace because he looked to be very strong at the beginning of the race
and then little by little it looked like we were starting to match him.
Tomorrow it’s a long race. Tomorrow we will go through different compounds,
so I think anything can happen. The important thing is that we are both in
the fight and we will try our best to beat Max.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: A very warm welcome to the top three finishers of the F1 Sprint ahead of
Sunday's FIA Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix. In third place, Carlos Sainz. In
second place, Charles Leclerc. And our winner of the Sprint and starting in
pole position tomorrow, Max Verstappen. Max, you're fresh from your lap
around the track in a KTM crossbow. First up, how was it? What was the
reception from the crowd light?
MV: Yeah, I mean, of course, it was great to see all the fans, you know
there is a lot of orange around here, and you could hear them cheering. So
that was very nice, for sure.
Q: And what about that race? You absolutely dominated it? Were you surprised
by the gap to the Ferrari drivers?
MV: I mean, of course, they also had a little fight in the beginning of the
race, so I could pull a gap, and basically then control the gap. But you
could see towards the end of the race, we were very closely matched in pace.
So I do expect tomorrow to be a tight race.
Q: So what have you learned today that's going to help you in tomorrow's
Grand Prix?
MV: There are still a few things to look at for tomorrow. But overall, the
car's been performing really well, so that's, of course, always a positive.
And yeah, normally these tyres will be used also tomorrow. So it should be
alright.
Q: Were you tempted to start this race on the Soft tyre?
MV: No, not at all.
Q: Max, very well done and good luck in the Grand Prix tomorrow. Charles,
let's come to you. Now, it was an eventful Sprint for you. Let's start at
the beginning. Can you talk us through your getaway from the grid?
CL: My start was pretty good. After that it was quite tricky with Max. And
then I lost the place to Carlos, but I managed to regain the place in Turn
3. And then I was trying to manage my tyres for the end of the race, but it
wasn't enough to catch Max at the end.
Q: Well, it was a cracking battle with your team-mate. Where were you faster
than him? Where was he faster than you?
CL: Well, I think it was pretty close between us three, to be honest, in
terms of pace. I was probably the one managing the most at the beginning and
the one maybe pushing the most at the end. So yeah, I just tried something
different. But it didn’t work out.
Q: How much time to Max did you lose in your battle with Carlos?
CL: Well, a little bit. Whether this was enough to get the win, I don't
think so. Because Max was also managing then once he had the gap, as he was
saying, so we'll never know what would have happened. But yeah, today is the
way it is.
Q: And Charles, from what you've seen today, who has the faster race car,
Ferrari or Red Bull?
CL: Again, I think it's very close. So yeah, tomorrow, tyre management will
be a thing. And it will be an exciting race.
Q: Carlos, coming to you now. Talk us through the battle with Charles from
your perspective?
CS: Yeah, there were a few battles going on there at the beginning. First,
at the start, and then with Charles around… I don't know what lap was it -
four or five? That was fun, and yeah, a shame that I couldn't get him in the
end. I think he had a pretty good exit there at the exit of Turn 3 and it
wasn't quite enough to get him, but yeah from there on I lost a bit of grip
on the tyres, on the front and the rears, and I had to recover the battery,
recover the tyres, and then get back into a rhythm. But good fun, like
always here.
Q: Now, if you and Charles are together on the racetrack again, tomorrow, do
you think we need to see you work together more than you did in the Sprint
to stay with Max?
CS: I think today there was very little to gain or to lose by the fight,
we're talking about one point more, one point less. Because there's not many
points going on. And also Max looked very in control the whole race up
front. So it's not like we lost out massively.
Q: And Max says that he didn't think about starting the race on the Soft
tyre. What was the thinking at Ferrari?
CS: We both started on Medium. So you have the answer there.
Q: Was it even close? Did you even think about it?
CS: I’m not going to reveal what we think about or don't think about before
the race.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Ronald Vording - Motorsport.com) It's a question to Max. Checo said he
had recently found it more difficult in the RB18 and he thinks that the
upgrades are not really fitting to his driving style. How is that for you?
Do you feel more comfortable in the car than let's say two months ago? And
secondly, do you think that's related to the upgrades or just going to
different types of circuit, completely different to Monaco, where you
struggled a bit more?
MV: Well, I think in general, we always try to make the car faster and
whatever they bring to the car you have to adapt to that. And that's
certainly what I've been doing. I mean, of course I say what I would like
for my car in general, but the upgrades on the car are not specifically
designed around me. It's just more pace.
Q: (Fred Ferret – L’Equipe) A question to Charles and Carlos. Do you think
for tyre management it would be useful to have a team order at the end of
the first lap to let one of you fight Max? Or is it better to fight the two
of you during the whole race?
CL: I mean, I think tomorrow is going to be a long race and tyre management
will be quite a bit more important compared to today. So probably tomorrow
we cannot afford to do what we did today, no.
CS: Yeah, no, I will see how the tyres feel, how the pace is in front of me
and I'm sure with the team we will work it out for tomorrow.
Q: (Matt Kew – Autosport) Question for Charles. I know Carlos, you’ve
declined to talk about the tyres, but it's very noticeable that you guys
were doing 20-21 laps on the Softs in FP2. So, for you to not use them, did
they behave different to what you expected?
CL: Not really, to be honest, but we had obviously a Medium that was 15 or
20 laps old from FP1, so we decided to do the long run on the Soft, which I
think was a little bit better for us to understand things. So yeah, there
were no surprises. We knew that the Soft was not a race tyre for the for the
Sprint Qualifying.
Q: (Péter Vámosi - Racingline.hu) Question is to Carlos. Do you think that
because you were a team-mate of Max, it would be better if Ferrari would
support you in a fight between you and him?
CS: I think it has nothing to do with being teammates, ex-teammates. Is the
situation we are in but I don't think that it makes much sense, what you
asked there, because it doesn't matter if he's my teammate, my ex-teammate
or not. We’re going to both try to make Max’s life as difficult as possible
in the race, in the rest of the Championship, and we need to push flat-out,
you know? Because he’s far ahead in the Championship and we need to try and
make his life as difficult as possible. But he's driving very well and this
weekend, he's looked very quick all weekend, so it's going to be difficult
to beat him tomorrow.
Q: (Carlo Platella – formulapassion.it) Question to Charles and Carlos. In
your first flying lap, you lost 0.8 and one second from Max. It was a
cautious approach with spare tyres, so you were struggling with the warm-up?
CL: No, I think personally I was trying to take care about the tyres.
Probably the first lap in itself I was quite surprised by how much Max was
pushing on that first timed lap, but yeah, we were more on the cautious
side.
CS: My normal approach to the race, managing the tyre in the first couple of
laps like always but we were not doing – at least me – I wasn't doing
anything special. It shows that Max is quick and that is going to beat him
but yeah, I was doing my normal approach to the race.
Q: (Matt Kew – Autosport) Question for Max. Back in Baku, you asked Red Bull
to give you more one-lap pace, that was the main area you were targeting,
and yesterday perhaps wasn't your cleanest lap, but you still got pole, and
it doesn't seem to have affected race pace. So, are you confident that the
car has gained on the one-lap but not lost anywhere else?
MV: I think we are still a little bit… I would say not amazing in
Qualifying. But that hasn't only to do with just the car, we are still a bit
heavy. So, of course, when all the fuel comes out, that is just a limitation
we have, so we still need to lose weight with the car, which we're working
on. But that's why, I guess in the race, it's a little bit less of an issue
because first of all, you cannot push like in qualifying so probably that
helps a bit with the way we have the car and, yeah, that weight issue with a
full tank is a little bit less visible.
Q: (Abhishek Takle – Midday) Question to the two Ferrari drivers. Did the
battle between the two of you at the start of the Sprint cost you the chance
to attack Max and, I know you said the team will work on scenarios tomorrow,
but do you need rules of engagement? Something like whoever's into the first
corner first gets the chance to attack Max or something like that? Thank
you.
CL: I don't know for the rules of engagement. Obviously, we are not the one
to decide. It will be more Mattia. Then for the first question, what was it?
Q: Did the battle between the two of you at the start cost you the chance to
attack Max?
CL: Yeah, I mean, we've lost a little bit of time. But again, I think then
when Max had the gap, he also managed his pace. So we'll never know again,
but I felt like we were strong towards the end. Probably stronger than at
the beginning. Whether it will have been enough, I really don't know.
CS: Nothing to add.
Q: Rules of engagement?
CS: Mattia will decide, and the team – but I mean, it's not like we lost a
lot and it didn't look like Max was panicking too much upfront with our
pace, but yeah, we need to make sure we stay closer at the beginning of a
stint, and we are closer at the end of a stint. I think this is what we need
to try and do tomorrow. |
