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1 – Max VERSTAPPEN (Red Bull
Racing)
2 – Lando NORRIS (McLaren)
3 – Charles LECLERC (Ferrari)
TRACK INTERVIEWS
(Conducted by Martin Brundle)
Q: Congratulations
Max. Pole position, perfect start, controlled the race. That was a
champion's drive.
Max VERSTAPPEN: Yeah. It was an unbelievable weekend
for us. I knew that the race was, of course, not going to be super
straightforward. I think if you look at the whole race, the pace between
myself and Lando was really close. I think just in that first stint, that’s
where we made the difference. I could eke out a little bit of a gap and
that’s basically what we kept till the end. It wasn’t easy to manage also
the tyres on both of these stints, but we kept it in the lead and just
incredibly proud of everyone to deliver a weekend like this.
Q:
Lando, P2, you two had a brilliant fight. I'd love to hear what you’ve got
to say to each other about it, but you finally made it through to get second
and to keep hold of it.
Lando NORRIS: Finally. Finally. It took long
enough. No, it was a good battle with Charles. He fought hard. It was tough.
We did everything we could. I thought we kind of had it in an easy way after
we got ahead, and then we did the overcut — or we went much longer. I
expected a slightly easier second attempt to get through, but it wasn’t the
case. So, no, Charles drove a very good race. It was good fun, good battles.
So we have to take second. Not a lot more we could’ve done today.
Q:
We heard Will Joseph, your engineer, saying “cool your tyres a bit and then
have another go.” And it paid off — what you did.
LN: Yeah. I mean, like,
you know, out the box, when the tyres are the freshest, then you want to
push because you have the best chance. But it’s also when the tyres get the
hottest. So when I had my first try, I just really started to struggle with
the tyres, and Charles was probably already in that kind of consistent
point. So I backed off quite a bit for a few laps, went again, and it
worked. So, yeah, good strategy, some good driving, and, yeah, a fun race.
Q: Charles, you were the outlier in the first 15 cars on the Soft tyres,
and wow, you made the best of those in the first quarter.
Charles
LECLERC: Yeah. I was a little bit worried when I saw that I was the only car
on Softs at the beginning, but I kind of knew that it was a bit of a risky
move. I mean, what I had in mind was to use the soft to try and get free
air. It was quite optimistic because we had two cars in front, but that’s
what we tried to do. We at least gained a position, and that helped us a lot
for the rest of the race. So I’m very happy overall because it’s been a
tough second part of the year, and to be back on the podium here after what
was a difficult FP1 with the gearbox problem, we recovered well, so I’m
happy.
Q: You made your Ferrari as wide as you could. I mean, it was
brilliant and very fair but hard racing between you two.
CL: Yeah. I
enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. Unfortunately today, I lost out at the end, but I
had fun in the car.
Q: Max, you’ve taken 23 points out of Oscar’s
World Championship lead this weekend. You must be thinking, “I can do this.
There’s a chance to do this.”
MV: Yeah. For sure, the chance is there. We
just need to try and deliver these kinds of weekends now till the end. So
just try whatever we can, you know. I think it is exciting, and I’m really
just very excited for the end.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Max, many
congratulations. A dominant win. Just talk us through your race?
MV:
Yeah. A perfect weekend for us. Today, I think what was crucial was the
first stint where I could build a bit of a gap, because I think after that,
it basically stabilised pretty much after the pit stop until the end. I
think tyre management was very important today, and it wasn't very
straightforward because there were some laps where you had a very different
feeling or balance, grip — bit weirdly, better or worse. So, yeah, it's one
of those days where you just need to try and make no mistakes, try to drive
it as consistent as you can, drive around the bumps as much as possible.
But, yeah, for us to win again today is incredible.
Q: You mentioned
the tyres. You weren’t so confident after the Sprint yesterday about tyre
wear. Just how did it pan out over 56 laps?
MV: I think it was a bit
better today, even though I think it's still not where I wanted it to be,
let's say it like that. But nevertheless, yeah, we won the race, which of
course is the most important.
Q: How much tougher do you think your
race would have been had Lando not been overtaken by Charles at the start?
MV: I think then it would be a very close race. Yeah. Every time I think
that Lando was in clean air, we were very evenly matched. Maybe at times, he
was a bit faster as well. So, yeah, it wouldn't have been the gap that it
was at the end.
Q: Big picture. Given where the car is now, and that
you're just 40 points behind Oscar Piastri, how do you view these closing
stages of the World Championship?
MV: Yeah. I think we need to be perfect
until the end, you know, to have a chance. Yeah. We caught up a lot. But at
the same time, you know, the gaps are very small. I think every weekend you
need to try and be perfect, and that's what we'll try to do until the end.
Q: Alright. Very well done today. Thank you for that. Lando, let's come
to you now. A great race. Can we put that Charles question to you — had you
not been overtaken by Charles, how different do you think your race might
have been?
LN: Who knows? What was it that you [Berstappen] said once —
“if your mum had balls… she’d be your dad”? Yeah. Who knows. But, you know,
starting on the Soft, starting on the right side of the grid… He had the
advantage in Turn 1, on the outside. After yesterday, obviously a little bit
wary — didn’t want to go too wide in Turn 1 because I didn’t want to end up
in the gravel again. So yeah, I kind of had to just stay on the inside and
stick to the safer route. But Charles did a good job and I got passed. Who
knows after that? You know, I think I found it difficult enough just to get
close to Charles, and their pace wasn’t bad at all. Until, what, 10 laps to
go he was like six seconds off Max. So it wasn't like we were that far away,
or their pace was that bad. So, you know, I think it was a good race. The
pace was pretty close. I think that’s why it was so difficult — because we
were quicker, for sure, but not by a lot. And therefore, there were some
challenging lap-after-lap battles, trying to put him under pressure, trying
to make him make some mistakes here and there. He didn’t make many, for
sure. But I think especially the final stint, I managed to get the tyres
into a good window, drop back a few seconds, re-attack, and I managed to
kind of catch him a bit more off guard, let’s say, with a couple of laps.
So, a good result in the end. For a minute, I was not expecting to finish
second. I thought he was just a bit too quick for us. But to get back into
second and get past was perfect.
Q: Do you regret not starting on the
soft tyre?
LN: I mean, I regret not putting a perfect lap and not going
purple, purple, purple yesterday in qualifying. So, you know, you can't ask
these questions. I mean, you could do many different things. You never know
what’s going to work out. I don’t think our strategy was wrong. I think we
did a good job. Potentially, we should have — we’ll look back and see if we
should have just boxed as soon as we got ahead of Charles or just tried an
undercut and see if that worked out. But it was a long way to go on the
Soft, and then you put yourself under Safety Car risk. So, you know, there's
many different things that can go your way. Otherwise, I think we did a good
job. I think we took the correct amount of risk in the position that we're
in, and I’m happy and satisfied with the result — as much as I would have
loved to be further up.
Q: Can you tell us about the overtake on
Charles? With the three track limit strikes, were you having to be a little
bit more conservative in how you approached that?
LN: A little bit. I
mean, the places which were easy to go off were Turn 9 over the crest of the
hill, and then the last two corners. I think I was on three strikes by like
lap 10. So I didn't put myself in the best position. But then one of my
strikes was because I was racing. You know, I think that's one of the
silliest rules that we have — we’re invited to try and race, but if you race
too much, you get a penalty for it. And I got a track limits [strike] for
trying to go around the outside and losing time to Charles. So, doesn't
really make much sense in terms of going racing. But it definitely made my
life that little bit trickier, especially Turn 19, with the wind, like Max
said, it was pretty inconsistent. It’s difficult to just be always on the
limit and not make mistakes — which I obviously made a couple too many of,
too early on. But yeah, a little bit more cautious at the end because I knew
I couldn’t afford a penalty. But I took the risks I needed to.
Q:
Very well done. Thank you. Charles, if we can come to you. Great strategy,
brilliant race. Just given where you were on Friday, how pleasing is this
turnaround?
CL: I’m very happy. I'm very happy because obviously we had
the gearbox problem in FP1, which cost us a little bit of laps, which then
meant we were a little bit on the back foot, trying to recover in the Sprint
Qualifying and Sprint Race. And then in qualifying we did some fine tuning,
we found a lot more performance. And today was a really good race for us. So
it’s a good thing, especially considering the whole situation. The second
part of the season hasn’t been easy. There is completely unfounded noise and
rumours around the team. And I think to demonstrate that in those kinds of
situations we can stay focused on the job and be rewarded with a podium is a
really nice feeling.
Q: The killer punch today was starting on the
Soft tyre and getting ahead of Lando for, what, 50-odd laps. Did you think
you were taking a big risk doing that?
CL: I knew it was an aggressive
strategy. My plan was to be first after the first corner. I didn’t quite
make that, but at least I gained a position, which helped me a little bit
with free air. And that definitely helped our race. Again, I knew it was
aggressive but considering the feeling I had on the Hard in FP1, I was quite
convinced I didn’t want to touch that tyre. So yeah, I was just a little bit
worried when my engineer got on the radio on the grid and I was the only car
on Softs, basically. So I thought, “OK, maybe there's something I didn’t
feel right.” But in the end, it ended up a good choice.
Q: And how
much of a surprise was Lando’s attack with four laps to go? Did you think
you had him covered at that point?
CL: I mean, Lando had four, five laps
cooling down the tyres, and then I knew that when he would come back it
would be very difficult to keep him behind. I tried because I managed to do
so for quite a few laps, but then towards the end the tyres were starting to
struggle a bit more.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Sahil Kapur
– NBC) Question for Max. I believe you've just taken 64 points out of
Oscar's lead in the championship over the last four race weekends. How are
you thinking about that narrowing gap? And with the remaining five races,
where do you feel most confident where you can compete for victories with
this car?
MV: I mean, I know that we need to be perfect ‘til the end to
have a chance, so that’s what we just need to focus on. And, I don’t know. I
mean, like I said before, it's super close, and just attention to detail
will make the difference. Trying to get the best set-up on the car every
weekend and then try not to make mistakes. So that's what we'll try to do.
Q: (Graham Harris – Motorsport Monday) A question to all three of you.
With Mexico City coming up — hot and high — how do you think each of your
cars will handle the totally different climatic conditions than you've had
all year?
MV: Well, the beauty of it is we'll find out next week. I don't
really think about it. We'll find out next week. We could speculate, but I
don't like that.
LN: Probably the same as here. I don’t think it’ll
change that much. It’s close between us and Red Bull — one weekend they're a
little bit quicker, the next we’re a little bit faster. You know, Mercedes
was quickest in Singapore. So, yeah, you can have many different things
here, but we’re gonna see.
Q: Charles? Carlos won there last year in
Mexico.
CL: Yeah. But we are in a different situation now. I mean, I
still want to believe we can win a race before the end of the season. But
again, I think we need to be realistic in our situation and I don't think we
quite have the car to do so. I think this weekend has been the perfect
weekend for the team and I’ll be surprised if we can achieve anything better
until the end of the year. But we’ll take it race by race and see what can
be done.
Q: (Tim Hauraney – TSN) Max, congratulations on the win.
Coming out of Zandvoort, I believe you were about 104 points back of Oscar
for the championship lead. Four races later, you're now 40 points back. If
someone were to go back to Zandvoort and tell you that you'd be in
contention for the Drivers’ title after four races, would you believe them?
MV: No. I would have told him he was an idiot. But, yeah, we found a good
way with the car. It's simple as that. Of course, we put some upgrades on
the car, but we just understood our car a bit better — where we wanted it to
perform better. And, yeah, every weekend we try to achieve it. Some
weekends, you know, it's better than others, but in general, it's been way
more straightforward the last few weekends compared to before those races.
So that's what we need to try and extract out of it now every single
weekend.
Q: (Sahil Kapur – NBC) A question for Lando and Charles. You
two gave us probably the most entertaining wheel-to-wheel racing today. How
difficult is it to follow and to overtake with this generation of cars, and
with the new regulations coming up next season, do you feel optimistic it’ll
improve?
CL: I didn’t really follow much today. But it’s a track that I
think we really enjoy — the way the track is made and how open up the entry
of the corners are made it very entertaining and nice, because you’ve got
different lines. And yeah, this helps action and trying to make overtakes.
So, yeah, I really, really enjoyed it. Then for the last few laps I did
behind Lando, I was struggling quite a bit with tyres. So I didn’t follow
for very long.
LN: I followed for quite long. And, I mean, it’s tricky.
Honestly, it’s almost trickier to follow in the slow speed than it is the
high-speed corners. Yeah. That’s why on the street circuits, you also never
really get overtaken — because it’s almost harder to follow on them than it
is in quicker circuits at the minute. So… and next year — completely
different. I have no idea. It’s a completely different car. The battery and
all that stuff is — yeah, I don’t even know how it’s going to work next
year, to be honest. So, I’m sure it’ll be a lot better just because there’s
a lot less downforce and a lot less grip.
And the cars won’t look
anywhere near as cool going through, like, Sector 1 here, for example,
because it’s a lot slower in the corners. But they’ll be quick in the
straights for a few seconds. So I think the racing will probably be a bit
better next year.
Q: (Jim Vertuno – Associated Press) Lando, you took
your own bite out of Oscar’s championship lead today. Given that, size up
your own chances at both chasing him down for a championship and holding off
Max at this stage.
LN: I mean, doesn’t really matter. I can only score
the most points I can every weekend. So the more points I score, the better
it is for both situations. It doesn’t matter. Nothing changes. I don’t have
to do anything different for either-or. It’s quite simple: just try and beat
both drivers and life’s easy then! |
