FIA Post-Race Press Conference: 2019 British GP.

PHOTO CREDIT: FIA.com

DRIVERS
1 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)
2 – Valtteri BOTTAS (Mercedes)
3 – Charles LECLERC (Ferrari)

TRACK INTERVIEWS
(Conducted by Jenson Button) 

Q: Lewis, congratulations, there must be so much emotion in there?

Lewis HAMILTON: Honestly… I’m a bit out of breath! I cannot tell you how proud I am to be here today in front of my home crowd. I’ve got my whole family here, my team. So many British flags out there; I could see them lap after lap. Every year I’ve been coming and I’ve seen it and noticed it and appreciated it. You would think you would get used to something like that but I’ll tell you, it feels like the first time. And I’m just forever grateful for everyone who has come out and spent their whole weekend here. I really hope that you enjoyed the day and God bless you.

Q: I think everyone did. It was an epic race. One of the best British Grands Prix I’ve seen. Today you also made history – six-time winner of the British Grand Prix. 

LH: Jeez. I couldn’t have done it without these guys. I couldn’t have done it without my team. They’re all around here. And the guys back at the factory. Everyone back of the factory and their wives and their kids who are supportive through the whole year of their time away and how dedicated they are to their jobs, so when I tell people thank you to the team there are nearly 2,000 in my team that make this possible. I’m just a chink in that chain. I value them massively and I’m super proud to be a part of this.

Q: Congratulations Lewis, good job. Valtteri, it’s a tough one right? After such a good start, such a good fight with Lewis – he put a good move on you, but to get him back into Copse was a great move. It looked like you had it under control but you were hurt by the safety car.

Valtteri BOTTAS: Yeah, I don’t really know what to say. Congrats to Lewis, massive support for him over here. I stopped first and I was controlling the pit stop gap, so I was still effectively leading the race until there was a safety car and Lewis got a free stop there and he got me there. I also went to the mediums so it meant I had to stop at the end again, so that was pretty much it. So not really my day, but at least the pace was good and it felt good out there.

Q: Yeah, I think there are still a lot of positives to take from today. To take get that pole position around here at Silverstone, a place that is obviously very special to Lewis. And that fight back for me was great to see. Do you take a lot of positives from here moving on?

VB: For sure there are positives. Yesterday I was the quickest on track and that was good and I think the race pace was good today and we had a good fight. I’ll keep fighting, it’s not over yet, so…

Q: Well done. Charles, congratulations, you were the driver the day and I think everyone agrees you were the driver of the day. That was a fantastic race. It was great to see the battle between Max Verstappen and yourself, and it’s the new generation of Formula One. How was the race for you today? 

Charles LECLERC: It’s probably the race I enjoyed the most in my Formula One career. Great to finish third, but today was a very difficult day. The first two stints we weren’t where we wanted to be. I think on the hards we were very strong. But unfortunately with the safety car we lost a little bit of positions, which was not great for us. But yeah, very happy to finish third and extremely happy for the battle we have had on track.

Q: Yeah, as you said, you went for a different strategy it seemed, starting on the soft tyre. It didn’t really work for in the first stint. But as you said, with the safety car, your fight back and your move on Pierre Gasly was also epic – you must take a lot of positives from today’s race, gaining confidence all the time? 

CL: yeah, definitely. I think the last race was a bit of an eye-opener for me, really showing how far we could go. I think it’s great for Formula One to just fight on the limit that way and really happy that this race has gone like this.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q: Lewis, many congratulations, sensational pace from you all afternoon, culminating in that fastest lap on the final lap of the race. You were undoubtedly helped by the safety car but you had great pace today.

LH: This is one of the best days I can remember having. I was just thinking downstairs, I remember my first win herein 2008 and the feeling that I had coming out of Brooklands and going down the straight towards, at the time, the start-finish line and seeing the crowd, it felt so reminiscent of that today and just the excitement and happiness and joy that I felt was exactly the same as then. The reason I say that is that I’ve done so many races, you know, you think you would get used to it, or that the feeling would numb down, but it felt just as amazing as the first win that I had. So I’m really, really grateful to all those people that have helped me achieve this today. I’ve got this incredible team, There are almost 2,000 people, I always mention, in our team and we got to see them yesterday at a family fin fair kind of event that they do and they will never truly know just how grateful I am but it’s really amazing to be part of this team and to be breaking down walls and records and pushing the limits and boundaries every weekend. You never know if you are really going to be able to deliver a day like today but me and Valtteri had such a good fight. I got him at Turn 7 and then he was on the inside but when we pulled out of the corner I couldn’t really see where he was, he was in my blind spot. He wasn’t in my mirror but I couldn’t see him next to me either, so I couldn’t close the door, just in case he was there and he happens to be there obviously. He drove sensationally well there. So I was, ‘OK, I’ve got to back off, wait until he stops and then nail it after that’. I was going to do a few more laps and hopefully do like an undercut and catch him up etc but the safety car came out and it was perfect timing.

Q: Congratulations. Valtteri, tough day for you, second at Silverstone for you for the thirds time now. The safety car came out at just the wrong time. Was the plan always to make two stops?

VB: Yeah, it was maybe not my luckiest day, but that’s life. Obviously Lewis drove well, he’s got massive support here, so congrats for the win. But obviously we had good racing at the beginning and I really enjoyed it, that’s why we are here, to race hard and fair. I’m sure Toto didn’t maybe enjoy it as much as we did but it doesn’t matter. After my first stop I felt like it was under control. I was following the gap closely, the pit stop gap I had to Lewis, and I was just waiting for him to stop and obviously the safety car got him ahead of me at that point. I was stuck into a two-stop at that stage, because we stopped for the medium again from medium tyres so it meant anyways I had to stop in the end, which was a mistake from our side. Two stop we thought would be by far the fastest but actually one stop was possible as well. Not quite ideal but one of these days… At least it felt like the pace was good today and yesterday so there are positives to take. Also, really, really happy for us as a team, getting maximum points and it’s pretty impressive the gap to the teams behind now. So it makes me very, very proud of us. In any case, I’m still super-hungry for the win so looking forward to doing it again in two weeks.

Q: Well done Valtteri, thanks. A great dice between you and Lewis. And another many who was involved in great dices today was Charles. That battle between you and Max in particular, reminiscent of your karting days. Was it clean, were you happy with the way you fought?

CL: Very happy. That was definitely the most fun I’ve ever had in my Formula One career. Well, it’s a short career, only one year and a half, but it was definitely very, very fun from inside the car. I think that Austria was quite an eye-opener for me to understand how far we could go and what was accepted and I’m very happy at the end to race like this. I think every driver wants to race hard and that’s what we did during most of the race. It was very, very fun, always borderline, but I think always in the rules and very, very enjoyable from the car.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Phil Duncan – PA) Congratulations, Lewis, on your victory. I know you aren’t one for records but obviously this quite a big one – you’ve won the British Grand Prix six times, more than any other driver in the history of the sport. It’s your home race, a race that’s been on the calendar for 70 years and now you hold that record. How special and amazing does that feel for you? 

LH: Yeah, it feels incredible. I’ve not ever been one to look at statistics. I really take it one race at a time and I like the approach with that. I came here this weekend and I heard people talking about the amount of qualifying poles I’ve had here but I don’t really take any notice of it, I’m just trying to do the best I can and seeing if I can achieve it, but it’s great to be able to have the opportunity to shoot for it. Unless I stop and think about how many wins I have, I didn’t know if it was four or five or whatever it was here. To then hear that I have six and to be up there with the greats. I remember growing up watching this sport and watching a lot of the greats and meeting a lot of the greats and even working with one of the greats and to be up there with them is one of the coolest things.

Q: (Giles Richards – The Guardian) Lewis, yesterday you faced questions about the nature of your Britishness and today after the win you immediately picked up the Union flag and took it one the podium. You’re obviously very proud. Did it mean much more to you to do that at this race? 

LH: To win here at this race?

Q: To wave the flag at this race.

LH: Yeah, this is the greatest single moment of any athlete in the world – to raise their flag as the number one or with the gold or whatever it may be in their home country. It’s one of the single most incredible feelings and special moments an athlete can have. I come here and I’ve got this incredible support. They always talk about how much does it lift you up and it’s a huge amount of energy but a lot of weight comes with that, a lot of responsibility. People save up so much money to come to this grand prix. Everybody is buying merchandise and flags and you just want to deliver for them so much. Not only for yourself and your own ability, you know you can do it, but for your team. I’ve got like 40 family members here – from my mum’s side, from my dad’s side, a bunch of them from the Caribbean. So I just really, really wanted to deliver. And when you achieve something like today and you see all those British flags, I was looking the whole time for a flag, ‘someone give me a flag’, because one day I’m going to be able to look back and I’ll have that picture of me in the car with that flag and I’ll always be able to smile until my dying day.

Q: (Frederic Ferret – L’Equipe) Charles, how difficult was it to defend against Max, and what is your favourite move during that ten-lap battle?

CL: Very difficult. I think we have got some work to do on our race pace and try to keep these tyres as good as Mercedes and Red Bull are doing. I think we are a little bit… struggling on that. The best move was probably the one on Max on the outside in Copse? I think he just passed me and I passed him back around the outside of Copse. That was definitely one of the most exciting of the race. Of my race.

Q: (Luis Vasconcelos – Formula Press) For Lewis and Valtteri. Was it always planned that you’d go on split strategies, or that the second car would go to a different strategy. And if it wasn’t, what was your reaction when you realised that was happening. 

LH: We have the meetings in the morning and they do thousands of simulations of the different strategies. So we’re shown a handful of them: maybe ten different strategies that could happen if we lose position; if we hold position; if we switch positions; all these different things. There was… it’s very difficult for a team – because we are a team – but then individually we want to win. So the team has to do the best and most balance approach for both of us. Most of the simulations come out with ultimately the first car… if you do a good enough job in qualifying, the first car generally gets priority etcetera and it gets quite hard to overtop that, unless you do it on track, or undercut and those kind of things. We had discussed the opportunity of… I think the fastest way to the end of the race was Medium-Medium-Hard, I believe – but there were alternative strategies. That was something I looked into, and I had already decided at the beginning of the race that I was going to take the medium (sic), in the middle stint and extend my first stint to 20 or 21 – whatever it was. Did I know that we were going to stay on the one-stop? No. But, we have to be strategists, almost, a little bit inside ourselves, and it something we’re constantly working on, trying to finesse, because it’s always different. There’s always new figures that have to be put in, from each race, and no-one ever gets it perfect – but the cool thing is that it enabled us to race today. What they probably didn’t expect is that we were going to push so much at the beginning. I think we were expected to save our tyres and stuff – but we were racing pretty hard – which is how racing should be, y’know? So, I’m happy we were able to do that today?

Valtteri, your thoughts on strategy?
VB: Yes, so definitely there was an idea to split the cars. One of us going for the Hard for the second stint but still the idea was for that car to do Medium-Hard-Medium or Medium-Hard-Soft. So one stop honestly was out of the question today, and was a mistake from our side. It was by far the quickest strategy today for our car – the Medium-Hard – we thought it would be much slower so, for sure, a learning point for us.

Q: (Ben Hunt – The Sun) Maybe F1 isn’t broke after all. We’ve had two good tracks, two good races. Is it the case that we need to tweak these Mickey Mouse tracks a little bit and just get some more excitement back in?

CL: Yeah! Silverstone and Austria, I think, are two good tracks I think to overtake on and I think it’s good for the show. The battle was quite good from third place onwards but the Mercedes are still very, very quick. So, if we can all close the gaps to them, will be even more exciting – but definitely the track has an important role in overtaking and the last two tracks are good examples. So, if we can have more of them on the calendar I think it would be a good thing for F1.

LH: Probably in the history of the sport, the drivers have never been a part of the decision-making in terms of advising on tracks. We know better than anybody which track we can overtake and which track we can’t. I don’t know who does the selection, and I know it’s not that they always have a ton of tracks in every country that are possible to race a grand prix – but there are ones that they’re selecting for the future that we’re going to have not such great racing, the ones that are on the calendar that aren’t great. People always ask me which are my favourite tracks and this is one of them because you can follow. It’s just spectacular with the high speed. Austin, Texas is built like that, as a new circuit. But then we’ve got places where you just can’t follow and its like a train. And so, what would you prefer? Having a race in those countries just for the sake of having a race – or do you want a great race like this? If so, then we need to look at the different options in the different countries. I think the really cool track they used to have in Hockenheim – and it still is awesome – but the big, long one they used to have as quite unique. There was always good racing there but they changed it. Austria was great but I think the old track was even better from what I was told by Niki. So, that’s something, hopefully the GPDA can be part of in this next step in 2021 rules. We can be a part of advising on that. We’re there to help make the sport better. If they’re open to… we’re happy having the grands prix in these different countries but if they’re open to the idea of changing or adapting some of the circuits or using a different circuit in the countries, then we should look into that.
Valtteri?

VB: I agree completely. You know definitely it’s all about selection of the tracks. I’m sure many of the track selections for the calendar, it’s just pure political reasons and money, rather than actually focusing on whether it’s good for racing or not. From our side, it’s not that nice. We love racing. Everyone loves good racing, so that’s how it should be. And, like Lewis said, as a GPDA, we’re very keen to give our input because we’re in the car. We know exactly which type of tracks we need to have good racing. We have the feeling. So we are very, very happy to help. And obviously, big plans with new cars, everything for 2021, so hopefully it is going into a better direction, so fingers crossed.

Q: (Christian Menath – motorsport-magazin.com) First of all, congratulations Lewis, question for you. You could have had a free pit stop in the end to go on the softer tyres as well. You knew Valtteri was going for the fastest lap on the soft tyre at the end. Why didn’t you choose the extra stop. Were you so confident you have the extra pace in the old hard tyres in the end?

LH: No, it was really… why take the risk? In my opinion. Yes, I had a pit stop window – but there’s the entry of the pit lane, there’s the stop, there’s the extra pressure on the mechanics to do the pit stop – and it’s not that I doubt them all but you just give chance to it. I’d saved enough in the tyres. I felt good with… the Hard tyre was really great, it could keep going. So it’s obviously a very, very solid tyre. I did have some blistering, so I was kind of conflicted. I was like ‘should I stop?’ I think it would have brought us back closer. I was just like, ‘there’s seven laps left.’ It’s very, very hard to catch a 21-second delta at the pace I can still do. So I decided to… it’s rare that I go up against the team but I decided today that that was the best thing for me. I don’t think… we thought that a two-stop was the best thing and it just worked out today that I was able to save the tyres, meant that we could do a one. My long run on Friday was one of the best long runs that I’ve done, and everyone else was running out of tyres except for me. So, tried to utilise that today and it worked.

Q: (Luke Smith – crash.net) Lewis, you spoke about the battle with Valtteri, could you just talk about the importance of the trust you’ve built up with your team-mate and being able to enter that wheel-to-wheel battle knowing it’s going to be a hard but clean and fun battle?

LH: Yeah, honestly I think… look it’s no secret that Valtteri wants to beat me and I want to beat him and that fighting spirit is stronger than anything, individually for all of us. I think it’s so vital though, to have a respect. I know how hard is it to get a pole here. He did a fantastic job yesterday I know how hard it is to wake up and deliver every weekend, as do these other drivers, so the respect is there between us. I think we want to race wheel-to-wheel and tough. When you’re racing with a team-mate it’s on a different level. If I were racing a Ferrari, you take more risks. Still respectful, but you can lean on them a bit more but as team-mates, we sit down at the beginning of the race, we talk about Turn One and how we’re going to respect each other, make sure we don’t collide, and even when I overtook him and he was coming back, I could have swept across the front and blocked him  – but that’s not the right thing to do. Ultimately it enabled him to get back past – but that’s racing. It was really fair, and it was great. Honestly I was hoping… I was looking forward to maybe some racing later. I was extending that first stint hoping that I’d come out… he was doing some good times so the gap was growing, in terms of me coming out maybe one second, one-and-a-half seconds to two seconds , and I was trying to keep it as little as possible before I finally stopped so that, so that when I came out, I had the advantage on a new tyre and could finally catch him up and try to get past – but the Safety Car came out and kind of intervened. But that was awesome.

Valtteri, anything you’d like to add about your trust, your battle with Lewis. 
VB: I think that’s what we’ve both said, that’s how it is and yeah, it’s all good fun.

Q: (Keith Collantine – Racefans.net) Lewis, following your comments a while ago about wanting to reduce the weight of Formula One cars, FIA president Jean Todt has suggested that one way of doing this would be re-introduce refuelling in the races and some other suggestions he’s made for increasing the unpredictability of races including getting rid of what he calls driver aids, such as your anti-stall devices, reducing the amount of telemetry on the cars and getting rid of the virtual garages that teams use to conference back with the team back at base. What do you think about any of those suggested changes, and also Valtteri and Charles, if you have any thoughts on those? 

LH: Don’t necessarily think that’s going to make a big difference to racing. Do you think it will? I don’t think many of those are going to do much different except for having a lighter car. They’re constantly making these cars heavier and heavier and heavier every year and we’re going faster and we have more downforce and the tyres… it’s really hard for Pirelli to develop a tyre with such limited testing that can sustain that weight etc etc and then the thermal deg, all these different things, it’s like a domino effect so with lighter car, we could fight harder. If you look at the end of the race, the tyres that we have at the end of the race, we can push more, we can race more at the end with so much of a drop-off like today and that’s because the car was lighter on the lighter fuel, so that might not be such a bad thing for us in the future but there’s a bunch of other elements that are not in that list… I don’t know, off the top of my head but as the GPDA we mentioned it.

VB: As long as the cars are lighter it’s always going to be better for everything, for racing, tyres, everything so whatever can be done for the weight is always going to be a bonus and we’re going to enjoy it more, everyone’s going to enjoy it more.

CL: Well, I don’t know, I’ve never raced with refuelling but it was definitely one cool thing to see, so if it’s back in Formula One why not? I will be happy to try. I think the main problem is still that the cars are probably too heavy so these two things for me are separate things but refuelling can be a good idea. Then, to limit the amount of informations to the box or to stop… did you say stop completely the telemetry from the garage or reduce? Yeah. I think we are quite limited in that the cars are so complex now that we also need to make them run, having the help of the engineers, in the background. Yeah. maybe reducing some information but I think we are limited into that, just by the complexity of the cars now. That’s it.

LH: The cars don’t need to be 730 kilos, they just don’t need to be that heavy. They used to be 600 or something was it, years and years ago. I spoke to my engineers and they said if they change the rules we can make it that weight. We just have to take some things off the car but we can make it lighter. Performance items will come off but they can do it.

Q: (Livio Oricchio -  liviooricchiof1.com) Valtteri, on lap 19, Lewis had only 17.4s advantage over you and now he would stop in 21 laps, so he probably would come back to the track with five/six seconds behind you. Can you make a comment? And Lewis, at the end of the race, you had 21s advantage to Bottas, 33 laps with hard tyres and the last lap you set the fastest lap of the race. Your self-confidence would be in the clouds, right? 

VB: I’m not quite sure it was ever going to be five second gap. I think it was about two seconds before the safety car, the pit stop gap, so I was basically controlling it because I knew Lewis would have a tyre advantage on the second stint, because I stopped earlier, to also cover some cars behind and he was continuing, so at the end of the second stint he was going to great opportunity, so I tried to save the tyres, not to push flat out in the beginning and just to be sure that I’m going to be ahead when he stops. And obviously with the safety car he managed to jump ahead so we missed the fight later on.

LH: None of us had driven… only a few teams had driven he hard tyre this weekend. We only had one hard each but obviously the medium that we started on was quite durable for us. I know other teams struggled more and others less but with this first stint was really really mega between us. There was only 0.9s between or one second between us for most of it and then he pitted… I wasn’t planning to stop on lap 21, I was trying to see how far I could go, I was pushing it as far as I could but I had to try and keep up the pace because he had new tyres and he was doing generally better times but the gap went from 0.7s to a second, to 1.5s. He was out of my window, or in my window, yeah, in my window of pit stop and then it was getting to two seconds so I was getting very close to having to stop anyways but then the safety car came out. It was around two seconds, so if I would come out I would have been two seconds behind and he would five or six lap older tyres. But you could see the  pace he had when we restarted. He had really great pace on that tyre, so it wouldn’t have been easy. The harder tyre is slightly slower than the medium tyre so it would have been a difficult race between us but not an impossible one but the thing is, he would have then had to stop again and I knew I wouldn’t have to stop. I generally had a feeling that I wouldn’t have to stop.

The flying lap at the end? I didn’t know what time I could do to be honest but I looked after the tyres and they felt pretty good, even though I had a bit of a vibration on the right front. You know, we have this fastest lap thing… I can’t say that I love it or anything like that but it’s still fun to push. As you go through the race, you have to turn down your engine to save fuel and all these kind of things so that last lap, everyone’s kind of pushing at one point and I heard of the time that he had one and I thought Jeez, I don’t know if I will be able to get to that and then I pushed for that lap… It was like the qualifying lap that I should have done yesterday generally poorly. It was awesome. There’s no better way to finish a race with just like on the edge of your seat, the car moving and it was definitely the best last lap that I’ve ever had.

Q: (Stephen Camp – Motorsport Monday, Motorsport Week.com) To both Mercedes drivers: Lewis, you set the fastest lap at the end of the race. It now means that you leave here with 39 points so it’s one of the biggest leads you’ve ever had at this point of the season so was that one of the reasons behind that too, put the hurt on Valtteri and make sure that you have a big hand on this championship already. And to Valtteri, how does it feel that Lewis was able to do that on 30-lap old hard tyres and you were still on soft tyres? I’m not sure of the life that you had one them but they must have still had the pace to beat the lap that Lewis had done. 

LH: Ultimately, there’s nothing personal between us, you know. Coming to this weekend, you are trying to apply the pressure and come out on top. I didn’t come to this weekend with the idea that I need to extend or anything like that. I need to work my way towards trying to win, how do I do that, and every weekend it’s slightly different but this has been the strongest year that I’ve – to this point in the first ten races – that I can remember ever having. When we were in Barcelona, when we were driving that car, these guys were doing some really serious laps and we couldn’t do that and we were super nervous and I think if we had left Barcelona without discovering some ultimate changes that we ended up making, we probably wouldn’t be where we are right now but still, the journey’s been great and we’re going to go from strength to strength. We’ve got improvements coming, we’re understanding the car a lot, massive download and the technical direction is just… the advancements that this sport makes and that we make as a team – each team makes – is amazing, so I’m excited to see the upgrades that other teams have and the improvements for example that Ferrari make of their use of tyres, the improvements we make to downforce, all these different things, it’s going to be different.

VB: Yes, so I tried to go for the lap with the soft tyre, obviously had more fuel than Lewis at that point but yeah, surprised by the pace on the hards and that shows Lewis managed the hard tyres very well all through the stint, so the wear was quite low so it was possible. From our numbers the hard tyre actually seemed pretty solid. No feelings, really. It was a quicker lap time and that’s it.

Q: (Simon Abberley – Nevis Radio) Charles, previous races your results have been a lot more consistent in comparison to Seb’s results. Today saw another mistake from Seb with this incident with Verstappen. There’s only three points between you now in the championship. In the coming races, do you think the focus might shift from previous races where you’ve had to give way to him? 

CL: Well, I don’t know. I think the team is always acting for the benefit of the team and that’s the way I felt from the beginning of the season. Sometimes obviously, one driver was advantaged, the other one was advantaged at another race. There have been more situations from the beginning of the year where he had to benefit from something but I think the team is always looking at the benefits of the whole team and that’s how it will work for the rest of the season.

FIA Post-Qualifying Press Conference: 2019 British GP.

PHOTO CREDIT: FIA.com

DRIVERS
1 – Valtteri BOTTAS (Mercedes)
2 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)
3 – Charles LECLERC (Ferrari)

TRACK INTERVIEWS

(Conducted by David Coulthard)

Q: Valtteri Bottas, pole position here at Silverstone. It’s been a while – Barcelona your last one – but you must be particularly proud of that one?

Valtteri BOTTAS: Yeah, it feels very good. It just reminds you of why you do this, these kinds of feelings, but yeah, it’s been pretty close all weekend, and today, with Lewis and just really, really happy to get a good lap and be on pole.

Q: Put us in the cockpit. You had the provisional pole you would look at the overlay and realise that Lewis had made a mistake at Brooklands and you know you have to dig deep and find something. You didn’t manage to improve on that time but where was your mind on the lap in terms of know how good the previous one was?

VB: Yeah, I knew the first lap was good but it was not perfect. Honestly I should have improved on the second run. I didn’t quite get the lap together, especially in the first part of the lap, but I’m glad it was enough. It’s not easy to get a good lap together, it’s easy to do mistakes and I think everyone was struggling a bit, so happy to be on top.

Q: I’m not sure the crowd are happy with what you’ve done but congratulations? 

VB: Thank you.

Q: Lewis Hamilton, it was close and you worked that hard, but we saw you had that little wobble in the second-last lap in qualifying. Tell us about your actual ultimate lap, it’s a tiny gap between you and Valtteri.

Lewis HAMILTON: Yeah, firstly, congratulations to Valtteri, he did a solid job throughout qualifying. Ultimately not good enough, We had worked hard throughout the session but it just got a little bit away from us. We sacrificed a lap in Q2, which would have helped get a reading of where the car was, but we didn’t end up doing that. At the end I had that mistake on the first lap and the second one just wasn’t that great so fair play to Valtteri he did the job. But it’s a long race tomorrow, we’ve got a great crowd here and hopefully I can do something good for them tomorrow.

Q: The crowd are willing you on. It’s another grand prix, or is it? It’s more than just a grand prix, the British Grand Prix for you?

LH: Yeah, completely. It’s the best grand prix of the year and it’s really because of the energy the3 people bring. These tracks are great layouts and designs and areas of space but without people like this to fill it up and bring energy it’s nothing. That’s why we’ve got the best fans here in England.

Q: Charles, well done, fastest Ferrari driver but that’s ultimately not your goal. We looked through free practice and Ferrari looked like they could challenge Mercedes but in the end it was a tough one for you?

Charles LECLERC: Yeah, well, I think also in Q2, up to Q2 we were quite good but then in Q3 Mercedes turned up a little bit the engine, and they were very, very quick also round the corners, that’s where we need to work, we know it. Third place is the best we could have done today and I’m very happy about it.

Q: I saw you having a close look at the Mercedes car. This is the one time on a weekend when it’s acceptable to be a little bit nosy. Anything standing out there that you like?

CL: No, just looking at the state of the tyres, that’s nothing special.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q: Valtteri, a tremendous lap by you at the start of Q3. Very tight between you and your team-mate. Just how good was that first lap?

VB: It was good. Obviously good enough for pole. There was not much in it between me and Lewis in the end. But still, going into the second run, there were a couple of place where it was clear there was margin to improve so I wouldn’t say it was a perfect lap, but I doubt anyone got a perfect lap today. It was not easy to get everything right and super-sensitive to tiny mistakes here and there with this new tarmac and also with a bit of wind. But yeah, I’m happy that it was enough and it’s definitely a good feeling.

Q: Valtteri, you now have more poles this season than any other driver. Is that significant to you and have you worked specifically on qualifying this year, something more than previous seasons?

VB: It’s not that I have been specifically been working on it. Obviously you always try to improve your performance both on low- and high-fuel, short and long runs. I think the biggest thing for me to work on is the pure race pace definitely, in some kinds of conditions. I mean, year-by-year you are always learning and you get quicker if you work. The main thing is to turn those poles into wins and that’s the main thing for tomorrow.

Q: Congratulations. Lewis, motorsport is full of ifs, buts and maybes. Had you not made that error at Brooklands on your first lap in Q3 and got a complete lap in might it have been different?

LH: It doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. You can’t go back, you can only go forwards. Valtteri did the job, so congratulations to him. And for us, yeah, it just wasn’t the best of qualifying sessions. But there’s a long race tomorrow so I just have to see how I can convert the position I’m in to progress forward. I think the long run yesterday was good, so I hope we can utilise the tyre advantage we have, in the sense of starting on the mediums, so hopefully we can do a good job with that tomorrow.

Q: Did the track conditions fluctuate a lot during that session?

LH: Not really. It’s a little bit gusty here. That’s why it’s so great here at Silverstone, because it’s spread over such a vast piece of land and sometimes it’s raining on one section of the track and not another and it’s gusty in some places and not so much in other places. It really bodes well for a tough track to finish a lap on.

Q: Charles, like Lewis, you came on the radio and said you had made a mistake on that first run in Q3. Do you feel there was more out there today?

CL: No, I don’t think so. Very, very happy with my lap. I think in the last corner I maybe could have done a little bit better, but not much. Overall, I think we are very happy with the performance, very close to Mercedes and we did not expect it. We thought we would be struggling more this weekend. We have been struggling since FP1 with the front end of the car, still in qualifying, but a little bit less. So yeah, it’s a good qualifying session for us. Of course, I would have hoped for a higher position, but third is the best we could have done today.

Q: As with Austria you will start the race on the soft tyre, the guys next to you are going to be on the medium tyre. How do you see the tyre war playing out .

CL: Again, it was thought. So we wanted to do that. Again, in Austria it wasn’t a bad choice. That’s not what made us finish second there so we are pretty happy here too.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Christian Menath – motorsport-magazin.com) Charles, just following up on the Q2 and the soft tyre. You made the first run on the medium tyre and then set the fastest lap on the soft. Was it always the plan to qualify with the soft, because yesterday’s long runs didn’t look that great and it was a bit surprising to us that you improved your time?

CL: Yes, it was planned like this. The race run was not great yesterday but it was not due to the tyre, as I said. We had some issues with the front end and I think it got better today, so we will see tomorrow whether we have a significant improvement on the long runs, but it was not due to the tyre.

Q: (Scott Mitchell – Autosport) Valtteri and Lewis: Lewis, after practice yesterday you talked about having a little bit of difficulty with the balance of the car, the rear was stepping out a bit. Did that carry into today or were you happy with the car. Valtteri, you started strongly yesterday, has that just continued and do you just feel very happy with the balance of the car?

VB: Well, yeah, from the very beginning, since the first practice the feeling was quite nice. There was definitely room for improvement, especially with the rear end of the car, mainly on the entry of the corners. I think we managed to get it a bit better. It was still the weakness in a couple of places the rear end of the car but it’s not been a massive drama. I managed to build up from yesterday, except for practice three, I was a bit off the pace. I just tried to reset and remind myself of everything I was capable of doing yesterday and it turned out to be good.

Q: And Lewis?

LH: Yeah the car was good. We made a big step forward, so no problems.

Q: (Simon Amberley – Nevis Radio) To Charles: it was mentioned yesterday that maybe the Ferrari race pace wasn’t quite as strong as Mercedes, but with the gaps today and the difference on the tyres do you think possibly if you get a jump at the start, of getting Valtteri and Lewis, do you think you can maybe dictate the pace a bit more?

CL: That’s definitely the target  - to try to use our tyre advantage, especially at the start, to gain positions and then try to keep them. Keeping them will be very difficult because they are extremely quick in race runs but that’s the target.

Q: (Livio Oricchio – liviooricchiof1.com) Lewis, from the outside it didn’t appear that you had the car in your hands all the time. Is it because of the circumstances or maybe you have a set-up thinking more of the race?

LH: No, the set-up suited race trim best and I think yesterday I really did struggle with it on a single lap and of course I was trying to improve it over the evening and into today. It felt great into P3 and it felt really good at the star5 of the Q sessions and it kind of deteriorated through the session, so it got harder and harder, back towards a similar problem we had yesterday – as you saw in Turn 6 for example. But it was also windy. The race trim is still good. I didn’t want to move from the set-up I had, too far away, because it worked so well on the long run yesterday. Fingers crossed the strength in the race should be quite good but again it depends on what position we are in and how the wind is and a bunch of other factors.

Q: (Yassmin Abdel-Magied – The Guardian) I’ve got a slightly less technical question. Lewis, this is your home race and there’s lot of British flags out there and you’ve talked about loving coming back to the UK but there’s contention because you live in Monaco, and your accent isn’t maybe as British as others because you spend a lot of time in the US. So, why do you think that people question your Britishness.

LH: I don’t really know. I don’t really have a good answer for that.

VB: We all live in Monaco!

LH: We all do live in Monaco. It’s crazy now because every driver… I remember growing up, you remember watching Jenson Button and all the youngsters come through, and every one migrated to Monaco and no-one ever said anything about it at the time. Of course, when I did, they had something to say about it. But no matter how often you go abroad or elsewhere in the world, you come back to the UK and you see the beautiful countryside, you see this great… y’know, the history of Formula One and motorsport which is really here, and I see all my family who are also here and this is, of course, feels like where my heart is and ultimately fully British. Of course, I still like to honour my family heritage. My family are from the Caribbean. But… I don’t know. People have a right to their own opinion. If you look around, there’s a lot of Team LH caps. The support that I’ve had has been just incredible and it’s been growing over the years, and whilst, of course, there’s always going to be people with negative views on things, I feel like every day is an opportunity to try to turn those that do have a negative view on things. I guess over time I’ll do more and more positive things for the country. Ultimately, I go to all these race and I lift the British flag proudly. There’s no-one else in this sport that’s raised it so high. At the moment, probably that’s not enough. I’ll keep looking out for what else I can do. And for those who do follow me, I really do appreciate their support.

Q: (Mike Doodson – Honorary) Lewis, there’s been some dramas here at Silverstone with the surface and they seem to have got everything done pretty quickly, but there were quite a lot of incidents at Turn Six yesterday. I wonder if you could tell us – you had one too, I think, there – can you tell us what was wrong there and is it better today and is the circuit settling down?

LH: Ultimately last year, we’d come out of Turn Four and it was the bumpiest straight that probably you’ve ever been on before, rattling your teeth out for most of us. Also, for the motorbikes, it was quite bumpy then. In other areas it was OK. I think they’ve redone it this year; it’s much better on that straight but there are – and I guess it’s just the way it goes – but bumps into Turn Six are pretty hardcore but I think more so it’s the crosswind people are struggling with there. Maybe the bumps and also the crosswind that you have there, which everyone struggles with, and I’ve also struggled with – but then there’s also Turn Seven, it’s very bumpy but then the straight down to Copse is good, and then up to Maggotts and Becketts it’s good. It’s fantastic, and then after Maggotts and Becketts, down Stowe Straight it’s great, 15, 16, 17. So, it’s pretty much spot-on, perfect, apart from three bumps at the entry of Six and exit of Seven.

Q: (Frederic Ferret – L’Equipe) Question to all three drivers. What kind of weather do you expect tomorrow and what is the weather that will suit more the strategy you chose for the first tyre you will start on.

CL: I haven’t watched the forecast yet, so I don’t really know – but I guess, yeah, in Silverstone it’s often very unpredictable, and as we’ve seen in the last two days, you can have drops any time. So, it will make the race quite interesting if it’s like this. Then, if I can choose, the best would probably have a good start on the Soft, do seven laps and then big rain and keep this position. But I don’t choose. I think it will be very unpredictable anyway.

VB: Like yesterday there was no proper chance of rain but it still had a bit of drizzle, so I think anything can come from the sky, you never know – and no idea what will be best for us. At least it’s cooler than Austria, so that’s always good news but anything else, we should be OK.

LH: I’m down for some good old English weather tomorrow! Good old English weather is sunny, hale, rain! Sun, snow, the whole mixture. No, naturally it’s better for all the fans when it’s dry but I don’t mind if it rains either way. It’s really great, this track, in the wet. I guess we’ll all discuss whether we do the rain dance tonight or not.

Q: (Rob Harris – AP) Hi Lewis, it came down to six milliseconds today. Some quotes around from Nico Rosberg saying that, if he’d been travelling and partying in LA, then he’d be qualifying down in tenth – but you can cope with it, he was suggesting. When you assess things, do you think the clearing of the mind outweighs the travel by… sort of… going to LA between races like that and having the trips?

LH: I think naturally it’s easy to say that. People to have views. I do have five world titles. They didn’t come on their own. You know me.

VB: I think you gain time by partying. As a Finn, it’s a feeling.

LH: Valtteri parties way more than me!

VB: I have a party, I gain lap time, so…

LH: I think ultimately, when I started doing the travels and focussing on these other things, people always had… there was always the issue and people would have comments on it. Particularly the pressure of then having to arrive and making sure you definitely delivered the same. It took a long time to break that mould, and I’ve done it time and time and time again. My preparation comes first. I’ve felt fantastic all weekend. The pressure’s quite high here, obviously being your home grand prix, and so I don’t look upon that lightly, and I prepare the best way I can. But also, I do what I want – I don’t do what you think I should do, or anyone else thinks I should do. Only I know what’s right for me – and again, that’s what’s led me to five world titles. And don’t forget the amount of wins I have, all of that stuff, so… yeah.

Q: (Keith Collantine – racefans.net) Question for Charles, you’ve said a few times in recent races you feel you’ve raised your game in qualifying recently. The clearest way we can see that is you’ve just out-qualified Sebastian for the third race in a row – but how much more do you think there is that you can find in the Ferrari? And particularly today, was there the extra eight hundredths of a second that you needed to be sitting where Valtteri is sitting?

CL: At the time, as I said earlier, I think out main issue is the front end. Once we’ll fix this, I’m pretty sure there will be quite a bit of performance in that – because also again, in qualifying today, especially the third sector, I was struggling quite a lot with the front end to grip-up. So yeah, there’s still a lot of performance into that, whether we’ll know how to overcome this issue is another matter, so we need to be working very hard on that, and hopefully some performance will come when we fix this.

Q: (Tom Jackson – City Press) Charles, both Red Bulls split you and Sebastian today. Do you think tomorrow you will be able to comfortably stay ahead of them or do you expect a fight with them more than you do with the Mercedes?

CL: If we look at the Friday race simulations, I think it’s going to be very difficult to fight with  - or at least Lewis’s race run was very very strong so yeah, we need to work on that but Red Bull seems to be very quick also in the race runs so it’s going to be tricky. If we manage to gain some positions at the start, it’s a track where it’s quite hard to overtake so then we have some chances to keep them but if not I guess it’s going to be very difficult to fight with them.

Q: (Laurence Edmonson – ESPN) Valtteri, two of your pole positions earlier this year didn’t quite go to plan, the starts didn’t work out. Can you just explain if you’ve anything to try and rectify that and how the other starts have been and whether you’ve found a solution to it?

VB: Yeah, I’ve definitely been working a lot on the starts this year and especially after the couple of not ideal ones, so I’ve been focusing a lot and feel much more comfortable  with the starts than earlier in the year. Obviously every start is going to be different, we always have different circumstances, different set of tyres, temperatures but yeah, feel more confident and obviously aiming for a good start tomorrow and use the good grid position.

Q: (Sam Hall – Autoweek) Lewis, this year it seems that you’ve found qualifying a little bit harder to get pole on the Saturdays. Is the car a bit more difficult to get the one lap pace out of or is it something that’s changed with you as a driver?

LH: No, I think… we’re not halfway through the year yet. We’ve definitely had some poles but Valtteri has done some great laps throughout qualifying. It definitely has been a car that’s a little bit… I think with the tyres it’s a little bit harder to get it perfect every single time but it’s just qualifying, if you’ve seen a lot of the races, it doesn’t necessarily always determine what happens always in the race. Of course it’s great to always start at the front. It makes your day a little bit more simple but nonetheless it’s really great that we continue to work forwards as a team and lock out the front row. I’m really proud to be a part of that and still to get a one-two today is still significant, considering we have all of our team actually coming this weekend. Of course, Valtteri and I, I think we have a great relationship, we always want to beat each other but I’ll go back, look at the data today, did a better job and tomorrow you’ll do a great job as well and the duel tomorrow is who can do a better job tomorrow. There’s plenty more pole positions up for grabs between all of us so just got to keep working hard.

Q: (Ben Hunt – The Sun) Valtteri and Lewis; Valtteri, when we spoke you said the time is now for you to start effectively getting your elbows out. Indeed, is this the time that you’re starting to sense that? Lewis, are you prepared to race against what I guess we could call Valtteri 2.1, new version, newly enthused, ready to go again after a good start and obviously a bit of a slump but coming back?

VB: Well, if you look at the points, for sure the championship fight is still on. Obviously I’m the one chasing, I’m behind with I don’t know the exact number but roughly thirty points or something but so many races to go and it’s going to be a lot up to me and my performance, so definitely every single opportunity there is I need to get those and if I don’t get those then Lewis is going to be far away and not be able to reach in terms of points so tomorrow is super important, but so is the race after and the race after. The season is still long so I really need to try and take those opportunities and for sure will do everything I can to keep that lead tomorrow.

Q: Lewis, your thoughts on Valtteri 2.1?

LH: 2.1 or 2.4 or what’s the difference? I work closely with this guy, it’s Valtteri. I just see him as the man he is. Obviously we’re still fighting for the title. I don’t feel necessarily that he’s the only one chasing, I’m still chasing. I try to put an imaginary individual ahead of yourself. For me, I generally kind of put the previous year’s performances so last year’s myself ahead of me, for example and that’s my target: to improve and beat that, but on days like this I’m behind another so he’s now the guy that I’m chasing. So as long as you’ve always got a goal to chase, then you can always make improvements, you always have strides to make and so that’s my approach always.

Q: (Simon Amberley – Nevis Radio) The past couple of races we’ve had incidents that have been reviewed after the race which have either potentially affected the result or have affected the result. Has this been discussed within the drivers’ meetings and can we expect results to actually stand at the end of the race and drivers to be able to race more aggressively in future races including here?

LH: I was focusing on folding… I don’t know what the question was.

CL: I’m always up for hard racing so very happy if they relax a little bit on the fights but I think consistency is key. At the end, I think they also need time to review some incidents or sometimes it be bad to wait for the results but at the end I think it’s the best way to take the right decision.

VB: Yeah, I’m a big fan of hard racing as well so the harder we can race, but safe and fair, is always good and obviously for everyone it’s always better to have the results as quickly as possible and penalties as quickly as possible but sometimes they need to review more which is understandable.

LH: I feel exactly the same as these two guys. I still don’t know what the question was really! But close racing is always yeah, what he just said. Sorry. It wasn’t intentional to miss what the question was. About tough racing, was it? I haven’t discussed it. No. I don’t think it was brought up in the drivers’ briefing either. I think the last race was good. I don’t know what Charles thought of the incident he had.

CL: No, I thought it was OK. The only thing is consistency as I said. I feel like there have been some incidents in the past this year that have been not analysed or penalised, sorry, for much less than that, so that’s the only thing. I think consistency is very important but if it’s clear that we can race that way then I’m more than happy to race like this and I think every driver likes to race that way.

LH: I agree again! I think it’s really hard with the consistency thing because we’ve got these rules that… but every scenario is different but you have to apply the same rule to it so it’s… that’s why they’ve got some of the guys that are at the stewards, some even have to interpret certain a way what has happened at certain way and as Charles said, consistency is really what we want to try and get. But I think every year you go through all the lessons or they, together in the sport, go through the lessons and learn and improve and people told us that it needs to get better and so I’m sure we will.

FIA Team Members' Press Conference: 2019 British GP.

PHOTO CREDIT: FIA.com

TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Toyoharu TANABE (Honda), Christian HORNER (Red Bull Racing), Claire WILLIAMS (Williams), Zak BROWN (McLaren), Marcin BUDKOWSKI (Renault)

Q: Question for all of you to start with. It was announced on Wednesday that Silverstone has secured a long-term deal to host Formula One. Can each of you give us your best memories of this track?

Marcin BUDKOWSKI: It’s always a track where we enjoy coming because of the public here. I think it’s always a sell-out and it’s a very ‘expert’ crowd, if you like, one which enjoys the racing but also understands the racing. Always claps and supports all the teams and drivers, very little booing, very, very positive crowd, so I think it’s always enjoyable – but I don’t have a stand-out memory personally here. It’s just the quality of the track and of the crowd really that stands out for me.

Zak?

Zak BROWN: Yeah, I think this is a great grand prix, very pleased we’ll be coming back for at least another five years, and I think if I had to pick my favourite British Grand Prix it would be Nigel Mansell in the Williams in 1987 coming back and passing Piquet. That was pretty awesome.

Claire?

Claire WILLIAMS: As Zak said, I’m thrilled that Silverstone has got its place on the calendar long into the future. It’s absolutely what’s right, we all love coming here. As Marcin said, the crowds, the fans here are just wonderful. I’ve been coming here for 43 years, something like that. It was the race we were taken to as children, our special treat, the only race that Dad would let his kids come to. I remember being there in those glory days of Williams. We’ve had so many great races here. I think probably Nigel’s time in 1992 with the crowd invasion and all that stuff. For me, it holds such a special place in my heart. During my tenure at DTP, probably seeing our two cars overtake the Mercedes a few years, when Valtteri and Felipe led the race for a few laps. Fine, we didn’t go on to do what we would have liked to have done but still, those few laps, I suppose, spur me on, because that’s where I want to see Williamses in the future.

Christian?

Christian HORNER: It’s great news that the British Grand Prix is secured here at the home of motorsport at Silverstone. I think it’s the right venue, it’s a great track. I have so many great memories from here, been fortunate enough to win this race a few times, also in support formulas. One of my earliest memories coming here was back in 1992, shortly after I passed my driving test in my pimped-up Volkswagen Beetle, and they used to have a Goodyear tyre test here in June, the month before the grand prix. As an aspiring young karting driver I managed to find a hole in a fence – I don’t know whether it’s still there, around the corner from Copse, go through the tunnel, there’s a hole in the fence there, crawled through that, I managed to get into the pitlane, tried to pretend like I looked like I should be there. I had a karting jacket on at the time and came face to face with Ayrton Senna. It was a huge moment for me, he was one of my heroes. He’d had an accident on a jetski and so he wasn’t doing a lot of driving but he noticed the kart logo I had on my jacket and started asking me about karting. I thought, ‘I can’t top that! This day cannot get any better’ and then I managed to sneak through a garage and get to the front of the pitlane and Nigel was testing his Williams. I managed to get into your [Claire] garage, God knows how, and overhear Nigel. They were asking him what was preventing him going faster through Becketts? I remember him saying ‘I’m struggling to line my eyes up with my eye-sockets, because we’re so fast through there!’ So that was a huge memory for me, just topped the day off. Meeting Senna, then Mansell, and then driving home in my very flash Volkswagen Beetle.

Tanabe-San?

Toyoharu TANABE: Silverstone is the track I have seen, for the first time, a Formula One car. And then I’m very happy to hear the news. Our factory is located in Milton Keynes, also very close, and I’m very happy to hear that news.

Q: Marcin, tough weekend for the team in Austria last time out. How was FP1 this morning? Are you confident there won’t be a repeat here at Silverstone this weekend?

MB: Yes, we had a very difficult weekend in Austria. I think throughout the weekend really, and we didn’t qualify the cars in Q3, we had a difficult race as a result – but also because we didn't’ really have the pace at that circuit. We’re coming to a different circuit, it’s a different challenge here. I think Austria was a particular poor circuit for our car’s weaknesses at the moment and Silverstone is a combination really in terms of track, corners, so we expect to be better here, although we’re not happy with our general level of competitiveness at the moment. FP1 was a good session. It’s a working session. It’s one where we experiment on set-up and on different development directions. I think the track this morning was very green: new surface, very variable grip, so I think there was a lot of evolution and we benefitted from this, as I think, did Pierre in the Red Bull as well  – but it was a good working session, we learned some things, we fine-tuned the set-up so we’re looking forward to the weekend really.

Q: So more confidence ahead of this weekend?

MB: Definitely.

Q: Marcin, you’ve been at the team for pretty much a year now. From a structural point of view, are you happy with how things are working now at Enstone?

MB: yeah, I’ve been there a little bit more than a year now. Obviously joined a team that is still in the process of reconstruction. I’ve found a team that under the previous management and the previous ownership was heavily under-invested. A lot of people left. A little bit, it’s a team left behind by the evolution of F1 – because there was no investment in infrastructure, in tools, in people, and obviously when Renault came back there was a lot of investment made, a lot of recruitment. We increased the workforce by more than 50 per cent now. It takes time to integrate all these people, to get all these new tools online, to get the understanding of the physics involved in designing and racing a Formula One car again. So we’re in that phase of rebuilding still. It’s in a much better place than it was – but there’s still some work to do, and certainly since I arrived I’ve focussed on the organisation structure: putting the right people in the right positions; getting the team to work better; getting the team to be more efficient; to be more creative. It’s getting better but there’s still some amount of work in front of us.

Q: Zak, coming on to you. You’ve re-signed Lando Norris for 2020. What’s impressed you about him this year?

ZB: I’ve been impressed with both our drivers. Really pleased with our driver line-up, which is why we wanted to confirm it ahead of the silly season, which seems to be ramping up. Carlos has been extremely quick every weekend and then Lando specifically, he also is extremely quick, a quick learner. He’s not making some of the mistakes – knock on wood – that you maybe anticipate from a rookie driver. He drives quite mature, his feedback’s good, he gets along with Carlos very well, and both our drivers are driving for the team, so we’re just very pleased with their progress, so we thought we’d get that out of the way so we can continue with our programme, head-down and just keep racing.

Q: It is still relatively early in the season to be committing to next year’s driver line-up. Why have you committed now?

ZB: We like what we see. Both drivers are doing an excelling job. Specifically in Lando’s case, he now has enough races under his belt that we’ve seen him under pressure, we’ve seen him having to race his team-mate, we’ve seen him at the front of the field. We’ve seen enough rounded elements to his driving to know that he’s one of the future stars of the sport. Again with the silly season ramping up, we want to not be part of that, keep our head down and just be focussed on what we’re doing.

Q: Tanabe-san, congratulations on the win in Austria last time out, great for Honda. How was the victory received back in Sakura?

TT: Thank you very much. It was a great result and the win came as a result of all of our Sakura members and the people who have worked for this project and they are very much satisfied and pleased. On the other hand, everyone is motivated now more than before, I believe, and we will keep working very hard to improve our performance.

Q: Does this win influence Honda’s decision to stay in Formula One beyond 2020?

TT: In my position, as the technical director of Honda F1, I’m not very involved with the contract matters – but I feel, after the win, a very good reaction from inside Honda. So, we will see.

Q: And how confident are you being competitive on all circuits going forward?

TT: We had a great race in Austria – but we know our current position compared to the top runners. There is still a gap there. We keep pushing to get more performance, with our members and also the Red Bull team.

Q: Christian, we’re talking about that win in Austria. From your point of view, how unexpected was it?

Christian HORNER: It was totally unexpected. We thought if we could sneak a podium there it would be a great result, going into the grand prix. And then, about three metres after the start, even a top-four or top-five finish looked to be optimistic after Max got an anti-stall at the start and dropped down to P8 during the first lap – and in the meantime flat-spotted his front left as well. But we could see early on in the race that he had got good pace. He came back through the field quite quickly. We went long on the first stint and we had a great turnaround by the pit crew. And Max’s pace in the second half of the race was phenomenal. He was able to catch and pass obviously Sebastian and Valtteri and then close in, and with a few laps to go you think, ‘crikey, this could actually happen’, here at our home race in Austria. There aren’t many races that Dietrich Mateschitz comes to, we had some of the top board members from Honda also in attendance, so to win that race in the manner that Max did was phenomenal. And having come off the back of one of the most boring races in history in France, to have such an exciting race and to come out on top was a phenomenal feeling. And for Honda to win their first race in the V6 hybrid era after the difficult comeback into the sport that they had initially is testimony to the hard work and dedication of all the stuff. It was great to see the emotion and Tanabe-san picking up the trophy on behalf of the team, so it was a great day for the team and Honda all round.

Q: And did Max’s performance surprise you?

CH: Yes and no. I think Max has been delivering at such a high level pretty much since Montreal last year that nothing tends to surprise you with him. But the calmness with which he came back from the anti-stall at the start… He was probably one of the calmest guys out there. He fought hard but fair and was able to control the race and control his situation very well. It was certainly one of his very best victories.

Q: Tanabe-san has spoken about the knock-on effect of the victory within Honda, but what about within Red Bull and how important was the win in ensuring that Max stays with the team?

CH: I think within the whole team, the Monday morning after you win a grand prix, you walk into the factory you just feel that level of increased optimism, that energy. It energises the whole factory. People are working flat out all the time, but when they start to see rewards for what they are working for, it just makes it all worthwhile. I think for sure a huge effort has gone into this season so far, there is a long way still to go, it is still very much a transition year for us, but to see the delight in all the team members faced and to see what it meant to Honda as well was evry satisfying.

Q: Claire, Paddy Lowe has officially left the team. Can you explain the technical structure at Williams now?

Claire WILLIAMS: Did we not announce that a while ago? He has decided to leave the team and we wish him well. We’ve talked about our technical structure over the past few weeks in that we have now a technical management team in effect, that are effectively running the engineering side of the business and that consists of our Chief Aerodynamicist, Doug McKiernan, Dave Robson who is Head of Engineering Operations and then Adam Carter who is our Head of Design, and they are running it very collegiately, in a fantastic way and they are making real progress, which h is great to see. But obviously they have 650 people below them who are all working incredibly hard to make sure we deliver what we need to deliver over the next few races.

Q: Something we touched on a little bit earlier, the history of Williams and Silverstone. It’s 40 years since the team won its first grand prix, here at this track. Of all the team’s achievements where does that one stack up and does your dad still talk about it?

CW: He doesn’t talk about it regularly, but he doesn’t talk about a lot of past memories in Formula One. For Frank, it’s all about the future, but that was the start of what has been a phenomenal career for Frank in this sport. He’d fought long and hard, really, truly long and hard to achieve that. He started his own career racing himself, realised quite quickly he wasn’t any good at it – didn’t quite understand where the brakes were – and decided to be a constructor. It took him a decade to get that first grand prix win here. He fought incredibly hard. He had no money; he came from nothing. He had to sell the team at one point and then he had to again start from nothing. But he never gave up and we talked a lot about that yesterday with the team, Frank’s resilience, his tenacity, and he really deserved that victory in 1979. I think a lot of people around him at the time thought it would never come but as we all know Frank loves this sport. Victories are great for Frank but really, truly, it’s about being in this sport and competing.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action and Speedsport) Zak, you have a new wind tunnel coming but as far as revamping the team, are you looking for more people or is there anything else that needs to be done to the facilities?

ZB: Well, I’ve got Andreas Seidl now running the racing team. He and James Key are settled in and leading the charge. I think we are happy with the structure that we have and the senior leadership we have, but grand prix teams, especially with the new rules coming up in 2021 are going to have a certain element of reinventing how we go motor racing so I don’t think you are ever sitting still but from my standpoint I have the leadership I want to have in place and now it’s over to Andreas to fine-tune the racing team as he sees fit.

Q: And facilities?

A: Facilities, we’ll continue to invest again. We need to see what the final 2021 outcomes are to make sure we are investing in the right areas. The wind tunnel was certainly something we had been behind on for some time, so that was an investment we knew we needed to make. So I’m very happy that we are moving forward with it. We’ll make other cap-ex as we see fit as we get more visibility on what the future of the sport looks like.

Q: (Graham Harris – Motorsport Monday) Claire, much speculation in the media about Robert’s future with the team, which in all fairness the team has said is a non-starter, he is committed with the team. But a lot of rumours have him working very closely with your engineering department, his feedback has apparently been crucial in developing the car. Could you perhaps explain the other side of Robert that we don’t get to see on the TV screens?

CW: Sure. Just to clarify the point about Robert’s situation with the team: Robert is racing with us this year and will continue to do so. I don’t know where this speculation has come from but in the past couple of weeks there seems to be a lot of speculation around about Williams. But one of the reasons that I wanted to bring Robert into the team was, talking to him last year he did a great job for us as a reserve driver, and throughout last year we really saw his strength and his technical ability and his feedback. If you spend any time talking to Robert you know and understand how intelligent he is, how much knowledge he has around the car and its performance and how to get the most out of it. Obviously coming into this year, we knew where we were ahead of time and we knew therefore that we would need somebody, a driver, with that level of engineering intelligence that could really help translate what was going on in the car back to the engineers and back into the factory and that was a key reason why we brought him on board. And he has continued that process with the engineers. He has been invaluable in helping to drive the performance that you are seeing we’re bringing to the car over the course of this season. Robert, as a person, he’s incredibly hard working and he’s very focused on what he’s here to do and we all know where he has come from and the accident that he has had and for anyone to come back into our sport having experienced such an accident is quite remarkable. It shows his resilience. The only other person I’ve seen that in myself, in my lifetime, is Frank. To come back from such serious injuries, to have that level of determination is really quite extraordinary and I think that probably sums Robert up in a nutshell.

Q: (Scott Mitchell – Autosport) To Zak and Christian. Zak you talked about wanting to avoid getting involved in the ‘silly season’ by confirming your drivers early. By retaining Carlos and Lando whatever slim chance there was  of Fernando coming back to the grid after taking some time away, with McLaren at least, is not on the cars now., With his ambassadorial role, would you be happy to release him to speak to other teams if an opportunity arose for next year? And for Christian, you’ve been talking about supporting Pierre, there has been a lot of speculation about what will happen with him, even some links with Sebastian returning to the3 team. What’s the Red Bull position with regard to the 2020 driver market?

ZB: Yeah, with Fernando he remains an ambassador with McLaren, we’ve got a great relationship with him and we are speaking with him about some racing programmes in the future that are nor Formula One-related. But we are happy for him, if he wants to get back into Formula One, because we don’t have a seat available to go race for another team, and we will very much support with that if that’s what he wants to do.

CH: Our philosophy at Red Bull has always been to invest in young talent. That’s the purpose of Toro Rosso – it is to nurture and develop young talent. Pierre has had a tough first half of the year. We know ultimately what he’s capable of, which he hasn’t show his full hand yet. We saw a glimpse of it in P1 just now. With time and patience it will come right for him. Formula One is an impatient sport, but our philosophy is very much to invest in youth and to give young talent an opportunity and chance and therefore we obviously keep a very close eye on the nurturing talents at Toro Rosso.

Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines / Racefans.net) There has been a lot of speculation about an eventual successor for Chase Carey and quite a few names are in the frame. Christian yours is one of the names that has been speculated about. Would you be interested in accepting the position were it to be offered?

CH: I enjoy racing. My commitment is with Red Bull. There is a lot more I want to achieve from a competitive position and my objective is to get Red Bull back into a consistent winning position, challenging for championships. I am not aware that Chase is about to step down imminently, I think there is a lot of speculation but I think it is exactly that, so as far as I am concerned I am very happy doing what I am doing and my focus and commitment is very much on getting Red Bull back into a competitive, consistently winning situation.

Q: (Owari Masahiro – Formula Owari Masahiro) Christian, Doctor Marko says you can win five races this season. What is your opinion? How many races can you win? And which race is your next biggest chance?

CH: Well, there’s no crystal ball so we’re approaching the half point of the season. To have got that first victory is an enormous achievement and a huge milestone for the team and for Honda. We approach things race-by-race. As a team, with try and optimise. We didn’t go into Austria expecting to win that Grand Prix and came out with the first place trophy. That’s how we will approach every single Grand Prix between now and the end of the year. What that leads to in results we’ll know by the end of the year. Helmut obviously has an optimism which he’s already pushing and always going for which is great. I think from the team’s side, it’s a little bit more on a race-by-race basis but of course the target is to try and win as many races as we can between now and the end of the year.

Q: (Kevin Eason – Sunday Times) Much as it’s lovely for Lewis, are you worried that Lewis and Mercedes are killing this sport with their domination which is unprecedented now and how are you going to stop it? When can fans expect to see a level playing field and people like Frank Williams emerging to win Grands Prix against the big boys?

MB: Well, I don’t think you can say something like they are killing the sport, they are doing a really good job and they are deserving their wins and their championships and all of us are sat here and thinking we should look up to them and do the same job and then we will compete with them. I think there are changes coming for 2021 under Liberty’s and the FIA’s guidance to make the sport more competitive, certainly to make it fairer and more sustainable as well. Whether they will be successful… we think they are on the right path. I certainly think the budget cap is probably the biggest impact on the relative competitiveness of the sport so we’re very supportive, we’re very pro-active in helping them writing the regulations and planning what the sport will be from there. Whether they will be sufficiently impactful for all the teams to compete for victories I’m not sure. However, is that what we really want? We want the best working teams to compete for victories. Hopefully there’s more than just one or two.

ZB: Not a lot to build on. First you’ve got to give credit to Mercedes and Lewis for doing an outstanding job. I think we all recognise the sport is not where it needs to be, to have a more level playing and therefore better competition. I think 2021 will be a big step forward so I think we can expect a lot more Lewis and Mercedes victories this year, most likely again next year and then hopefully in 2021 with enough rule change that we will start to see the grid get a little bit more mixed up because certainly we need to be putting on a better show for the fans and when they show up to the British Grand Prix, thinking that there may be seven/eight/ten drivers who can win the race when in reality right now it’s just the few.

CW: Probably just going to repeat everything that everybody else has already said but I don’t think you can take away from Mercedes the extraordinary job that they have done and it’s down to the remaining nine teams to do a better job to take the fight to them. Someone’s got to win, that’s the whole point of this sport, that you employ the best people, you get the best resources you can around you in order to create the most competitive car and they have done the best job of that. Someone has to win in this sport. We don’t obviously want the same team – it’s not great for the health of our sport – for the same team to win in each and every race. I think that’s why huge congratulations have to go to Red Bull because it’s tough to beat Mercedes at the moment and to see another team taking a victory at an event was fantastic, fantastic for the sport. But it’s about creating great racing, isn’t it and making sure that all the regulations collude in order to achieve that and I’m very much hoping obviously that the regulations that are coming on board in 2021, whether that be the technical regulation, the financial regulations all contribute to helping improve the competition that we have, that ensure the sustainability of our sport moving forward into the future.

CH: Everybody has the same set of rules presented to them at the beginning of each year and you’ve got to take your hat off to Mercedes and Lewis for doing such a great and dominant job. I think, for me, the lessons that you learn, particularly over time, is that the more you change things, the more spread you create in the field and the regulations change that we had over the winter didn’t help anything. In fact it made a dominant team even more dominant so I think the aerodynamic changes, the tyre changes that were made actually didn’t do anything to help the sport or the spectacle and I think that’s where we need to be very very careful for 2021 because each team will believe they can get an advantage and ultimately somebody will get it right, somebody will get it wrong but there could be a much bigger spread than there is currently and for me I think the most important thing is once a set of regulations is achieved and found for the future, is consistency. The most important thing is leave it alone for a long period of time and then you will get the grid coming together with stability. The worst thing is dicking and changing something every year which isn’t fully understood that then changes the dynamics of the car. So for me I think you will get absolute convergence with stability and I think that whatever is done for 2021 should be fixed pretty much for a five year period unless there’s some fundamental flaw in it.

TT: Mercedes and Lewis are doing a very good job. They are talking about the 2021 regulations and then the PU manufacturers working on 2021 regulations to have a more competitiveness for each person. Not fixed yet but we will see the result soon, I think.

Q: (Chris Medland – Racer.com) Christian, I wanted to follow up on Dieter’s question actually: your name as a team boss has been linked with running F1 in the future but so has Toto’s as another team boss. What would be your feelings if Toto was to take on that role in the future and perhaps the other three team members to your left, what would be your thoughts if either Christian or Toto were to take on the role of running F1?

CH: Well, Toto already is, by all accounts I think! So look, to be honest with you, it’s an irrelevant question. As far as myself is concerned, I think I’ve made my position clear: I love racing, I love competing, I love the team that I’ve been involved with since the beginning and my goals and ambitions for the future are to very much bring it back into a competitive situation. It’s Liberty’s business at the end of the day. Whoever they chose to run it for them is their choice, it’s not down to the teams, it’s their business, it’s their investment. I think that Chase is doing a great job. I think he’s learned quickly about Formula One. I think if you look at the actual show now, the crowd sizes, the attendance, everything that’s going on around the sport, there’s a lot of great things happening. We just need a better product and I think if the product can be addressed through the regulation changes for 2021 and we get that right then the potential for this sport is phenomenal because even when we’re seeing serial winning, there’s still 140,000 people coming through the gate here. Austria was a sell-out, Canada was a sell-out. Attendance is up everywhere we go and you think crikey, if we can actually put on a great show like Austria was and it doesn’t necessarily mean that that means Red Bull need to be doing the winning, it would be great to see some of these guys doing the winning as well, then I think the potential of Formula One is huge.

CW: Well firstly, I’m quite annoyed that my name hasn’t been put in the mix. Seriously. No, it is pure speculation. I believe it’s never come up about Chase so I don’t know what’s going on there. If you’re genuinely asking me my thoughts around Christian or Toto running Formula One, clearly I think they would both be excellent at it.

ZB: Not a lot to say. I’ve seen a variety of names linked to it. I don’t know how real it is but Toto would certainly be a credible candidate.

CW: What about Christian? You don’t say Christian.

ZB: I was asked about Toto.

MB: I’m not in the running, I can reassure Toto and Christian they’re safe.

Q: (Rob Harris – Associated Press) Just picking up on that theme of leadership: amongst the main headlines earlier this week was a name from the past, Bernie Ecclestone talking about Vladimir Putin which seemed to get lots of headlines, a reminder of how controversy can create headlines. Is the problem with Chase and the Liberty leadership, it’s all a bit dull and between races… do you need someone to whip up a bit of drama and frenzy to actually help the sport overall be top of the agenda all around the world when there’s so many other competing sports?

CH: Bernie’s ability to generate a headline, as he’s demonstrated this past week, is still absolutely right up there with the best. But as I said in my previous answer, I think that Formula One’s doing a lot of good things at the moment. If you look at the fan engagement, if you look at the amount of fans that are getting into the circuit now, things like the hot laps, things like Netflix that were done over the last winter, in terms of digital engagement, the whole digital media strategy. All of that is being embraced and I think the fundamental thing isn’t the promotion of the sport, I think it is the product itself. I think when you look at a race like we’ve had at the majority of races this year they’re too static, they’re too predictable, there’s not enough action. One pit stop races are the most boring races you can have and I think that’s what we need to focus on as a collective group because that’s where ultimately we all benefit out of: If the product is better, the racing is better. Partners, manufacturers, sponsors will want to be there. The fan engagement then goes through the roof. So I think we need Ross Brawn and his team working in conjunction with the FIA to give Chase and Jean Todt a blueprint of this is what Formula One needs to be.