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Persconferentie
zondag 09/09/2007 |
1. Fernando ALONSO (McLaren Mercedes), 1h18m37.806s
2. Lewis HAMILTON (McLaren Mercedes), 1h18m43.868s
3. Kimi RÄIKKÖNEN (Ferrari), 1h19m05.131s
TV UNILATERALS
Q: Fernando, not much luck at Monza in the past, but from pole, you set
fastest lap and won the Italian Grand Prix.
Fernando ALONSO: Ah yes, absolutely, a perfect weekend for me.
Sometimes everything seems to go in the right direction and you feel
good and you need to keep up the momentum. All weekend has been good for
me. Sometimes I have started well here in Monza but I always had some
problems in the race, and I always missed the victory and the win here
so to win here in Monza for the first time is a very very special
win.
Q: And it looked like a dominating win for you; what was it like from
inside the cockpit, any nasty moments?
FA: No, everything was OK. Maybe just the start was not fantastic, I
felt, so I looked in the mirror immediately after the start and I saw
Felipe behind me, so for a moment I thought that I would have to defend
myself in the first corner so I really braked late, but then in the
second corner I saw I think Lewis on the left part, and I was a little
bit worried that maybe we could touch each other.
Q: And at the restart Lewis was pretty close to you going into turn
one.
FA: Yeah, again that was a little bit difficult because here you
take the slipstream very easy and I didn’t know how to avoid that.
It’s normal here in Monza. That first safety car didn’t help either
because the group was together on lap six or seven and we knew that we
had to open up a gap before Kimi’s stop and obviously with seven laps
after the safety car the gap was not big enough,.
Q: What does it mean to you personally to win here on Ferrari
territory on what is an emotional weekend for McLaren? We saw your team
principal Ron Dennis looking quite emotional on the podium.
FA: It’s very special, I think. All the wins are special but over
the last two or three years, there are some circuits where I won more
than one time or one time, and Monza is one of the circuits where I
never won before, so I wanted to achieve that, try to make at least one
win on all the circuits and to win in Monza, the first time, with all
the people here… maybe they are Ferrari fans, but on top of that they
are Formula One fans and they are very emotional. They love Formula One
in Italy, so it’s great to win here.
Q: Lewis, interesting first corner, going in there with Felipe Massa,
round the outside and then a bit of a tap as you were just about to
approach the apex.
Lewis HAMILTON: Yeah, I obviously didn’t the best getaway being on
the dirty side of the grid, and saw Felipe shoot past. But I outbraked
both of them, Fernando and Felipe, and I was very close to take Fernando
as well but Felipe clipped me and sent me over the second part of the
chicane, so I lost that opportunity. And then I had a second opportunity
at the restart but Fernando did a great job to make sure he pulled a
good enough gap on the exit of turn eleven – the last corner – and
there was nothing I could do about it. I got to the middle stint and I
had flat-spotted my tyres, my front tyres, and I had some vibration, so
I opted to pit even earlier than my pit stop, basically because I
wasn’t sure that that vibration wasn’t going to be something like
(what happened in) Turkey, so I thought I would play it safe and just
bag the points.
Q: And of course a great pass with Kimi, a great race with Kimi in
the latter phase of the race as well.
LH: Yeah, well we came out and I knew that Kimi… pitting a bit
earlier, I knew that Kimi would pass me and the key was just to try and
optimise my pit entry, my pit exit and my out and in laps and I came out
and I thought, shoot, Kimi is too far ahead. I probably had two laps
maximum out of the tyres before they would go off and he was on the
harder tyre which was a little bit better but I managed to pull out a
couple of really good laps, the tyres were great and the car felt good
as well. I had an opportunity and I had to make sure I stuck it in there
and got it, and also I just wanted to do it for the team. I know how
hard they’ve been working and this weekend we’ve got the one-two in
qualifying and to get it in the race would have just put the icing on
the cake, so a great job by the team back at home, mega-improvement and
I hope we can continue with this form.
Q: Kimi, that looked like a hard race for you. How much of it was
affected by your accident yesterday in terms of your slightly stiff
neck, and how was the performance of the car?
Kimi RÄIKKÖNEN: The car wasn’t too bad actually. In the first
stint it was pretty OK. OK, we were heavier than the McLarens, so we
knew that they would pull away. We tried to keep close enough but
actually we were not quick enough today, but probably the biggest
problem for me was that I couldn’t keep my head upright any more under
braking, so my neck is not in such good shape after yesterday. That was
the main issue. But we just didn’t have the speed today. That’s how
it goes.
Q: We could see from the replays that you appeared to be looking
forward in the cockpit as Lewis was coming down inside you into the
first chicane.
KR: Yeah, the problem wasn’t under braking. It was a bit hard to
keep the head up. It didn’t help, for sure. After when he passed me,
first of all I couldn’t have a good exit on any lap out of the last
corner, and I knew they were very quick in there and on the straight. I
tried to do my best but then he got too close and got past me, so after
that I just slowed down and drove to the finish of the race.
Q: Surprising for Ferrari after their one-two in Turkey for things to
be changing so quickly here at Monza.
KR: Probably this is a bit more like Montreal. We knew that McLaren
would be fast here, very strong, so we knew from last week’s test that
we were not where we wanted to be. For sure they were strong here,
stronger than us but I think once we go back to Spa it should level out
a little bit. Then it will probably be closer again. But of course we
wanted to win our home race but we couldn’t do that, but we still got
a podium, lost some points to McLaren but they were just better
today.
Q: Fernando, not much time to enjoy this race; onto the Belgian Grand
Prix next weekend, but the gap between you and Lewis is now down to
three points. A big win for the McLaren team here; how do you see that
continuing next weekend?
FA: We will see. I think we have to see how the car performs in
Belgium. As you said, now there are a lot of changes between one race
and the next, as we saw in Turkey. Ferrari were very dominant. In Monza,
McLaren is very dominant. So in Belgium, first of all we have to see how
the cars perform but for sure the main thing is the championship: try to
win Drivers’ and Constructors’ championship and to do that, you need
to win races. So approaching the next race, the goal is to win
again.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Fernando, that looked a perfect afternoon.
FA: Yes, it was. No worries with the car, everything was working
perfectly, all through the race, in all the stints, all the tyres, so
everything was very good today and this afternoon you just have fun
driving the car because the rest is going very well.
Q: And now just three points behind Lewis in the championship.
FA: Yes but nothing changes really. It’s only two points
(difference) even if you win the race, so the distance is more or less
the same, and the gap is more or less the same. Nothing was decided
before the race, nothing is decided after the race and I think it will
stay like that until the last race. But that’s not the important
thing. For me, personally, after Turkey, I know that I also closed the
gap in the championship by two points but I was not totally happy with
the weekend. I made a very bad start and then when I managed to overtake
the BMW, I was not able to be quick enough to pressure the people on the
podium. I really arrived here very focused and I want to make five
finals, from here to the end, and I will go for it.
Q: You must be pleased with the outcome of your new approach to the
weekend.
FA: Yes, but sometimes you make all the effort you can and things go
wrong, for whatever reason: you have a puncture, you have a gearbox
problem or whatever, either in qualifying or the race, and there is
always a compromise after you have anything like that, so I’m happy
but I know that there will be some more difficult weekends. What cannot
change is my level of concentration and my level of push for this
championship.
Q: Lewis, tell us about the overtaking manoeuvre with Kimi?
LH: I thought it was fairly straightforward. I was fortunate to be
out on new tyres, and Kimi was on the harder compound but obviously had
done quite a lot of laps on heavy fuel, so I knew that I had probably a
maximum of two laps to get past him. I closed the gap after the first
lap and made sure I optimised my exit from the last corner. I was
surprised that the slipstream wasn’t as much as… normally I would
have thought I would have passed him before the first corner, but I had
to actually do it on the brakes. But nevertheless, it was quite close.
He closed the door, it was very fair. I didn’t think I was going to
make the corner but somehow I did and obviously it was a very very
important point in the race. I needed those points, so I’m very very
happy with it.
Q: You spoke a moment ago about vibration on your first set of tyres.
Once you came in, did the vibration go?
LH: Yes.
Q: In the last stint you seemed to drop back from behind Fernando,
were you just taking it easy?
LH: I was ten seconds behind and I know that when I was a couple of
seconds behind him, I couldn’t catch him so I pushed for the first
couple of laps, I didn’t particularly know how many laps I had left
but I was pushing and I when I saw Fernando ahead of me, he was very
fortunate with traffic, he would always catch them just before turn
eleven and get past. I would catch them in the wrong place and have to
lose half a second. But that’s the way it goes. I think at the end we
just needed to make sure we brought it home. I’d done the job, we’d
both done really well to get both cars at the front and it was important
we brought it home.
Q: Was there much difference between the hard and softer tyre?
LH: It’s always different. In the test, there was a lot more
graining on the softer tyres. Here, there was a lot less graining on the
softer tyres but more chunking or blisters. But the tyres felt great,
especially the options but it was a very short stint and as I’ve seen,
there were already blisters on them, so probably not good to do a long
stint on them.
Q: Well Kimi, you did a long stint on the softer tyres and seemed to
do a very good job, particularly with a heavy fuel load.
KR: Yeah, the car was working pretty well, not ideal but it was not
too bad actually. The first stint was probably better than the second
stint. There was no problem with the tyres.
Q: Would you do a one stop again or do you think a two stop would
have been better?
KR: I don’t know. I don’t think it would have made much
difference for our final position. We were not quick enough in the end,
so we couldn’t really do better. That was the main problem.
Q: And when Lewis came out of the pits behind you, did you think
second place or was it just a matter of time before he got you?
KR: I knew that they were going to be fast on new tyres. I had some
other problems to deal with at that time and I tried but for sure I was
expecting him to try to get past me. I did my best but it just wasn’t
good enough.
Q: When we spoke on the drivers’ parade, you said you had a stiff
neck but you weren’t certain it was going to affect you in the race,
or were you? Or did you fear it might?
KR: No, I already felt it yesterday in qualifying, so I pretty much
expected it to be good fun in the race, but it turned out to be a bit
worse than I expected.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Ian Parkes – The Press Association) For Fernando and Lewis, given
all that is going on around McLaren this season, and is still going on,
what would it mean to you to win the world title?
FA: Any driver wants to be world champion and when we started in
Australia 22 drivers wanted to achieve that and after two or three races
you can see that maybe just two teams, or a maximum three teams, can
make a driver champion because you need the car, the package, you need
everything with you. We are extremely lucky to be in this position to
have such a fast car and it means a lot to become world champion, but,
at least for me, it is not special if around the team there are
problems. For me, it doesn’t matter that because in the end it is good
to be the drivers’ world champion and the constructors’
(championship) or whatever, from a driver’s point of view, it is not
really a big factor.
LH: For me, I think, as you can imagine, it probably means quite
a lot more than it would to any other driver because it is my rookie
year and definitely I didn’t expect to be challenging for the world
championship, or leading it, and with all the things that have gone on,
for sure, it would have been a much better year to have had no problems,
but that’s the way it is – it would be great to win the
constructors’ championship and the drivers’ championship, just to
show that even still with all those problems and issues nothing can
bring us down and we are unstoppable and that is a great point.
Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Kimi, was this physically the
most painful race for you?
KR: This year, probably yes. Not because of the circuit, but because
of the problem yesterday.
Q: (Takeharu Kusuda – Lapita) The circuit for the Japanese Grand
Prix has changed from Suzuka to Fuji. Lewis and Fernando, do you have
confidence for this new circuit in Japan?
FA: I think we are all in the same position. Nobody knows anything
about Fuji. Probably some people made some laps there for exhibition or
something like that. I did last year, for Renault, in a two-seater, with
passengers, in Fuji. The circuit will be challenging in terms of set-up,
as it is a very slow circuit and has a very long straight, so the level
of down-force will be compromised for the sector in which you want to be
quick. It’s the same for everybody, so after Friday’s session and
the laps we do now under the new rules – more than 50 or 60 laps on
Friday will be enough to learn the circuit.
LH: I have never even seen the track and I was a bit disappointed
because I finally got to Formula One, and Suzuka had always been my
favourite circuit, watching F1, and I heard it was quite spectacular,
even better than Spa, so I was looking forward to doing that, but they
changed it and I’ve never seen Fuji, so I’ve no idea which way it
goes or where the first corner is but everybody is in the same boat, so
it should be quite exciting for all of us.
Q: (Juha Päätalo – Financial Times Germany) Kimi, four races to
go and you are still 18 points behind Lewis and 15 behind Fernando –
do you still see a realistic chance?
KR: Yes of course, we still have a chance. It is not going to be
easy because we lost some points again but you never know what is going
to happen in the next races, so we keep pushing as long as we have a
chance and then we see.
Q: (Matt Dickinson – The Times) Lewis and Fernando, with everything
that is going on, and is ahead this week, how confident can you be that
the championship will be decided on the track?
FA: I have nothing to say. Next Thursday we all will know more about
(this) ... in four days, I will wait to answer anything.
LH: Me, I am pretty confident. I am not worried about next week.
I just have a lot of belief in the team and I have no worries
whatsoever. Then we shall see the championship go down to the wire I am
sure and perhaps in the last race you will see who comes out
first.
Q: (Ed Gorman – The Times) Lewis, we have heard from Fernando about
how he is approaching the last few races. We have seen him eating into
your lead with each of the last few Grands Prix. How are you coping with
the pressure? Are you feeling the pressure of being hunted down?
LH: Not particularly. Aside from the point that he has done a
fantastic job in the last two races, I have had a couple of unfortunate
mishaps with my tyres and this weekend Fernando had the pace on me, but
the last race I was quicker all weekend. So, each race is a little bit
different. The last two races he has finished ahead of me. But I think
if you look back to the beginning of the season, if I had said we were
to be equal in out-qualifying each other and finishing ahead of one
another, I would have said ‘get out of here’ you know! But I am not
worried about it. I have been in many situations like this before and
there are still four races to go and the fight is still on.
Q: (Ian Parkes – The Press Association) Fernando, why doesn’t
winning the teams’ title mean as much to you as it does to Lewis?
Surely the hundreds of people in the team want to hear you say that it
means a lot?
FA: Of course, I have won two drivers’ titles and two
constructors’ championships, so I know how the people enjoy winning
the constructors’ championship, but I have said all my life you know
that for me as a driver I put 10 points, from zero to 10, to win the
drivers’ world championship and to win the constructors’
championship is eight points. It is not the same to me. I enjoy every
point that we do on the track, for us, for the team, and we are leading
quite comfortably the constructors’ championship and if everything
goes on like this we will achieve that and I will be happy for the team,
but I still prefer to win the drivers’ (championship).
Q: (Livio Oricchio – O Estado de Sao Paulo) For Alonso, all your
victories in Formula One, after crossing the finish line, you took the
car to the right side to the pit wall of the team. This time you
didn’t do that. Why?
FA: We were too fast here in Monza and if you go too close to them,
then there is too much air coming to them. (Laughter). It is more
dangerous here than in any (other) place.
Q: (Dieter Rencken – The Citizen) For the two McLaren drivers,
it’s been a long time since two front-running teams chose such totally
different strategies. Did you people consider a one-stopper at all? And
at what stage did you become aware that Kimi was on a one-stopper?
LH: We knew going into qualifying… Well, we didn’t expect to be
half a second quicker than everyone, but the key was to put both cars on
the front row, but ideally we could have put another 10 or 15 kilos in
easily and still qualified on the front row and that would have enabled
us to go on a possible one-stop. But with the graining and the
blistering of the tyres… that made us a little bit nervous because
especially in the last race we had that problem and here in testing we
had blistering and so if you are out in front and you can pull away from
the pack then a two stop was a good choice, but then we already knew, we
could tell that Kimi would probably be on a one stop, by his time,
obviously, in qualifying, and by his pace during the weekend, they knew
they didn’t have the pace of us, and doing a one stop is six to eight
seconds faster than doing a two-stop and they opted for that and had to
do the best job we could.
FA: I knew (when) the team told me Kimi was on a one stop, when
he made the stop, because they calculate the lap and the fuel was coming
in. So they told me he was on a one-stop and we decided to do two, and
avoid any risk with the tyres. That was the main concern. We knew we had
the pace, we knew that with two stops the victory was in our hands with
no problems, so there was no point in taking risks with a one-stop.
Q: (Ottavio Daviddi – Tuttosport) Kimi, you have a better position
in the championship than Felipe. Do you expect that both the team and
Felipe will support you to try and win the last races?
KR: I don’t know. You need to ask the team. The main thing is we
try to win the championship, which is going to be very difficult, but
you never know. After the next two races, we will know if we have any
chance or none at all, but I don’t know what is going to happen in the
next races.
Q: (Stéphane Barbé – L’Equipe) Kimi, the next track in a very
few days is very demanding. Do you think your neck will have recovered?
KR: It should be okay. If it had happened a few days earlier, the
accident, probably wouldn’t have any problem, but we have a week so it
should be fine.
Q: (Juha Päätalo – Financial Times Germany) Kimi, Looking back,
was there any way you could have kept Lewis behind you in that moment?
KR: I would have tried if there were any chance, but there wasn’t
any…
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