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Drivers:
1st Felipe Massa (Ferrari), 1m35.748s; 2nd Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari),
1m36.230s; 3rd Heikki Kovalainen (McLaren), 1m36.613s.
Q: Felipe, a beautiful lap to watch. You were a half second quicker
than your team-mate in Q3 but a little bit slower in Q2. Talk us through
that.
Felipe Massa: I managed to make a fantastic lap in Q3 which is the
most important one. I did a great lap the first try and the second try
without a mistake. In Q2 I didn’t make very good laps and I was
struggling a little bit on the grip from the tyres on the lap. Also I
didn’t do a very good last sector as well just braking a little bit
too early at turn 14. It was just stupid mistakes. Not really mistakes
but just a stupid lap. Then I managed to put everything together in Q3
and did a great lap.
Q: Apart from the disappointments of Melbourne you obviously felt
confident coming here with a different track surface and with Ferrari
having such a great record here.
FM: Definitely. Our championship is starting now. What happened in
the last race was incredible and we didn’t expect that. We did a very
good job during the winter but coming to the first race and having a lot
of problems like we had was not expected. But hopefully now we can
manage to put everything together to have a very consistent, quick and
good championship.
Q: There was a lot of talk before qualifying about the potential for
rain here on Saturday and perhaps even tomorrow. How did that affect the
preparation for qualifying and the way you ran qualifying?
FM: To be honest, it did not affect it too much. You just needed to
be starting the session by going out straight away, so if it was raining
at least you could put one lap on paper. Everybody did that. You saw at
the beginning of the qualifying everybody going out, just a little bit
afraid that if the rain comes at least you had a lap, so I think it was
not a big difference compared to a normal qualifying.
Q: And what were the conditions like right at the end there?
FM: It was okay. We had a couple of drops but it did not affect the
performance on the track, so it was no problem at all.
Q: Kimi, it was a very quick lap in Q2, a 1min34.1secs, the fastest
lap of qualifying. Talk us through your Q3 and how you feel in terms of
the race tomorrow?
Kimi Raikkonen: I was not sure what happened with Q3. The car is
good, but I just couldn’t get the grip. I didn’t get the best out of
it, but anyhow I am in second place. It is a good place to start and we
should have a strong race car. It is going to be a long hot race
tomorrow and we don’t know about the weather. But I think we can look
forward quite happily to it.
Q: Once the race began in Melbourne, even from where you started on
the grid, you were very quick. How does the car compare here in terms of
its feel and grip level with Melbourne?
KR: I think this is a more normal circuit, so the car has been quick
all weekend. I think we are seeing two completely different circuits but
our car should be fast anywhere but when you start from behind it is
very difficult to show your speed. Tomorrow should be a bit clearer
about who is where and what kind of speed everyone is doing.
Q: Felipe obviously has the clean side of the road off the line.
Without traction control now how do you anticipate it is going to be on
the dirty side of the grid?
KR: I don’t know. It is very difficult to say. Hopefully we will
get a good start and it is up to us much more now than it was before. In
the last race we had a very good start, so hopefully we can manage to do
that also tomorrow.
Q: Congratulations to you Heikki. Your second successive P3 in
qualifying and just ahead of your team-mate Lewis Hamilton. First of all
from a personal point of view your feelings about qualifying third
behind the two Ferraris and being the fastest McLaren driver.
Heikki Kovalainen: Of course we were hoping to do a couple of places
better but obviously, Ferrari, they have both been very fast here all
weekend and we had nothing more to give today. I think third place was
the maximum we could achieve today. I am happy about that. It was a
clean lap without any big mistakes. It was pretty much the same story as
I had in Melbourne, just trying to go step by step and increase the pace
as I get used to the team and the car. I think we are on a very good
track and still in a good position to start with tomorrow and we will
see how the strategy goes. But we will still aim to do the maximum job
tomorrow and see what happens.
Q: Does the McLaren feel more difficult to drive here? Does the grip
level feel lower than in Melbourne if you could compare the two?
HK: No, not really. It feels pretty similar. I think our balance is
very similar to what it was in Melbourne and I think the fact is we
didn’t see the true pace of Ferrari in Melbourne. They both had some
problems in qualifying or in the race, so I think this is more
representative between the pace of the teams. But anyway, like I said,
the race is tomorrow and we are still in a good position. By no means
the game’s over. Tomorrow we can attack and we will see what we can
do.
Q: Felipe, every race win you have had, has been from pole, so this
is a good start to the weekend. This is always a difficult race
physically for the drivers. Perhaps you could reflect on both those
points and how you anticipate the race is going to be from a physical
point of view tomorrow?
FM: The race will be very physical here. It is not so physical, but
it is also very hot. The humidity we have here is so high and you lose a
lot of water from the body. For sure when you get from the middle to the
end of the race you start to feel it a little bit just because you are
sweating so much. But I am really looking forward to having a strong
race and strong physical preparation as well.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Felipe, congratulations. Your best position here is fifth – once
from pole last year and once from 21st a couple of years ago. What are
your feelings about tomorrow particularly the start if you remember from
last year?
FM: My thought is to change the best result I have, hopefully we can
repeat what we did today which was a very good job and a very good lap.
It was very clean with no mistakes and taking away the maximum from the
car. I was pretty happy with our day. In Q2 I couldn’t manage to do a
good lap. I was just struggling to find the right grip. Also I was too
conservative. But I learned everything I did wrong in Q2 and managed to
do a great lap in Q3.
Q: Presumably total confidence in the engine. No problems and no
further feelings from last weekend?
FM: For sure, I am looking forward to having a very reliable car. It
was a very bad result we had in the last race, not just the engine but
also the race itself was a problem and the qualifying with Kimi. It was
definitely a weekend to forget. We think we know what we are doing now.
We think we know how it is going to be during the race in terms of
reliability with all the preparations the engineers are doing, so
hopefully we can have two very reliable races now with the same engine.
Q: What are your weather predictions? How much were you slightly
worried about rain in qualifying?
FM: I think everybody was a little bit worried but I just managed to
be one of the first cars to go out just to try to at least make a lap in
case something really different happens and the rain comes. At least you
have a lap and you can jump to the next qualifying. But at the end of
the day the rain didn’t come, although at the end of Q3 we had a
couple of drops but it didn’t affect the track, so it was no problem
at all.
Q: What are your weather predictions and how much were you worried
about rain in qualifying?
FM: I think everybody was a bit worried but we just managed to be
one of the first cars to go out, just to try to at least make a lap if
something really different happened, if the rain came, so at least you
would have a lap and maybe you can jump to the next qualifying. At the
end of the day, the rain didn’t come. At the end of Q3 we had a couple
of drops but it didn’t affect the track, so it was no problem at all.
Q: Also on the front row, Kimi Räikkönen, winner in 2003 here. At
least it must be very encouraging to be on the front row after the
Australian problems.
KR: Yeah, for sure, I think so for the whole team. We’ve been
working hard and we’ve got one and two, so it couldn’t have gone
better. For sure, I would rather have been in first place but I
couldn’t get the tyres working as well as in the second qualifying. I
think we still have a strong position for the race, so we will see what
we can do.
Q: Who do you prefer to race, your team-mate or someone from another
team?
KR: It doesn’t really matter. We know, between us, when we are
going to stop, so in that way it’s an easier thing, but in the end you
need to beat everybody to win the race, that’s our aim, and hopefully
we can have a strong race as a team.
Q: Are we going to see a different type of race to Australia, was
that a bit of a one-off, all that incident?
KR: I don’t know. We will see tomorrow. If it’s raining, it can
be very tricky here, so anything can happen in a race. If it’s normal
conditions, probably not as many mistakes and people going off. I’m
expecting a few more people to finish the race.
Q: Heikki, a bit of a surprise to out-qualify your team-mate?
HK: Yeah, of course Lewis is a strong driver and it’s always
difficult to beat him, but honestly, all weekend I’ve been fairly
happy with my car since the first practice sessions on Friday. Yesterday
I was feeling comfortable and we’ve been going in the right direction
little by little all the time. The qualifying session was fairly
straightforward for me, nothing special, but they were all clean laps
and I managed to… probably the best lap was the last Q3 lap with more
fuel in the car, so I think we’re in a good position. Of course
Ferrari seems to be very strong but we are right behind them and the
race is long, so we can look forward to a good race tomorrow.
Q: Interesting to see you trying both types of tyre in Q3. What was
the thinking behind that?
HK: We were not entirely sure which one was going to be the better
one, so that’s the reason behind it really.
Q: Does that mean you’re not entirely sure for the race either?
HK: Now I am sure, yeah.
Q: Last year most people were on the softer tyre.
HK: Yeah, I think it was more the one lap pace that we were not sure
of, seeing how the tyres were lasting throughout the lap, but to be
honest, in the longer run, we have a clearer picture, so it’s no
concern at all.
Q: What are your feelings about the weather tomorrow?
HK: Honestly, everybody has a different prediction and obviously
today we were a little bit concerned, just by looking at the sky because
in Q3, we thought it might start to rain, so we went early and I think
tomorrow the best we can do is look up to the sky, fifteen minutes
before the start and see what happens.
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