Canadian GP: Sunday Press Conference
1. Lewis HAMILTON (McLaren), 1h33m53.456s
2. Jenson BUTTON (McLaren), 1h33m55.710s
3. Fernando ALONSO (Ferrari), 1h34m02.670s
TV UNILATERALS
Q: Lewis, back to back wins. You are leading the championship and I guess the love affair with Canada continues?
Lewis HAMILTON: It has been a tremendous weekend. It has been fantastic. I got here Wednesday and things have just gone so well throughout the weekend. I have had incredible support from the fans. There are so many Brits out here which is great to see and the team did an exceptional job. The race was one of the toughest races so far but that's what you want to have the hardest fight. These guys did an incredible job. Jenson did a great job and another one-two for us, so I am very happy and proud of the team.
Q: Jenson, your race was really about being patient and taking your opportunities when they came including the pass on Fernando.
Jenson BUTTON: It is a very difficult race, this type of race, as the tires are so important. You are never sure if you are looking after the tires enough or if you are pushing enough. I had (Sebastian) Vettel pushing me for about 20 laps, so close to me when I was trying to look after the tires. I hit some traffic and I was able to pull a gap on him and then reel in these two. But a great race, a really enjoyable race. It was not just a race about being flat every lap. You had to really think about every situation. If you watch the race certain people were very quick at certain parts of the race. That made it very exciting and it is great to be back up here again. Another one-two for the team. Another one to this guy. I'd rather it was the other way around but I must say the team did a great job this weekend. Lewis put in a phenomenal lap yesterday which I couldn't touch. But it is great to be here.
Q: Fernando, some great battles with both these guys but your face suggests that you think you should have won today.
Fernando ALONSO: I think it was a good day for us. The gap was very competitive here in Canada. We really had a good opportunity to win today. First I fight with Lewis. We overtook thanks to a fantastic pit stop from our guys in the pit lane and then we lost the position with some traffic and then we lost the position with traffic again with a Hispania in front in the last laps of the race with Jenson. In both of those cases we lost 10 points from 25 to 15 but we are still there in the championship. It was a great recovery from the team. We were, I think, 50 seconds behind McLaren in Turkey in P8 and we fight for the win here in Canada, so we are moving in the right direction and I think we are back in the fight.
Q: Lewis, it was a very intense race. Tell us about that fight with Fernando. There were two parts to it coming out of the pit lane and also later.
Hamilton: Well, I think I came in quite bit ahead of him but clearly we did not have the best pit stop and he was able to… I saw him being released and as I pulled away he was in my blind spot. I didn't even know he was there but I tried to make sure I had enough space. All of a sudden he was right there with me and we raced all the way down to the first corner and he had the inside and got ahead. But after that he had great pace and put up a really good fight and the traffic was very difficult today. That was really the opportunity for all of us today through traffic to get past the guy in front and I capitalized on that, so fair play to them.
Q: Jenson, can you analyze for us what was going on with the tires today as you had to stop very early on and it seemed everybody was all over the place?
Button: The first couple of laps I was trying to nurse my tires. I damaged the rears very quickly. I had a mark on the prime tires as I was pushing very hard. You do everything. You try and knock the div, you take out front wing but it was still not enough, so on the softer tire I had to pit very early before these guys. But it actually helped me. It moved me closer to the battle in the front. Then I put on the harder tire and everything was working really well but still you had to look after that tire as it was easy to grain. You could see the cars around you when the tire was working for them and when it wasn't. It was a fun race and the traffic played a big part as Lewis and Fernando have already said. The problem was we were coming up on cars that were fighting for points. One guy makes a mistake in front and the guy behind wants to challenge him even though there was a blue flag for us, so it was a tough race and fighting through the traffic was important.
Q: Fernando, you and Lewis have got quite a history. Tell us about what was going on in your mind when you were coming out side-by-side in the pit lane.
Alonso: Well, I think it was a very early part of the race, lap nine or something like that so there was still a long way to go. I think it was a better fight on lap 30 or something like that when we were approaching the second stop. We were really close and we had some good fight and l think it is a very good feeling for me to come back now in a position to win the race or be here on the podium after some disappointing races like Turkey.
Q: Lewis, finally to you. A tactical victory also over the Red Bulls. Just sum up where you and the team are right now.
Hamilton: I think we are clearly doing everything we can to close the gap to them. I think perhaps at other circuits where the downforce is a little higher, maybe the gap will be…. maybe they will still be a little bit ahead but we are continuously improving. The guys back at the factory are doing a phenomenal job, so I have no doubts that we can close that gap and again pull ahead. But clearly on the race weekends we are doing a better job, both of us and the team, so hopefully we can continue with that. This is a special day for me as I won my first grand prix and to come back and repeat that after three years is a real pleasure.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Lewis, as you were saying an intense race. Something seemed to be happening to you all the way through. Either you were pushing somebody or somebody was pushing you.
Hamilton: Yeah, it was an interesting race actually. Like Jenson was saying it was difficult to know how much to save your tires and how much to push, how much longer you had to go and how fast the guy behind you was and whether they were pushing or saving fuel or whatever. It was very, very challenging. It was the ultimate challenge for me at least of the whole year so far and I was really just trying to maintain the correct balance with the different switches that we have. Also again through traffic without losing too much time. Clearly Fernando could see when I was catching traffic and he would close the gap all of a sudden, so it showed he had great pace and it was then trying to get through the traffic without allowing him to pass. It was very, very difficult today. I would say the traffic was almost as bad as Monaco. It was very tricky but we managed to deal with it and it was a tremendous job from myself and Jenson and another one-two. The third one this year I think and the team truly deserved it as I think they have done a great job.
Q: Was the strategy fairly clear right from the start, especially given there wasn't a safety car?
Hamilton: That was a bit of a surprise, no safety car. The first time for a long time with no safety car at this track. But clearly everyone was safe which is a good thing. I think strategy-wise I have no idea whether the team had planned that. I just knuckled down, kept my head down and tried to pull the gap and do the best job I can. Unfortunately I did lose some time in the pit stop. That is another time where we have lost time in the pit stop and lost another position, so it is important that we try to go away and fix that. But the second pit stop was very good. They did a great job there, which enabled us to get ahead of Fernando.
Q: In the closing stages there how much fuel were you having to save? Others were, but the lap times looked good?
Hamilton: No, I had saved a lot of fuel in the mid part of the race and whilst I was behind Fernando, so I was able to push right to the end without any problems.
Q: Jenson, fifth early on and you came through and you were being pushed by Sebastian. What sort of race was it for you?
Button: It was a great race. It was a very enjoyable race. It is pretty tough racing around here anyway. It is very tough on tires. The start of the race for me I thought I would try and look after the option tire but it was very difficult with the Red Bulls shoved up behind me on prime tires. I pitted early as I just thought 'what's the point of staying on this tire.' I said to the team 'is there a clear space for me to drop in to' and they said 'yes,' so I pitted early. I came out and it was the right call as I had pulled on these guys a little bit. In that stint the car was working well again looking after the tires and the fuel. I thought the stint was going to be a lot longer than it was. It was basically just hanging onto these guys and waiting for the next pit stop and try to close in on them. It wasn't to be. I got traffic which slowed me down but then the last stint again just looking after the tires as it was such a long stint. It was longer than I expected. I had Sebastian up behind me pushing me very hard. I didn't want to go any quicker as I knew I would damage the tires and then when we hit traffic I made some good passes in traffic and pulled a five second gap on him and then I could focus my attention on catching up with Fernando. It was a really fun race. It is very difficult to judge when to push on the tires. I think I kicked in a little bit early on the last stint but it got me P2, so I am very happy with that. I have got to say a big thank you to the whole team. They have done a fabulous job this weekend. This guy was phenomenal in qualifying yesterday. I couldn't touch him, but it is good to finish close in the race and good to get some points.
Q: I believe you had a different race engineer for various reasons?
Button: Yeah, Jakob (Andreason) is poorly this weekend which is a shame. He did all the set-up work initially, so some of this result is down to him for sure. It is very difficult watching it on television. But today I had Phil Prew, who is the chief engineer who has worked with Lewis over the last few years. It was good and it is always interesting working with new people, new ideas, but I hope Jakob is well and hopefully we will see him very soon back at the circuit.
Q: What about the hotter temperatures? The track temperature was about ten degrees higher than we've seen so far this weekend.
Button: Yeah, the option was a little bit better than on Friday. The prime tire, again, was a touch better but still you couldn't drive flat out on the prime every lap. You got rear graining as you probably saw with quite a few cars out there. When I lapped Hulkenberg, his rear tires were shredded to bits. You still have to look after that. So it was an exciting race from that point of view. It was great to be up at the front, and watching the fight between these two was also fun and I think that for the viewers this was a great race. It comes down to the tires being a little bit more difficult than normal, different pit stop strategies and different tires to start the race and it's made for a hell of a race.
Q: Fernando, good to see you up there on the rostrum. Is this something that we can expect in the future or is this a one-off?
Alonso: I think we want to be World Champions, so hopefully we can be here more often.
Q: Have you taken a step forward this week?
Alonso: Definitely. In Turkey we were a little under-competitive there. We were too slow, just Q2 in Turkey and then in the race we were like 50 seconds behind the McLarens, so here we were fighting wheel to wheel, so it was definitely a step forward. The characteristics of the track seem to be OK for us as well, so we just took this opportunity to be on the podium, to be in front of Red Bull and fight for the win. So it's definitely been a very positive weekend for us and I am looking forward because I think this result will be a big motivation for the team.
Q: Tell us what happened when you lost second place to Jenson?
Alonso: I think we had some people in front of us; it was a Virgin I think and a Hispania. We thought the Hispania was letting us go in turn six but he didn't, he was just on a different racing line, so when he went back to the normal one we just had to brake and then he saw us a little bit late and we exited turn six very slowly; I exited turn six very slowly because of that and Jenson took the opportunity.
Q: And how were the tires?
Alonso: I think the tires were difficult for everybody. The soft tires were difficult at the beginning with a heavy car, just eight or nine laps and then you lose a lot of performance, so we all stopped around that lap and then with the prime, as Jenson said, it was not easy either, you just needed to take care of the rear graining but as it sometimes happens, our car is very gentle on tires, so for most of the race I was quite comfortable with the pace.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Ian Parkes – The Press Association) Lewis, I think you are the fifth or sixth different leader of the championship this year. Is that the way you feel it's going to go, ebb and flow all the way along to the end of the season?
Hamilton: You can see how tight this championship is; I don't know whether it's dependent on the new points scoring system but the field is so close and as I said, all the best drivers are in the top teams and they're all very, very competitive, so it's the ultimate challenge, I think, that I've experienced in Formula One, perhaps in Formula One history, maybe. There are so many of us up here, pushing right to the wire and I think inevitably that means that the championship will remain close. I'm sure there will be lots of ups and downs – hopefully not for us – during the rest of the season but let's hope that we're able to keep on the front line.
Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Fernando, don't you think that you compromised your win when you tried to pass Sebastien Buemi?
Alonso: I don't think so. Again, I think it was lap nine or lap wherever, I think I did the fastest lap after that lap when Lewis stopped and Buemi stopped as well. And on the following lap I lost two and a half seconds overtaking another car. I exited the pits half a second behind Lewis. Without that traffic again, I was in front, so it was a race decided by small details, so I think we made a perfect race, the team did a perfect race with the strategy, with pit stops, very, very quick pit stop, especially the first one to overtake the McLaren, so overall I think we did our job today, finishing on the podium, something which maybe not too many people were thinking before arriving in Canada, that we would be on the podium at the end of the race. So we proved again that we're strong and that there is a lot more to come in the second part of the championship. So we're quite optimistic.
Q: (Sudhir Chandran – Checkered Flag, India) Lewis and Jenson, do you think this one-two here will have helped appease the English fans out there who were disappointed with your (World Cup) draw with the US yesterday?
Hamilton: I think so. I think it's early stages of the World Cup, so I don't think there will be any disappointment. Our country is always in full support. Of course they are optimistic for the next games. We're just trying to do our job over here and they're doing their job as well.
Button: Yeah. Yesterday was a reasonable day for us, could have been worse, could have been better. It's only the start, I'm sure. We're all backing the boys and hopefully the next couple of games are good also. For us, this weekend has been a great result as it was two weeks ago. We hope to continue sort of in the same style as here.
Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport) Was it a key of the race that the harder tire gave more problems than expected because the Red Bulls came on in laps 13 and 14 which nobody expected?
Button: Yeah, maybe they didn't expect to have any issues at the start of the race. When Webber came past me he was flat out and maybe they just didn't expect to have issues and that played into our hands, I guess, but even on Friday we were struggling with graining on the prime tire, so I think we had a good understanding of what would happen with it.
Q: (Jeff Pappone – The Globe and Mail) Yesterday, after qualifying, most people thought that McLaren had taken a gamble on starting on the option tire, that you were expecting a safety car; it never came and yet your strategy worked out perfectly. Was that a bit of a surprise or do you really think that that was the right way to go yesterday?
Hamilton: Clearly it was the right way to go. It was a choice for us to use the softer tire and we felt comfortable with the fact that we might have to stop within the first ten laps. We knew it might even be lap five. I'm not sure what lap I stopped on but we anticipated that and we knew that we would be fast again once we got on the prime. We didn't know how long the prime would last but fortunately for us, whilst we did the prime runs, others like the Red Bulls had to do an option stop at some stage. Neither of us really had an advantage at all. It just promoted some good racing, I think.
Button: Our team actually thought that Red Bull took the gamble yesterday, not us. Depends which way you look at it, I suppose.
Q: (Carlos Miquel – Diario AS) Fernando, do you think that without the traffic problems you would have had the pace to fight with the McLarens, and secondly, your thoughts on the Valencia Grand Prix in front of your home crowd?
Alonso: I think everybody saw that we had the pace to win. We've been competitive all weekend and very competitive in the race – definitely. But traffic sometimes helped us a lot in the first races. I remember Australia; I started last after the incident in the first corner. Most of the cars were in traffic throughout the race and I was alone, so the traffic can sometimes help you and sometimes it hurts you. At the end of the championship, I think everything is balanced.
As for Valencia, obviously it's the second home race for me after Barcelona, so I'm hoping to do well there, hoping to be on the podium. I've never been on the podium in Valencia, so it will be a nice feeling in front of the crowd.
Q: (Bill Beacon – The Canadian Press) Lewis, you've won two out of three times here in Montreal. Is there something about the race or this track that suits you particularly, and also do you feel that momentum has shifted in the championship with you winning two in a row now?
Hamilton: I think inevitably we have gained momentum for both of us, myself and Jenson, and in our performance and also obviously the results and we just need to continue with that. I don't know why I go well here but it's a great track, it's a fantastic city, great food, great people, amazing support. It's just overall – and the weather was great today as well. It was such a great turn-out. I think for me this is one of the best races of the whole season. I don't know why, again. I'm able to dial my car in, feel the car a little bit better here than in other places but we've got a long season ahead of us. There will be good races and bad races and I just hope there are more good ones than there are bad.
Q: (Livio Oricchio – O Estado de Sao Paulo) To Lewis and Jenson, the Valencia circuit is also a street circuit and there are some similarities with this one here. Do you predict that you can maybe do a similar race there or will it be different?
Button: We hope so. It is a similar type of circuit, the asphalt is more abrasive than it is here, it's very smooth here. It's going to work the tires very differently. There are also some high speed corners in Valencia and there aren't here. So I'm sure we will be competitive, but I don't think you can forget about Red Bull, Ferrari and maybe Mercedes will have sorted themselves out a little bit by that point. So people are bringing new things to the circuit every race we go to, new parts and if you can't keep up with that, you drop behind. We've just got to hope that every race we go to we are developing and moving forward as much as if not more than everyone else. I'm looking forward – Valencia, I love the circuit, I didn't have a very good race there last year but it's a circuit I really enjoy driving and I think this car should work pretty well round there.
Hamilton: Valencia is a good track at least for me and the car seems to have gone very well there over the last couple of years, so I think our car should naturally be quite good there. As Jenson says, it's about understanding the tires there, we don't know what to expect but we will be going there with good momentum, hopefully good pace, good headset and hopefully we will be working on another one-two.
Q: (Daniel Bastien – FM 103.3) Lewis, considering what you said earlier, are you on the verge of buying an 'I love Montreal' T-shirt?
Hamilton: I think I should get one, maybe I will get one at the airport or something.
Button: I think they should give him one for free.