FIA Post-Race Press Conference – Japan at LinesMaker

FIA Post-Race Press Conference – Japan

Dri­vers: 1 – Jen­son But­ton (McLaren); 2 – Fer­nando Alonso (Fer­rari); 3 – Sebas­t­ian Vet­tel (Red Bull)

Q: Jen­son, com­ing into this week­end you said all you wanted from the rest of the sea­son was to take another Grand Prix vic­tory. Job done. Congratulations.Jenson But­ton: Thank you very much. I think this cir­cuit is very spe­cial to all of us. We love this place, so to get a vic­tory here in front of such an amaz­ing Japan­ese crowd really does mean a lot. I need to say a big thanks to the team for the improve­ments we have had over the last few races and today they have been impec­ca­ble. Con­grat­u­la­tions to them and con­grat­u­la­tions to the fans. I think we put on a good show for them today.

Q: Fer­nando, a bril­liant podium, a great strate­gic race and a fab­u­lous bat­tle with Sebas­t­ian. It looked like a lot of fun.Fernando Alonso: Yeah, first of all, con­grat­u­la­tions to Sebas­t­ian. World Cham­pion in this race. It was a fun race. From the start we didn’t over­take any car but then the strat­egy was quite impor­tant, with a lot of tyre degra­da­tion, so we picked the right moment to stop and we had the pace today to fight with McLaren and Red Bull and finally, a fan­tas­tic podium. I think it is a good thing for the team after dif­fi­cult races where we were not so com­pet­i­tive that we came back to a good level here, and this podium means a lot for the team, a lot of moti­va­tion for the remain­ing races of this year and, for sure, a big boost for next year’s motivation.

Q: Sebas­t­ian, prob­a­bly not the result you were hop­ing for today but you came into this week­end need­ing one point and with a podium you have done it.Sebastian Vet­tel: Yes, it is dif­fi­cult to know where to start. Such a long year. We had a fan­tas­tic year. The good thing is it is not over yet. Today’s race was not so easy. I think we weren’t that quick on the soft tyres as we hoped to be and then it was dif­fi­cult. We lost two posi­tions. In the end, I think we had a very good car. It was dif­fi­cult to get past Fer­nando. I think I got my move of the year in Monza, so I don’t think he is let­ting me through this way twice. But phe­nom­e­nal, strong result again today. To win the cham­pi­onship here is fan­tas­tic. There are so many things you want to say at this moment but it’s hard to remem­ber all of them. I am just so thank­ful to every­one in the team. We have got so many peo­ple here at the track but also at Mil­ton Keynes work­ing day in day out. Not only Fri­day, Sat­ur­day, Sun­day, but also Mon­day to Fri­day, every day, push­ing hard to build those two cars and to fight for a lot of points and to fight for the cham­pi­onship. We found our­selves in a very, very strong posi­tion and it is great to achieve the goal we set our­selves going into this year already now. There are so many peo­ple it is hard to name them all to thank, but I think one per­son that really stands out this year is the per­son I spend most of my time with dur­ing the year. It’s my trainer Tommi Par­makoski. Also, regards to his fam­ily. I think back in Fin­land they have a great son with a great heart. He was the one not allow­ing me at any stage this year to lose the grip, start to fly, or think about things that are not in our con­trol. Con­grat­u­la­tions to Jen­son, con­grat­u­la­tions to Fer­nando. I think today we saw that it is extremely tight. Tighter than maybe some­times it looked this year. In the end, the top four cars were within not even 10 sec­onds and it is great to know that it is so tight but that we can come so strong out of it. They also know how to drive as well and are doing a fan­tas­tic job, but I think this year we have always been just this one step ahead. It is down to peo­ple like Tommi and other indi­vid­u­als, every sin­gle one is push­ing more than 100 per cent to do his job and keeps us on the right track. There is no secret. It is step-by-step. I think in a way the hard­est thing is after win­ning last year… we won the cham­pi­onship it was so close and we were so excited. To go out and do it again, even though you know how to do it, it doesn’t allow you to for­get all these lit­tle steps and as I said I could not have done this alone. I needed all the sup­port I could get from the team, from Mark [Web­ber], from every­one out­side the team work­ing for me, so it is just as con­fus­ing as the first one I have to say. It is hard to find the right words.

Q: Jen­son, every­one knows the affin­ity you have with Japan and its peo­ple. What’s it like to win here on this incred­i­ble cir­cuit with these fab­u­lous fans and how much moti­va­tion does that give you going into the last few races of the year?JB: It gives us, as a team, a lot of moti­va­tion. It is good, as Sebas­t­ian said, to see three dif­fer­ent cars within, I think, about three sec­onds. It shows how com­pet­i­tive For­mula One is at the moment. There are a lot of fans here. They are so sup­port­ive of the sport that we are in and I think we have all tried to do a lit­tle bit to help them, to plant a good mem­ory in their mind as this has been a tough year for Japan. This is a spe­cial race and a very spe­cial crowd. I think we need to thank them for sup­port­ing us. But, lastly, it should be Seb that we talk about, as this guy has done a great job this year. How­ever hard we have tried we haven’t been able to touch him in a lot of races so congratulations.

Q: Jen­son, a great race, and in the dry. Does that give you some satisfaction?JB: I can’t believe you just said that! I have won other races in the dry! No, it was a great race. The start was very good, maybe too good, and I ended up on the grass, which lost me a bit of time. Very inter­est­ing race as tyre wear was mas­sive. It was a very excit­ing race and it wasn’t just down to being quick over one lap. You really had to think through the race. I really enjoyed it out there. It is always a very spe­cial place to race, Suzuka, a fast, flow­ing cir­cuit and it is unfor­giv­ing, so one lit­tle mis­take and it is game over. This is one of the most per­fect cir­cuits in grand prix rac­ing and also with one of the most spe­cial crowds as well. The Japan­ese peo­ple here have been so sup­port­ive of us and it is great to see so many fans here sup­port­ing this week­end and hope­fully we have planted a small, good mem­ory in their heads as it has been a very dif­fi­cult year for them. To get the win here is one of my most spe­cial vic­to­ries as I don’t think I have ever won a race on such a high-speed cir­cuit, so it means a lot to me.

Q: Going down into the first cor­ner, over the radio, you thought maybe Sebas­t­ian should have had a penalty for that.JB: Yeah, I did at the time. I am not going to lie. From my point of view I felt that he kept com­ing when I wasn’t along­side him but I had half my car up the inside. I thought he was com­ing across more than I expected and didn’t give me any room and I was on the grass but I am sure when I watch it back on TV, or maybe when I watch it back on TV, I will have a dif­fer­ent opin­ion. But at that moment in time, yes, I felt that it was a lit­tle bit more than was needed. But it was obvi­ously fair, as the stew­ards said it was fair, so that’s it. Some­times, when you get a good start and the guy in front doesn’t get such a good start these sort of things hap­pen. If we all get off the line at the same speed it is not nor­mally an issue. We will put that behind us. But a great week­end. I felt very strong in the car all week­end and this is promis­ing for the next four races. I know Seb has wrapped it up today, which is pretty impres­sive with so many races to go, but there are still a few races left and there is a lot of fight­ing to be done and a lot of wins to fight for, which I am very excited about.

Q: We saw the pair of them catch­ing you in the final moments, but then you popped in the fastest lap. Were you just con­serv­ing tyres? What was going on?JB: Well, I have been watch­ing Seb drive all year and I have decided that is the way to go rac­ing. Just cruise it and stick in a fast lap. That’s what he seems to do at the end of the race, so I thought I would give it a go and it worked pretty well, so it was good.

Q: But were you con­serv­ing tyres or were you in trou­ble there?JB: I was look­ing after tyres, also look­ing after a bit of fuel, so it wasn’t the eas­i­est few laps. The last five laps weren’t the most enjoy­able, I must admit, but we got it home. The car has been great around here. The Red Bulls are always so strong on these fast cir­cuits, espe­cially with the change of direc­tion, so for us to win here really does mean a lot for us, as we have been fight­ing this for two years now. It is good to be up there with the Red Bulls. In a way, it is nice that the Fer­rari is up there as well. A three-way bat­tle at the end, four sec­onds between us or less, this is what rac­ing is all about and hope­fully it will be the same for the next few races.

Q: Fer­nando, among the eupho­ria of the win­ner and the new World Cham­pion, that was a great race for Fer­rari as well?FA: Yeah, I think it is a good race, a good week­end in gen­eral for us. Trouble-free in prac­tice and then a good qual­i­fy­ing per­for­mance, fourth and fifth, so in the top five and both Fer­raris in front of Web­ber, so in gen­eral quite com­pet­i­tive here, the car. At the end, with a per­fect race, good start, good strat­egy, good pit-stops, and a good pace through­out the race sec­ond feels much, much bet­ter than expected prob­a­bly before the start at three o’clock. It is a good result and gives us some extra moti­va­tion for the remain­ing races know­ing that it is going to be tough as the updates on the car will be min­i­mal but in some races, some cir­cuits, we are still com­pet­i­tive, so why not fight for vic­tory in one of the remain­ing races.

Q: And what about those last few laps with Sebas­t­ian right behind you and Jen­son just ahead?FA: First, with Sebas­t­ian it was dif­fi­cult to keep him behind as at that part of the race he was quicker than us. I tried to defend the posi­tion in brak­ing for the last cor­ners and into the first cor­ner as well, where the DRS was active. After we had done this job we saw we were catch­ing a lit­tle bit Jen­son, so we tried in the last cou­ple of laps but, as we saw later on, Jen­son was tak­ing care about tyres, about his car, so it was impos­si­ble to fight for vic­tory this time. Also, we start fifth, so when you start fifth you have to recover always all through the race and you arrive two sec­onds behind the leader. If you start sec­ond or third that gap is already done maybe 10 laps before the end.

Q: Sebas­t­ian, was your approach any dif­fer­ent today? This was one of your more dif­fi­cult races; you saw two dri­vers come out ahead of you after pit stops which hasn’t happened.SV: No, which I didn’t enjoy. I think we were a lit­tle bit too weak today on the option tyre, against those two guys at the end of the stints. I think in com­par­i­son to Lewis – I don’t know what was hap­pen­ing to the end of his race – but in the first stint we were able to pull away. Then obvi­ously I got informed that Jen­son passed him – Jen­son was seven, eight tenths quicker at that stage, which clearly is not because he found a short cut all of a sud­den but he took care of his tyres bet­ter than the rest and is able to push harder at the end of the stints, and any time on the soft tyre, we had to come in quite early. On the hard tyre, I felt much much bet­ter but as you said, I came out behind Fer­nando, lost a lit­tle bit of time to the Force India when I tried to get past, which didn’t work straight away and then I was stick­ing to Fer­nando quite well until the Vir­gin… I don’t know, maybe he should use both of his mir­rors, it was a bit dan­ger­ous. Fer­nando was right behind him, he pulled to the right, let him by, before tak­ing the cor­ner before turn eight and I knew that I wouldn’t take any stu­pid risks but I didn’t expect him to go back on line but he did so I lost quite a lot. I lost the con­nec­tion which is obvi­ously impor­tant. You get some lap time for free if you’re always behind because you are in the DRS zone so it’s easy to catch up a lit­tle bit on the straight. Unfor­tu­nately I was never really close enough to pass Fer­nando. Their straight­line speed was quite good, which we already knew on Friday.

It was a fun race though, and espe­cially see­ing as we were clos­ing in on Jen­son, I thought here you go, now you see how it feels when the guys are catch­ing up at the end of the race. It’s not the most com­fort­able feel­ing. But obvi­ously he had quite a bit in hand and he was able to react three laps to the end. I think this race has been a lit­tle bit the story of the year, even though some­times the results look pretty clear. You see that in the races the cars are pretty close to each other. Fer­rari played a major role today with Fer­nando, they looked much bet­ter than what peo­ple expected. It was a fun race. Obvi­ously I would have loved to sit in the mid­dle which, to answer your ques­tion, was the tar­get going into the race. I wasn’t tar­get­ing one point. If we tar­geted one point, I think the race would have been a bit dif­fer­ent, but we tar­geted to do our opti­mum, which in a way today was third place, and that’s what we got.

But to win the cham­pi­onship here is pretty spe­cial and a bit funny at the same time, because it’s as con­fus­ing as the first one. All of sud­den, you’re sup­posed to… yep, that’s the moment, now enjoy. I think it will surely take a lit­tle bit of time but the sea­son has been fan­tas­tic. I think with a less dom­i­nant car than last year we were able to do a very, very good job. We are very strong as a team. Every time it mat­tered, we made very few mis­takes, espe­cially at those times when it was crit­i­cal, we were there, we were per­form­ing. I think every­one work­ing for Red Bull Rac­ing can be very proud today. Renault has done a fan­tas­tic job; very often they get for­got­ten. We have had no prob­lems with the engine at all. They were send­ing a lot of sup­port all the time, push­ing very hard in Viry, back in France, close to Paris. Obvi­ously this year I think it has been more about engines than in any other year, not maybe in a per­for­mance per­spec­tive as in raw power but play­ing around with engine modes. We had a lot of dis­cus­sion mid­way through the sea­son, exhaust blow­ing etc, and I think Renault has pushed very hard and a lot of our per­for­mance is down to them. It’s hard to name one indi­vid­ual. In the end, I think the secret, if there was one this year, is that we could trust, one hun­dred per­cent, the guy next to us and that’s for the whole team. I think what we have achieved so far in Red Bull Rac­ing is just incred­i­ble and we obvi­ously hope to enjoy the rest of the year. The tar­get for the next race will be exactly the same as this race and the last race, but also make sure that we are fight­ing those guys in the future.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Livio Oric­chio – O Estado de Sao Paulo) Sebas­t­ian, could you describe your manoeu­vre at the start of the race? Jen­son said that it was not so fair.SV: I just spoke to him. He expressed his feel­ings. Ini­tially I wasn’t sure where he was, I didn’t really see him. I thought he was either on the right or he was far away on the left. I saw Lewis and I thought I had a good start and kept mov­ing to the right, look­ing for him. By the time I saw him, I realised that maybe I was a lit­tle bit too far to the right and then he was back­ing off. Obvi­ously no inten­tion to put him in any dan­ger but I think we can run with two wheels on the grass, can’t we Fernando?JB: Did you think I was Fernando?SV: No, no, I said we can race with two wheels on the grass, and then I said Fer­nando. Obvi­ously, as I said, I didn’t want to put him in dan­ger but I think we have to race each other hard and I thought it was a shame… at the end, I thought we were all get­ting together again and maybe have another fight. For a moment, I was think­ing that maybe the vic­tory was not out of my hands, which it looked like going into the last stint, but yeah, it was close. It would have been fun if it had con­tin­ued for another five or ten laps.JB: I prob­a­bly would have strug­gled with another five laps.SV: That’s why!

Q: (Joris Fior­iti – Agence France Presse) Jen­son, I may have been mis­taken, but when I saw you on the podium you were not really over­whelmed with joy. I thought that you were at the same time happy to win, but very dis­ap­pointed to lose the title. Did I imag­ine that or is that the way you feel?JB: I was really sur­prised to lose the title today, yeah! I think I had given up on that quite a long time ago. I was very happy on the podium, maybe just the way I express my feel­ings isn’t as obvi­ous as maybe I think.SV: Maybe you were still exhausted, you had to run down from the pit lane.JB: I had to run the whole pit lane. For some rea­son, I seem to do that quite a lot: park­ing in the wrong place and run­ning down. I’ve never realised how uphill the pit lane is as well. Amaz­ing. But no, I was very happy, ecsta­tic, this is a very spe­cial race to win, as Seb knows for the last cou­ple of years, not just because of the lay­out but because of the his­tory here and also, as I said before, the crowd here. So a very spe­cial vic­tory; it’s obvi­ously not as big as Seb win­ning the World Cham­pi­onship today but win­ning a race like this does take a lit­tle bit of time to sink in. I remem­ber when I won the World Cham­pi­onship, imme­di­ately it was a strange feel­ing, it was like: what am I sup­posed to feel right now? And it takes a lit­tle bit of time. It nor­mally comes when you’re on your own and you can really think about what you have achieved. I’m sure Seb’s going to look for­ward to that tonight or about five or six in the morning.SV: Oh no. Afternoon.

Q: (Fred­eric Fer­ret – L’Equipe) Fer­nando, now Seb is the youngest two time World Cham­pion; you’ve lost that title. What does it mean to you now?FA: Really noth­ing spe­cial. I think now we will see who is the youngest three time World Champion.JB: I’m feel­ing the odd one out here, I’m feel­ing uncomfortable.SV: Did you notice that Michael is the youngest seven time World Cham­pion – ever!JB: Really? Wow. Is he? That sur­prises me. He’s also the old­est rac­ing dri­ver in F1.SV: No. No. Not.

Q: (Paolo Ian­ieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) One year later, Sebas­t­ian, what’s going through your head? Last year was per­haps a sur­prise at that last race; is it any dif­fer­ent this year?SV: Every year… I think every race is dif­fer­ent. I wouldn’t say last year was a sur­prise. That’s what we were fight­ing for and even if the odds weren’t look­ing too good, we kept believ­ing. Even the year before I remem­ber very, very well the moment in Brazil, prob­a­bly as well as Jen­son does. It’s not a nice feel­ing, know­ing that you lose the title, so but it’s always these impor­tant moments that you remem­ber, the good and the bad and in par­tic­u­lar the bad because I think you are able to learn so much from the times that you are being beaten in a way. But the funny thing this year is that next week there is the next race, so that’s a bit dif­fi­cult to under­stand. I think all year we tried very, very hard to keep our feet on the ground and always tried to focus on the next step, on the next race which, I think, in the end, if there was any, was one of the secrets. Last year, after the che­quered flag it was all over, there was a long period of time when you weren’t in the car again etc, so it’s a bit dif­fer­ent this year, and it makes it even more spe­cial in a way. So I’m very much look­ing for­ward to the rest of the sea­son. We have a great car, a great team, and obvi­ously we use every­thing we have to make the next step and do well or per­form well at the next race. It does take some time to under­stand and I think those quiet moments that I will have, at some point, either tonight, tomor­row or the next week or weeks, for myself, but also with peo­ple who are very close to me, to take time and let things sink in a lit­tle bit.

Q: (Sarah Holt – BBC Sport) Seb, you’ve almost answered my ques­tion because I was going to say it’s been a long time since we’ve had the cham­pi­onship won with four races left to go. Do you think…SV: It’s prob­a­bly Michael, I think he won half of his championships…JB: Bloody Germans!SV: What exactly do you mean?

Q: (Sarah Holt – BBC Sport) Do you think in some ways we should read that your cham­pi­onship this year was eas­ier than it was last year, and for all three of you, how are going to race now that the cham­pi­onship has been won? Will it be free-er, how is your atti­tude dif­fer­ent now?SV: I think that it’s very likely for peo­ple to draw the wrong con­clu­sion, to say that we had a very easy run this year. Things like this, they hap­pen for a rea­son; I strongly believe that, not because things were easy for us. We had a very, very good car, no doubt, but we had an even stronger team, and as I said, a cou­ple of times already, I think the car this year was less dom­i­nant than the car last year. Last year we had so many races where some­times you may say we were unlucky but we made stu­pid mis­takes as well. We did things which cost us a lot of time and cost us a lot of points in the end. A cham­pi­onship is not one race, it’s a lot of races pulled together and I think that’s where the dif­fer­ence came from this year. Obvi­ously, after a very good start to the sea­son, if you are on a good run, and you have this cer­tain momen­tum and you’re able to keep that momen­tum, by not allow­ing your­self to start to fly or think too far ahead, really just stay present and just stay at that moment and focus race by race, and not think­ing any­thing else. If you are able to keep that momen­tum that way, I think it makes you very strong and if you are on that sort of wave, then things might come a bit eas­ier to you but it doesn’t mean that they are easy. So all in all, I think there was a lot to learn again this year, and hope­fully that made us stronger for the remain­der of the sea­son, in which I think the approach will be very sim­i­lar. Obvi­ously a lot of the pres­sure has fallen away but nonethe­less, there is a lot of pres­sure on us, because nat­u­rally we want to win, we want to beat those guys. We didn’t do so today so obvi­ously we are over the moon to wrap up the cham­pi­onship today but we didn’t win today, so we’ve got another chance in the next races and we want to use those chances. It’s about using the oppor­tu­ni­ties you have, rather than see­ing what could go wrong.JB: Hope­fully (we will race) exactly the same.SV: So you’re always going to park just after the che­quered flag?JB: Yeah. I might not lift off next time you pull across at the start though.SV: That means I’m on pole, so that’s good.

Q: (Car­los Miguel – La Gac­eta) Fer­nando, dur­ing the race, in the car, did you really believe you could win, and is it really pos­si­ble to fin­ish sec­ond in the championship?FA: In the race, I never thought about vic­tory, if I’m com­pletely hon­est with you. I only had a small pos­si­bil­ity, maybe five or six laps from the end, when Jen­son was drop­ping back a lit­tle bit and we closed the gap. Then I thought maybe if we were close enough maybe two laps or one lap from the end I could use the DRS and maybe have a chance, but I knew that it was dif­fi­cult, but dur­ing the race, no, no time to think.

And sec­ond place in the cham­pi­onship. It’s nice to be sec­ond, bet­ter than fourth or fifth, but as I said on Thurs­day, I pre­fer a win and fin­ish fifth in the cham­pi­onship than fin­ish in sec­ond not win­ning one of the remain­ing races. Hope­fully we can do one of those two things, either sec­ond or win a race but prob­a­bly it will be dif­fi­cult to win a race and will be dif­fi­cult to be sec­ond so that’s the worst com­bi­na­tion, but it’s very pos­si­ble as well.

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