TURKISH GP Post Race Podium Interviews Not Seen On TV *SPOILER*

Questions from the floor after TV broadcast interviews:

Q. (Ian Parkes – The Press Association) Lewis, you mentioned the tyre problems that you suffered this weekend. Just how much of a fear was it for you driving round today knowing that the tyre could have gone at any stage as it did in last year's race?

LH: For sure it was on my mind at some stages. I was having some vibrations and I wasn't sure whether that was the tyre or whether that was a flat spot that I possibly picked up earlier on. So for sure it was in the back of my mind. I was checking the tyre nearly every lap on the exit of turn eight to see if... last time it was on the exit of turn eight it delaminated and the tyre exploded, so I was just making sure I kept an eye on that, so I could report to the team as quickly as possible and possibly come in.

Fortunately the tyres were fine but no, it was all down to safety really, that was why we were forced into that because they didn't want to have another incident, a bit like the last race or like last year. There's nothing worse than having a tyre blow out at 200mph, so they tried to avoid that. Unfortunately, it put us on the back foot, as I said. Without a three stop perhaps we would have had a better chance of winning the race, but nevertheless, I'm very happy with second.

Q. (Bob McKenzie – The Daily Express) Lewis, did you say that you thought that that was the best race you've run and if so, what makes it that?

LH: It doesn't particularly matter whether you win or not, it's whether you drive at one hundred percent, it's whether you extract the most out of the car. It's one of those times when you end the race and you ask yourself and you ask the team, could we have done a better job?

And I strongly feel we couldn't have done a better job. The pit stops were almost perfect, if not perfect, and I think my in laps, my out laps, they were stronger than ever and I just feel my race pace is getting stronger and stronger over the year, at each race. We had a strong showing in Barcelona and even stronger here. And we overtook a Ferrari.

LH: Can I just go back to why I think it was my best race. Just another thing: my predicted race finish was fifth. It could have been a lot worst. If I had got a worse start and didn't get away in second, then I probably would have come sixth or even worse, so with a three stop strategy that no one else had, I think, I just feel we did a fantastic job to bring it back up.

Q. (Will Buxton – Australasian Motorsport News) A question for all three of you: you've pretty much all admitted that the hard tyre is the one you would have preferred to have been on all weekend for the race. With that in mind and looking at the final stage of the race – the only time you were on the same fuel weights – how much do you feel the teams are now more on an even playing field, given that your sector times were pretty much identical to each other for the last ten/fifteen laps?

LH: Coming into this weekend we knew that we had closed the gap, that we were going to be competitive and possibly be able to win the race. They still have a strong car but so do we, as you can see. The first two sectors were very strong. We need to figure out exactly how we can improve our last sectors because that's where we are losing. If we didn't have the problem in the last sector then we would be winning, so that's something that we need to fix.

FM: Well, I think we were very strong here during the first day, we were very strong yesterday during qualifying, seeing that we had more fuel than Lewis and similar fuel as Heikki. But I think in the race, it's difficult to measure. For sure, McLaren was very very strong here on the race pace, but we had a completely different choice of tyres, so maybe we need to wait and see when we have exactly similar conditions, run-by-run, plus they had a different strategy as well, so we need to wait and see, but for sure, they were very very competitive here.

KR: It's the same answer really. It's very difficult to say. Everybody did slightly different things, so you cannot really be a hundred per sure, but I still think that once we get everything running, we can win all the races, so every race we at least have a chance. For sure it's closer now than it was a few races ago but I still think we have a good car and a good package.

Q. (Juha Paatalo – Financial Times Germany) Kimi, this was certainly a weekend where the nine point lead that you had coming here helped you. What are your thoughts about the championship, still having a seven point lead after such a problematic weekend?

KR: Like I said before, this race is early in the season and it's good to have a little gap to the others but we already saw today – or this weekend – that if you cannot get everything out of the car then you are going to lose some points. We've lost a few points now but it doesn't change too much. I don't worry about it too much. We go race by race and try to win and try to gain the points on the others, but sometimes you need to be happy with what you get and today was one of those days, so this weekend I was never really where I wanted to be but six points is still good.

Q. (Juha Paatalo – Financial Times Germany) This one is for Felipe: this win has suddenly brought you back into the title race; what are your thoughts about the title right now?

FM: Well, I'm right in there in the fight. If you look at the past races, Kimi won one, I won the next one, Kimi won again, and I won this race. For sure it's always very tight, the competition is very high, but after some races I feel that I can be competitive everywhere and I'm just happy to reduce the gap a little bit, being similar to Lewis and just concentrate on the next races.

We know that sometimes you can win, sometimes you cannot win, but you need to score points like Kimi did today. It's important to be competitive and then in the last three races you're going to see who is going to have the greater chance to win but it's important to be consistent and trying to get a lot of points race-by-race, even if it's first or third or fifth, whatever.

Q. (Bob McKenzie – The Daily Express) Lewis, you said earlier that you could have won the race if you'd done a better job in qualifying, but isn't that being a bit hard on yourself, given the limitations and restrictions that Bridgestone put on you?

LH: Yeah, I'm always hard on myself. I sat down last night and I was ticked off yesterday, I wasn't particularly happy with the job I did and at the end of the day the team give me a car and I've got to go out and drive one hundred percent and I didn't extract one hundred percent from the car.

That's why I'm always hard on myself because we're top drivers, we should be able to do it. But it appears to be a lot harder for me or in our car to do a solid lap. It looks a lot easier for them, so that's something we need to keep pushing. Perhaps we've sacrificed a bit of qualifying pace for race pace, perhaps we need to work on bringing them both up.

Q. (Michael Schmidt – Auto Moto und Sport) Kimi, you lost two positions going into the first corner, was it not such a good start due to the line you had to start on or was there a technical problem?

KR: The inside line is never going to be as good as the clean side but also, when I was side-by-side with Heikki and then he was turning in and I needed to slow down because otherwise we would have hit hard, so both of us were pretty slow in the corner, so I think people came round the outside. I think Kubica or somebody else came and passed us. I lost some places there but it all started to go wrong at that point.

Q. (Will Buxton – Australasian Motorsport News) Lewis, going back to the question of tyres, obviously we've got two compounds running each weekend. Was the fear of delamination equal with both compounds of tyre and what does the team think it is that's been causing that fear of delamination over the Turkish weekend?

LH: It was with both sets of tyres but we're not sure of the reason. Basically we need to look into it more, but they've taken the tyres away and analysed them and saw there was some problem with the tyre, it was failing, or looking like it was going to be failing. Fortunately they made the right choice, it was the right choice at the beginning, and we made the best job that we could with them.

Q. (Livio Oricchio – O Estado do Sao Paulo) Kimi, after seeing Hamilton in front of you after the last pit stop, did you believe it was possible for you to overtake him?

KR: It's always difficult to overtake but we tried, we tried to push him but unfortunately we couldn't get close enough because we knew that we have good straight-line speed on the back straight but if you don't get close enough... I was always catching him but I was too far away, so there was nothing that we could do.