Italian GP - Post-race press conference - Pt.2

Drivers: Rubens Barrichello (Brawn GP), Jenson Button (Brawn GP) and Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari).

Questions from the floor.

Q: (Bob McKenzie - The Daily Express).
Jenson and Rubens, it looks like it's between you two now, the Red Bulls are so far back. Is it possible to continue to be friends and close team-mates, exchanging information when you've got four races to go and you need every point possible?

Jenson Button:
I don't know. I've put on a brave face lately but I absolutely hate this guy! He doesn't know his a*** from his elbow when it comes to racing cars! Is this more fun or...? No, we've got a good relationship and we've been team-mates for many years now. We're working together, we've had to pull our car to the front, we will see how it goes from here, but I think we're still going to be sharing information because there's always the possibility that the Red Bulls will be strong, you never know, and we might have some bad luck. But when we go on the circuit we're obviously fierce rivals. We're not going to give up until the end. I've obviously got the advantage of 14 points; it's got smaller at the last couple of races but Rubens is going to be a very tough rival for sure. He's skilled behind the wheel, as we've seen for many years and he's been able to show his talent. Yeah, it's going to be a tough few races, but it's an exciting challenge and as I said, it's nice to get this result today. I think we've shown that the Brawn car is good. A few people were questioning us a couple of races ago, but we've put a lot of effort into improving this car and it works at this downforce level which is great and I think when we go to Singapore we should have a strong car there as well. I would say that it's more than likely between us two but you can never count the Red Bulls out.

Rubens Barrichello:
If it is between us two, there's that old saying that you can only win in Formula One if you're tough. We're both nice guys, so this is the end of it! I think the best thing in life is respect. Obviously, when we're finding that the softer spring or the harder spring is the better thing for the car, you go to the other side of the garage and tell them that's what you have found. But it's an open book there. We have our meetings and we both go through the check list at the same time, live, so we both can hear. At the end of the day, the cars get very similar but that's fine, that's how it is.

Q: (Ian Parkes - The Press Association).
Jenson, Rubens, you've both been on the one-stop strategy today; can we put that down to the tactical genius that is Ross Brawn?

JB:
You can't put a race win down to one individual, I don't think. It's down to a group of individuals. We've got a lot of very talented people within our team that come up with the strategies. Ross Brawn is not the strategist in our team. We have certain people within the team that go through all the different scenarios throughout a race. They came up with the idea. A two-stop was still a possibility but we went for a one-stop because we just thought we had to get off the line first and lead into turn one otherwise it wouldn't have worked. The strategists talk to the engineers and talk to Ross and talk to the drivers and we decide whatever strategy to go for. Some of us disagree sometimes but we normally come up with the right option. Ross is a great individual, but he would say it's not down to one person, any race victory and one-two.

Q: (Ed Gorman - The Times).
Rubens, after all the frustrating years at Ferrari when you couldn't race your team-mate and we know what happened to you there, how much do you relish this opportunity to go head-to-head with your team-mate with the championship fully within your grasp and four races to go? What does that mean to you?

RB:
It means a lot. It means that I can show my true me. For many years people may ask why didn't he leave Ferrari before, because the car was the best available and I had to overcome all the problems and I had to overcome some World Champion called Michael (Schumacher) and he was great, he was great behind the wheel. Like I said before, I think that Michael might have had more skill than I had, but if you threw both of us into a goal with a tiger I might get out alive and I'm not so sure about him. That's life. You learn, you learn by your mistakes, you learn by everything. I didn't say this to criticise because I had fun, I really had fun at Ferrari. It made me a better driver as well, so everything that's happening now is because of all the times that I had in Formula One. The only thing that is more important than anything else is that you have to believe in yourself and that's the main thing, the whole thing in life itself. It's you waking up, thanking for the chance that you have and going for it. It's as good as that and as I said before, for me it's already a winning year. I went through the first of January, I went through the first of February, not knowing if I was going to be racing. I remember like it was yesterday. Jenson did the first four laps in the car and I went to ask him (about the car) and he said 'it's a great car.' And I will never forget that. And I said 'get the hell out of there, I want to drive!' It was a great feeling and it's a winning year already. It feels good to be challenging and fighting your team-mate.

Q: (Paulo Ianieri - La Gazzetta dello Sport).
Rubens, what do you have to do to try to catch him: it's four races, fourteen points which is quite a lot? What do you have to do and what kind of pressure do you think you can put on him?

RB:
Nothing more than I'm doing right now: pushing to the limit, taking everything you can, feeling good, feeling happy with the challenge and just going for it. Experience does help with all those years but as I've already said, if you have experience and no speed it means nothing. If you have speed, experience comes and it feels good. I don't think I have to do anything else. We are very competitive, both of us, and we just have to go for it.

Q: (Paulo Ianieri - La Gazzetta dello Sport).
And you Jenson, looking at the results from today, is it a big relief for you, just that you have to concentrate more on Rubens?

JB:
For sure - I don't know if easier is the right word, but concentrating on one person is... it has to be a little bit easier than three. You never know where the Red Bulls are going to be quick and where they are going to be uncompetitive. I thought they would be a lot more competitive here. But with Rubens we're driving the same car and today he was a little bit quicker, he won the race by about three seconds. I've got to stay as close to Rubens as possible, that's the way you should look at it but also I want to win races. I don't want to come here and just try and finish behind Rubens. So I will go to the next race hoping for a great result. I think that we have got some more improvements with the car and it should help us in Singapore. It's a circuit that I really enjoy driving. I had a good race there last year and I look for the same result as Rubens had this race.

Q: (Heikki Kulta -Turun Sanomat).
Kimi, you have had four successive podiums. Are you surprised by this consistent record?

Kimi Raikkonen:
A little bit, yes. But we've been chasing the car a bit since the last five races and it's been working well for us, we've been getting the best out of it and other people have got the most out of their cars and their package, so it has worked out very well for us. It's a big surprise to finish on the podium, but OK, here we were a bit lucky to finish on the podium. No matter how it comes you need to finish the race, so we will try again in the next races and try to keep third place in the Constructors' championship.

Q: (Michael Schmidt - Auto Motor und Sport).
Rubens, I guess you started the race on the harder tyre. Normally the Brawn was not the best car warming up the tyres, but you were the only one on the first lap who really did a good lap on the hard, all the others really suffered, so what is different now?

RB:
Well, I think the team made a great effort on the set-up to find where the problem was in that couple of races including Hungary where we struggled. It was a great effort from the mechanical and aerodynamic side and the car is better. Secondly, it was a good (tyre) choice because I had a great feeling with the tyres yesterday. I was surprised that we could qualify so well on the harder tyre. We were quite heavy at the start and I wanted the more consistent tyre. Having said that, I opened up a gap... it looked like I had the soft and Jenson had the hard because I opened up a gap and then he started to catch me up slightly. I lost a little bit of rear stability on the harder tyre towards the end of the run which was not something I was expecting. When I put on the softer tyre, the car felt good, felt really good, a bit of movement into Parabolica but the tyre felt very good, so I was keeping good pace and the car felt good.

Q: (Tom Cary - The Daily Telegraph).
Jenson, you came into the weekend bombarded with questions about your mental strength and under a lot of pressure. Do you feel that your performance here shows that you can cope with it and you've put those stories to bed now?

JB:
That's between you guys. The talk of pressure never came out of my mouth. I know I'm in a very good situation, I've driving the best car on the grid at the moment, and I've probably got one of the most competitive team-mates on the grid at the moment. So there are lots of positives and a couple of negatives there but why shouldn't I be positive? I've got a fourteen-point lead with four races to go. That's it really. I'm sure you're right that I have controlled the pressure that I've had for the last two or three races but those are your words, not mine.

Q: (Adam Hay-Nicholls - Metro).
Rubens, when you were up on the podium, it looked like you were firing arrows into the crowd. What was that about?

RB:
I invent all the time.

JB:
He's got two kids and watches a lot of weird films.

RB:
That's very much like it. Fernando was four yesterday, so that was for him.