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

Questions from the floor

Q: (Mat Coch - pitpass.com)
Fernando, before Monza you rated your championship chances about fifty percent. How would you rate your chances now? Sebastian and Mark, how would you both consider your chances?

Fernando Alonso:
When I said fifty, it was yes or no, I can win or I cannot win. It depends on how things and how the races go. In fact if we are five drivers, we have around a twenty per cent chance each of us, maybe Mark a little bit more because he's in front. We saw now, in two races, I was very bad after Spa in terms of championship points, not any more for the title fight. People thought a very bad 2010 championship etc, a lot of mistakes and now, after two races I am second in the championship, eleven points behind Mark, I think. Anything can happen in these four races, any of us can win two or three consecutive races and put you in a very good position or you have one or two retirements and you are completely out of it, you are mathematically out of the championship. So we need to keep concentration, keep the focus and as I said, the chances for all of us are more or less the same. It will depend on how these four races go, hopefully with no mistakes, with very high concentration from all the team and hopefully we keep the same way and keep momentum in Japan as well.

Q: (Alvaro Faes - La Nueva Espana)
Fernando, is today the moment in the year that you are more convinced, more concerned that you can win the championship?

Fernando Alonso:
Well, having a championship that is ten months long, or nine months, doesn't happen in any other sport normally, even the football league is not that long. We are in a sport where you cannot be a hundred percent or you cannot be completely fit, focused, motivated one hundred percent all the races, every month, so we go up and down, this is normal for all the sports. We can say that now, in this part of the championship I'm at a peak, one hundred percent of motivation, concentration etc., so it's good to arrive now. Sometimes in the championship, in September, I was getting tired, all these long flights now, at the end of the championship, very stressed all championship long. This year it is different. It feels like the championship starts now, so I feel very happy to go to Japan straight away.

Q: (Michael Schmidt - Auto Motor und Sport)
Mark, when you had your battle with Lewis it seemed he had his nose a little bit ahead of you but do you think he gave you enough room, and were you concerned when the team told you there was a stewards' investigation?

Mark Webber:
Lewis was certainly a little bit ahead, yeah. As I said, it was probably similar to the last race with Felipe and Lewis. Felipe probably didn't really even know he was there because there was contact, Lewis was quite a long way back from behind and this can happen sometimes in open-wheel racing. We brake completely on the limit. For sure it was incredibly tight. We did not hit that hard but it was enough to nearly put both of us out of the race. Fortunately I continued, and that was it.

Q: (Flavio Vanetti - Corriere della Sera)
Mark, when you decided to change your tyres so early, was Hamilton your main target or did you imagine you could catch Fernando and Sebastian?

Mark Webber:
To be honest I was surprised that I was even going to get as far as Lewis, because I asked the team what was the gap to Jenson in front of Robert (Kubica), because I knew I would clear both Rubens and Robert because I could see them, but I couldn't see Jenson and I couldn't also see Robert's pit board to see how far Jenson was ahead of him, so I needed to get confirmation from the team because I was looking for the pit board to see how far ahead the other guys were. Then they said 'it's Lewis', so I thought 'OK, that's beautiful, third place, hopefully it can work well' and then I thought 'God, I'm losing so much time behind these guys, the leaders will be pulling away for sure'. I saw a little bit on the big screen that Fernando had a bit of a gap and then it was Seb and then I saw Lewis on his own, so I thought 'yeah, that's probably the maximum I'm going to get' which was third place out of the strategy and that worked very well.

Q: (Bob McKenzie - The Daily Express)
Mark, just to clear up, do you think Lewis was a bit ambitious at that point?

Mark Webber:
No, he had to have a go, he saw that it was very difficult for me to clear the Virgins. We know that with this regulation where we have backmarkers in the queue on a restart it's not easy for the guy in front, which was my case, to clear the backmarker. Lewis had a pretty good run on me, but that is the only corner on the track where stuff can happen. Fernando and I had contact there last year, where it was close to contact. When you're on a restart, when things are a little bit cold, it's the same for all of us. We know it's a key point in the race to get right and obviously neither of us wanted to give an inch and in this case it ended up in some contact.

Q: (Frederic Ferret - l'Equipe)
Fernando, how do you rate your Ferrari for the last four tracks and same question to the Red Bull drivers?

Fernando Alonso:
I think some of them will suit our car a little bit better, some of them a little bit better for McLaren or Red Bull but we need to get the maximum out of our car. We know that sometimes we will be on pole, sometimes we will be third but there's nothing we can do. We remain more or less confident after the Spa performance and the pace in the race here and qualifying yesterday, so we don't have any particular worries at any of the tracks but we also know that there will be some weekends which will be very difficult for us with Red Bull very strong or McLaren, so we need to really keep getting the maximum out of the car. It's impossible to know which tracks but I'm sure that we will have some which will be tough for all of us, sometimes for one team, sometimes for others.

Sebastian Vettel:
I think it's looking good. We are Red Bull, we are in a unique position again this year and we are horny - can you say that in English or does it not make too much sense? I think we have a very good chance. Obviously Korea is coming up which is unknown, no one knows. Other than that, if you look at Japan, Brazil and Abu Dhabi, I think we have a very strong car.

Q: (Andrea Cremonesi - La Gazzetta dello Sport)
Fernando, in Hungary the disadvantage from the Red Bull guys was quite huge. How did you recover as a team and this is one of your tracks, you've won twice and been third. How have you achieved this improvement personally?

Fernando Alonso:
Budapest, I think, is still a very different track compared to this one. There, I think Red Bull fulfilled a hundred percent of their potential. It was a circuit that was really good for them. Set-up, strategy, everything worked fine for them and maybe we didn't get the maximum from ourselves in Budapest and here maybe it was the opposite. The characteristics of the car are not only important but also the set-up and approach to the weekend itself. Here in Singapore, I really love this track. As you said, for whatever reasons it suits my driving style very well. Both years at Renault we were not in Q3 most of the championship, and we arrived in Singapore and we were quickest. This year, also, it's been a good weekend for me, so it's still a very special circuit for me.

Q: (Heikki Kulta - Turun Sanomat)
Fernando, was this the most precise race you have ever done, optimum all the time?

Fernando Alonso:
No, I don't know. I think I did some better races last year but people, when you're eleventh, don't worry too much about your race. When you are in a Ferrari and you win a race everyone is looking at you and supporting you. I think we always try to drive well, make no mistakes, very precisely, especially on this type of circuit but today was team work again with a good preparation yesterday, a good pit stop, good strategy, good management of the tyres, brakes etc., so there are many factors to win the Singapore Grand Prix and Ferrari did everything OK again. So thanks to the team.

Q: (Tony Dodgins - Tony Dodgins Associates)
Seb, I think you said you were struggling a bit to hold Fernando towards the end of that stint on the options but you were still going quicker than anybody on primes, so were you a bit surprised they didn't keep you out another couple of laps?

Sebastian Vettel:
No, I think on options you could see generally that everyone was struggling towards the end. I could see Fernando in front of me, obviously. He was sliding a lot and so was I. The rear tyres were starting to go off. I made a maximum effort to get as close as I could in the end. We could have maybe tried to stay a lap longer or a lap shorter. I don't think it was possible with the gap. But on the other hand, you go out with the prime and you end up with a new tyre and it's just so much better, so even staying out I think would have just enlarged the gap to Fernando, so in the end I think it was fair to come in, put some pressure on Ferrari for the pit stop because obviously everyone knows that our pit stops are very strong, so unfortunately, as I said, I had a bit of a wobble with the get-away but I think they had a clean stop as well, so the gap he had in the pit lane - probably half a second - was still good enough. Unfortunately it was not enough today but I think if you follow another car closely as we did for the main part of the race - I don't know if anybody else did during the race - you obviously could go faster, you never know how fast, because you're not in clean air, but I think the pace was good all weekend. I will still take second.