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

Questions from the floor

Q: (Livio Oricchio - O Estado do S?o Paulo)
To both Red Bull drivers: what about the KERS performance in your car?

Sebastian Vettel:
I had no problems today. I think big compliments... for you maybe three weeks is a lot, for us, the drivers, it's maybe some time off, but for the team, they are working hard and today I had no problems from start to finish, so very, very happy.

Mark Webber:
Yeah, same for me with the exception of the last part of the race. I drove past Fernando, we had a little bit of an issue which we had to manage, but the KERS was very good today, the guys have done a great job.

Q: (Frederic Ferret - l'Equipe)
Sebastian, do you feel you have any weakness now in your driving, in your team, in your car, and the same question for Mark, do you feel that there is somewhere that you can beat him?

Sebastian Vettel:
It is a long way to go and surely we've had a good start but I think that the day you start to think that you are unbeatable is the day you get beaten, for sure. We all try to win, obviously, and all try to be better than the other guys but I think there's always someone at some point who will teach you a lesson and will give you a very hard time and beat you. We are racing at the highest level. Of course, I am very happy with today and the start of the season, very happy with how we work together as a team and pull together in one direction but I think there's never any time to really rest and think that really everything is under control. You have a lot of guys, Mark and Fernando here, Lewis and Jenson, Nico was very quick yesterday. Obviously they lacked a little bit of pace today in the race, but surely I think you can see that we've had four races now but every single team has had their highs and lows, so I'm very happy, as I said, because we have been very competitive in all four races and very quick, but sometimes it was quite comfortable, like in Australia, in hindsight, but other times it was very, very close. I just want to remind you of Saturday in Malaysia where for us it
was not clear to beat McLaren in qualifying. Yesterday Mercedes were very quick. Next race, I heard some rumours - I don't know if it's true - but many teams are bringing a lot of updates and that will be the story of the next couple of races. Everyone keeps pushing and you have to take everything you can at the time.

Mark Webber:
Yeah, Seb is on top of his game, he's had a good start to the season, no question about it, nearly the maximum so that's ideal for the rest of us, but it's up to us to do the best we can to try and bring this to a stop sooner rather than later. Every driver on the grid has weaknesses, some more than others but it's up to you to try and interrogate those sometimes when you can and that's what being in sport is all about. Seb's off to a great start, the team has done a good job.

Q: (Jaime Rodriguez - El Mundo)
Fernando, do you feel that the car really has improved in comparison to other races, and what has been the main difference?

Fernando Alonso:
Yeah, the car definitely feels much better now. We were more competitive yesterday in qualifying and more competitive today in the race than previous races. As I said yesterday, being in front of Button was a surprise for us, to have one McLaren behind and to be half a minute in front of them today is another surprise, so the car is definitely doing something better than what it did in the first three races. From the driver's points of view, difficult to feel this improvement, you just feel that the car is quicker, more grip overall, but as I said before, this is not enough, we cannot be happy with fifth in qualifying and third in the race, so we are going in the right direction but this is only the first step.

Q: (Paolo Ianieri - La Gazzetta dello Sport)
Question to all three of you: do you think that the tyres are having too great an influence? Today almost everybody had four pit stops. Is it not just too much, too confusing, also making it too easy to overtake?

Fernando Alonso:
I think it's what people asked for last year. I think we saw two stops in Canada, people enjoyed that race. People, fans, journalists: everyone was asking for more of a show, for more pit stops, more fun and now we have all of that, so now if people are still not happy, we need to see what they want.

Sebastian Vettel:
The only thing which I think is a bit tricky - obviously every race is different and it's difficult to produce a tyre that is a two stopper everywhere, because tracks are different but I think the real hard time is really for the spectators in the grandstand. Sure, if they have a video wall in front of them it's possible for them to follow (the race) but after the first stint, especially when you have pit stops every ten to 15 laps, I think it makes it really difficult for the people coming here to visit and to watch, to follow. Sure, you maybe understand the first five, first ten, but then not everyone is following the leader or the guy in P2, P3. There's also guys from ten to twenty-four so it doesn't make it easy for the spectators. It's obviously very early to judge, still, because we've only had four races and one race it was possible to one-stop, here it was possible to four-stop so we need to see as we go and wait a couple of races.

Q: (Heikki Kulta - Turun Sanomat)
Mark, for a driver, which way of reaching the podium is more enjoyable: your Chinese style or this Turkish style?

Mark Webber:
Hmm. A lot more people probably enjoyed my China drive than I did, to be honest. I think that when you come up against drivers like Fernando and Jenson and Felipe, Nico, these guys, and you catch them at 2.5s a lap, it's nice but it's not very rewarding in terms of how you pass them. These guys have absolutely nothing to fight back with, so it was a podium which of course I took. Of course I had to drive well, consistently on the limit, blah, blah, blah as all the other guys were, but that was the tyres they had. Today was a different type of race. Of course, I was at the front - in the top few - the whole race and it was again, it was just fighting with Fernando, with just one guy. The race in China was fighting with lots of different guys. I had a new guy on the pit board for the Chinese Grand Prix and it was a very tough race for him to start at, so I think he made a much easier job today. Also referring back to the previous question about how the racing is, it's best I stop there.

Q: (Sarah Holt - BBC Sport)
Fernando, could you have fought Vettel for the victory if it wasn't for Rosberg, or is this podium still completely unexpected?

Fernando Alonso:
Well, the podium is a nice surprise and we have nothing really to say. We just need to be extremely happy, but I think for Mark and for me, it was difficult to fight for victory, nothing to say, I think Sebastian was 99 per cent favourite, but this one per cent chance that we had we lost in the first five laps behind Nico, because the more or less five, seven second distance to Sebastian was consistent all through the race. Without those five seconds, maybe we can't risk stopping two or three laps early and to force something or to push the Red Bull cars to the limit which we haven't been able to do at the moment.

Q: (Carlos Miquel - La Gaceta)
Fernando, you really think it was possible to make one stop less, against Mark?

Fernando Alonso:
No, I don't think so. I think that when we stopped... it's strange to stop ten or eleven laps to go but really from 14 laps to ten laps to go, the car was already difficult to drive in these last four laps, moving a lot and risking a lot. I imagine that another ten or eleven laps like this with that progression of degradation maybe you don't even finish the race.

Q: (Michael Schmidt - Auto, Motor und Sport)
Fernando, when you were fighting against Mark at the end, were you on the soft or hard, used, new? And in China you were struggling on the harder tyre; how was it here?

Fernando Alonso:
Here was okay. I think I was with used hard.

Q: (Sudhir Chandran - Chequered Flag)
If everything goes right, India is all set to host its first F1 race. I wanted your thoughts on a) F1coming to India and b) the pressure of driving in front of a billion people?

Sebastian Vettel:
I think we are looking forward to it. We've heard a lot of things, a lot of good things. One thing I heard is that it will be sold out and that there will be a lot of people there, so this will be fantastic. I think this race here has very often been criticised in the past for not having a lot of spectators. Today, I have to say that the atmosphere was quite good, and I really enjoyed the last lap, but surely there were some empty seats and I hope that all the effort that you make to build the circuit in India will be rewarded by a lot of people coming and no empty seats, so that's what I will be looking forward to most.

Fernando Alonso:
Yeah, same thing. Fantastic news coming from the circuit and we are all really excited to race there for the first time. It's also a country that I want to visit and I will remain for a week there between the races so looking forward to it.

Mark Webber:
Yes, obviously India has had some big events over the last few years, with the Commonwealth Games and the cricket World Cup - I don't know which side won the World Cup - yes I do - but I'm looking forward to going out there. Obviously Formula One going there is a big event, it should go smoothly. All of us always love to go to new venues, it's a beautiful country in many areas, so I'm looking forward to going to experience it and have some of the cricket players come and say hello to us guys.