Singapore GP - Post-qualifying press conference - Pt.1

Drivers: Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull), Mark Webber (Red Bull) and Jenson Button (McLaren).

TV unilaterals

Q:
Sebastian: a fantastic performance and another pole position, your 11th of the season. How was it from where you were sitting?

Sebastian Vettel:
The circuit ramped up in the end a little bit. I think it was possible to go faster but, all in all, a perfect session and I am very happy, especially around here as it is a fun track. A big challenge. It is very difficult. So many corners. Such a long lap to get everything together, but I think we learned especially from the mistakes we did last year in qualifying and kept our heads cool and did it today. It is great. We have both cars on the front row. Let's see tomorrow. It is a very, very long race.

Q:
Mark, almost a grandstand finish from yourself. You were within touching distance of Seb for two-thirds of your final qualifying lap so is this smiles for a front-row start or a frown for a pole that got away.

Mark Webber:
No, I think I am pretty happy to be honest. It has been a pretty testing venue for me in the past, particularly on Saturdays. In the races I normally go a bit better around here. Seb obviously laid it down pretty hard and fast for all of us. He is very quick around here and did a great job for the pole. I think it is pretty rare that he makes a mistake. I think maybe he saw my data and there were a few corners I was a little bit quicker and maybe in the chicane he was trying to put it altogether and get it altogether. But he was very quick for the whole lap. To put it altogether for the whole lap is very challenging for all of us here. It is very easy to grab a bit more and then lose a bit on the next straight so overall satisfied given the curve balls the teams can face around here. Both cars up there is a great result for us.

Q:
Jenson, you hooked it up enough by five one-thousands-of-a-second to leapfrog Lewis Hamilton. He sat in the garage while you were out doing a final qualifying run. He saved a set of tyres. You start ahead of him. What's more important?

Jenson Button:
I don't know really. I haven't really thought about it. All I know is that for me the lap was good. Both my laps. If I had put both of them together it would have been good but it is very difficult around here as you struggle to get all three sectors together because either the tyres aren't warm enough at the start of the lap or they are overheating at the end. Or maybe that is just our problem. It is very, very tricky and something I have been fighting all day. Obviously I didn't get much running yesterday after facing a barrier at the end of the session yesterday, so I am pleased to be in the top three. It is a good position for the race tomorrow but it is also something I have no experience of, as I didn't do any high-fuel running, so it is going to be a challenge.

Q:
Sebastian, that is 11 pole positions this season so far. Nigel Mansell has the record with 14 in a season. Are you thinking about beating that record yet?

SV:
No, I think it was pretty exceptional. I think it was 1992 Nigel had that incredible year. We are not doing too bad this year, but I think it is wrong to start thinking about those things. We have got a long race ahead of us tomorrow. That's where we usually score points, not in qualifying, so the focus is on the race tomorrow. But I think it shows that really every single race is another step for us and we try to focus on the moment. I think it is the most important. To get all out every single time sounds easy. We have to keep on doing what we are doing, but it is not so easy to do it every weekend. As I said tomorrow is the race and that's where the focus is. I still believe that Nigel's record is exceptional.

Press conference

Q:
Sebastian, tell us about the lap and the satisfaction of being on pole here. I can imagine this is almost more satisfaction than any other circuit.

SV:
Yeah, it is in a way. I think it is an exceptional track for us. Either you like it or you hate it. I think the secret is maybe a bit of both. It is a very long track. A lot of corners. Just 23 corners as a number is already incredible compared to some tracks. The last race we had 11, so it is double the amount of corners and it's a long lap. The speed is fairly low which is what you expect on a street circuit. Stop and go really but it is so difficult, so challenging to put it altogether as every single corner you try to get the best out of the car, out of the tyres and then it is give and take. You try to take a little bit more out of the car and then and then you have to sacrifice for the next corner for maybe the next straight and so on so a lot of thinking going on and difficult if you really operate the car on the limit to get it close to 100 per cent every corner. It really matches with the next corner and the next corner. That's why I think the satisfaction generally you get when you cross the line here is big, when you know it has been a good lap and the other way around if it wasn't and you give yourself quite some grief. You know that you could have done so much better as it is so easy to lose time and not just a couple of hundredths. It is immediately within a couple of tenths that you lose so it's a nice challenge.

Q:
And then you have got to do 61 laps of it tomorrow?

SV:
Yes, it is going to be long. The race is always around two hours here. It is the longest we have, so on top of it they switch off the lights, as the sun is down. Switch on the lights of course. It is a night race, very humid and I think we all lose quite a lot of water. A lot of sweating and it will be a difficult one.

Q:
You said yesterday that you needed a good step overnight. So how much was done and how much did you have to change?

SV:
Well, the target is always to improve the car overnight. I was fairly happy with the car yesterday and we didn't do that much. I think the steps we did were a step forward. Not massive but probably what we needed to keep that cushion, so all in all I was very happy on the prime tyre and the soft tyre as well. This morning was a bit scrappy as I had a lot of traffic and didn't get the lap together but this afternoon the first run on option was a confirmation that also on the super soft tyres we can do it so reasonably confident for tomorrow. As I said it is going to be a long race and it is not just about speed, it is also about control, managing the tyres. At this stage I think it is a bit unclear what is the fastest way but we will find out tomorrow.

Q:
Mark, your best grid position here and similarly you said you needed more pace.

MW:
Yes, overnight we made a pretty good step. But most of it was from me to be honest. It is a very, very challenging venue. Not one I would pick to come to every week, but it's my job to deliver on all the tracks we go to. It is one of my best sessions on a Saturday here to be honest, not only in terms of position but also getting a pretty good run out of the car. I am a few tenths off Seb, three-and-a-half or whatever it is. In the end Seb did a great job for pole and my lap wasn't too bad at all, so it has put us in a good position for the race. I certainly was happy with a front-row start going into qualifying. It is so easy to screw the lap up here and, as Seb said, you have got such a long way to chat to yourself when you make a mistake. So to pull it altogether and as you can see all of us are improving every single time so we are learning more and more knowledge every single time we put the car on the limit so it is a challenging afternoon for all of us and very rewarding. At this level, all of us pushing each other very hard is good stuff.

Q:
And for the race tomorrow how difficult is the strategy?

MW:
There are a few balls in the air for sure. We aren't overly sure how constant the tyres are going to be. For sure they are going to drop off but we don't now when. It is like most races to be honest. In these sort of conditions we saw in Valencia, in Budapest, a few races - obviously Budapest was wet at the start. With the exception of I suppose Monza and some of the other races where the tyres, like in Spa, you see they are going to be pretty stable. Here we have had a decent build up on Friday. Long runs. Most teams had a good look at it, but let's see. There are two compounds that are definitely going to be used tomorrow to their extreme.

Q:
And you are going to be starting on the soft compounds. That is going to be a challenge as well?

MW:
Yeah, everyone I think around me is as well. That's what we've got. We can't make a pit stop overnight. Same for everyone.

Q:
Jenson, given the weekend, given your comments about tyres, a bit of a surprise to be listening there?

JB:
I think last night I didn't expect to be here. I didn't run the super soft tyre yesterday as obviously I was facing the wall half-way through P2 or even earlier than that. We made a lot of changes overnight and quite a lot of improvements. The pace has been good all day. I found it a little bit difficult in qualifying to really get the tyres working for a whole lap. If I had them working in the first sector they were going off by the third sector. I don't know if these guys had the same problem but we had to do a reasonably slow out lap and I think the last lap I got a bit excited and pushed maybe a little bit too hard on the first sector. The last sector, the rears had gone off quite a bit. But still got third, so I am happy to be in the top three and it is the clean side of the circuit. Good position but the worry for tomorrow is that I haven't driven on high-fuel so I don't know how that's going to feel but I'm sure we'll make the best of it.

Q:
And you actually said yesterday 'not a great set-up' but also complaining of the tyres overheating. Have you solved that?

JB:
From the comments that I've just made, not over one lap but hopefully on a long run. I haven't run with high fuel yet. Obviously the race is pretty tough on the tyres here, there's a lot of sliding, so you do get a lot of surface temperature on the tyres, so you've got to be careful of that. But we know it's not going to be easy and I think you can see the performance of cars really shows up here, and the gaps between teams is massive, if you head back to the cars that are starting outside the top ten. I think it's easier the more downforce you've got because the less sliding you have, and the less tyre temp you've got, so it's pretty simple really. And we're a little bit behind these guys.

Q:
How much of a shock is it going to be when you run on full fuel for the first time?

JB:
I've done it before. I'll get used to it pretty quickly. I'm old now, I've been here for ages. I'll be fine.