Chinese GP - Post-race press conference - Pt.1

Drivers: Nico Rosberg (Mercedes), Jenson Button (McLaren) and Lewis Hamilton (McLaren).

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Q:
Nico, well done. You join an exclusive club of drivers who've turned their maiden pole into their maiden win. How do you feel?

Nico Rosberg:
Thank you very much. Well, it's an unbelievable feeling: very, very cool. I'm very happy, very excited. It's been a long time coming for me, and for the team as well over the past two years and a bit. Now, it's finally here. It's just amazing and it's just nice to see how quickly we are now progressing. I didn't expect to be that fast today. I expected that we had a good chance to be in front, but I was very happy today with the pace I was able to go in the race.

Q:
Jenson, a three-stop strategy for you today, but the third stop really cost you big time didn't it?

Jenson Button:
Yeah, it did. But before that our race pace was good, especially on the harder of the two tyres. I had some really good battles out there. And then in my last stop, I stopped on the marks and we had a problem with the rear of the car, so I was stuck there for nine or ten seconds I think it was. It was a pity because when I exited the pits I had four cars in front of me; cars that I wouldn't have been racing, and I would have had a nice clear track to hopefully hunt down Nico. It was a big gap but you've got to give it a go. But, all in all, a fun day. I really enjoyed today. It was a good race, some good overtaking out there and nice to eventually come away with some good points and second place.

Q:
Lewis, you started seventh and finished third. Were you surprised by Nico's pace today?

Lewis Hamilton:
We knew that all weekend they had been quick and if we let these people get away it would be hard to catch him, so fantastic for him, congratulations. Your first pole and your first win is an incredible feeling. But I'm very happy to have made it up to the podium. As I said, I wanted to just go forwards and the team did a great job with the pit stops and with strategy. I think it was one of the best races so far this season, just because there was a lot of overtaking and there was a train of us - I think seven cars or something - it was incredible. Yeah, fantastic day.

Q:
Nico, there were a lot of questions marks about Mercedes' race pace going into this race. What have you done to the car to improve it so much?

Nico Rosberg:
Big thanks to the whole team, because all the engineers especially in the past few weeks have been working very, very hard also, as everybody else has also, just improving the set-up, because we really struggled in the first two races with race pace. Today it all came good. It's great to see just how quickly we managed to progress. It's just fantastic.

Q:
Jenson, a key moment for you was obviously the start, you went up from fifth place to third place. Tell us about it?

Jenson Button:
Yeah, I got a good start. I think all year, so far, we've had very good starts, if not the best starts and [that's] promising when you don't qualify so well. Great job by the whole team for sorting out a special start out for me and great to get up into P3. But I think lastly for me, I'd like to congratulate Nico. We all know how special it is, your first win, and I'm sure there will be many more, just hopefully not too many more this year.

Q:
For you Lewis, a lot of battles throughout the race but a very exciting one at the end with Sebastian Vettel. Tell us about it?

Lewis Hamilton:
It wasn't just with him. It was with everyone really. They [Red Bull] were massively quick on the straight, even when we had the DRS engaged. You had to use all your KERS to get right up behind and obviously you get to the DRS zone and try to use the DRS to catapult past. Finally, I got close enough to do so. I guess he was out a bit longer on his tyres. Nonetheless, he put up a good fight. So did all of them really. I think we lost a little bit of time behind, I think, maybe P?rez. But nevertheless it was still exciting racing.

Q:
Finally, back to you Nico. Your father Keke, of course, a grand prix winner and a world champion. What are you going to say on the phone to your dad tonight?

Nico Rosberg:
We'll see. Hopefully he's very happy too and I look forward to speaking to him.

Press conference

Q:
Nico, a bit of a packed weekend for you, what with setting records with Mercedes, your first pole, your first win etc. It's all come at once!

Nico Rosberg:
Yeah, I know. It's been the perfect weekend. Everything's gone [well]. It couldn't be better. Very happy. It was a great race. It was impressive to see really how we've managed to progress so quickly. We've really had some difficult times in the races, the first two, but we've made a lot of changes, worked hard at it and all of a sudden it's come good. That's been fantastic to see today. I'm just so happy for all of us and I really look forward now to spending some time with the team later on.

Q:
Was everything perfect in the car as well, throughout the race?

Nico Rosberg:
Perfect? Well, it's never perfect but it definitely felt very good out there.

Q:
You didn't seem to have any problems. It seemed to be a trouble-free race for you.

Nico Rosberg:
It's never easy, especially taking care of the tyres was a big difficulty and a big challenger today because there was a lot of tyre wear, but it worked out well.

Q:
Yesterday you gave the impression that, OK, you're on pole but it was going to be a lot more difficult to win the race - but you won it, it didn't seem to be that much more difficult.

Nico Rosberg:
Of course I was a bit careful yesterday because yes, we were on pole but we've seen good qualifying performances all along this year and we've had more difficulties on high fuel in the race, so I wasn't really sure what to expect - but fantastic outcome.

Q:
And the tyre strategy, you were happy with that as well, rather than a three-stop?

Nico Rosberg:
I think we got it all right today, even tyre strategy. Everybody in the team did a great job, all the different people, my engineers at the start, the strategy, this and that - everything came together.

Q:
What you did miss was an incredible battle going on behind you...

Nico Rosberg:
I was aware of a bit of that because every lap the name changed of the person behind me - I said 'what's going on back there?'

Q:
Jenson, you must love that little DRS thing, that was great, picking them off one after the other.

Jenson Button:
Yeah, but we made it a little bit harder for ourselves in the last stint with a long pit stop - but hey, these things happen, and the first two were very good. A great race, we went for a three-stop strategy, which was different to a lot of people, it was good fun, even with the problem we had, and the possibility that we could maybe have chased down this guy [Nico]. Even though we didn't have that possibility it was still a great race. I'm very happy to come away with second. I can't remember how many cars I overtook during the race but it was a good fight and most of it was very, very clean, which is good to see. I think we put on a great show for all the viewers and especially all the fans here in Shanghai.

Q:
Your race was a little bit easier than Lewis'. Lewis had a little bit of a tougher time I think.

Jenson Button:
Ah, I don't know. I think when you're in front for the first few laps it always makes it easier. You're dropping the traffic better. Everything was going to plan, I knew I'd have traffic and we were picking them off nicely up to the second pit stop. But after the last stop it was a lot more difficult. Kimi was leading a train of about eight cars and everyone was DRS-ing at the same time, so, until Sebastian had a go at Kimi, I couldn't have a go at Sebastian. It was good fun. Overtaking Sebastian was probably the most fun move of the race, down into the hairpin. Or maybe Grosjean, when I took him before the actual back straight, through the right-hander, that was quite nice as well.

Q:
A lot of satisfaction from that I can imagine.

Jenson Button:
Yeah.

Q:
Lewis, I know it's another third place, but you had a great race out there, a lot of people to overtake.

Lewis Hamilton:
Yeah, I had my work cut out today. It was a fantastic race, I really enjoyed it. As I said yesterday, I just wanted to see if I could move forwards: a good start, good pit stops, good strategy, but what an incredible race with so many World Champions and so many of the great drivers all in a train, just fighting each other. It's great to see racing like that and to see cars so close in pace. It was a little bit unfortunate that there was quite a lot of traffic throughout the race but I'm sure that if we started a little bit higher up it would have been a little bit of a different result for us, but nonetheless, Nico did a fantastic job so congratulations to him. I'm glad we were able to get some good team points today.

Q:
How much downforce were you losing in that train, for instance through the corner onto the straight?

Lewis Hamilton:
You try to stay out of the wake of the car in front, so you take a slightly tighter line which enables you to remain as close as possible. As I said, it just provides great racing. I don't remember being in a race like that for some time so we're doing something right.