Question: Lewis, pole position here in 2007. You won in 2008 as well. Amazing GP2 race. What are your feelings about this circuit?
Lewis Hamilton: I have had some good races here. I think my first race we did a Kart GP here years and years ago, probably in 1994 or something like that. Then I did Formula Renault here in 2001 or 2002 but I generally have had very, very good races here and it is a very, very special place. Not far away from where I grew up. But it is very special and I think the circuit is already a special place, but now they have revamped it as well it is just even better. It feels great to be here, coming to the new paddock this morning. It is so much different to previously. It felt kind of odd when we got to the roundabout up the road instead of turning left we have gone right and come down here. I think it is going to be great for the fans, (I’m) really, really pleased and proud of the work that has been done on this place so I hope we can translate that into a good result for the fans.
Question: What everybody wants to know is just how much the regulations might have changed things. What do you think? What sort of chance do you have on Sunday?
Lewis Hamilton: I think they have made a reasonable difference. When you take away the engine modes we have been using before it will be different for the likes of Ferrari and for the Renault engines particularly I think as they use it slightly different than us. Whether or not they are hampered more than us, who will know. But I think the team have done a great job with trying to understand and get on top of things and to recover elsewhere, through set-up and through other bits, through updates we have coming. So I really, really hope that we are at least as good as them if not better. In terms of driving style and all that, I think we have had a good chance to be on the simulator again to do a good job there.
Question: I suspect you and Jenson have had a very busy 10 days or week leading up to this race. Just give us some indication of what you have been up to?
Lewis Hamilton: Yeah, I went straight from Valencia to Portugal, Portugal straight to Switzerland for a couple of hours then straight to the UK. Quite a lot of work in between there and then just been in the UK pretty much the whole time doing appearances. I think I got a day or so at home over the weekend and then been here again so it has been quite a busy period.
Question: Lewis, is there are any concern amongst either of you(Lewis & Jenson) that we could be entering a period of domination with Seb and Red Bull like we saw with Michael and Ferrari at the start of the last decade?
Lewis Hamilton: I don’t think so. I think it’s a different time, rules are changing all the time. They’ve clearly established that they’re a strong team but you have lots of other strong teams and it even looks like people like Renault is getting stronger this year. You’ve got Mercedes who are there or thereabouts. You’ve even got Williams, the updates, the changes that they’re going to have over the next couple of years. You never know if they’re going to be back up there with us, which I think will be great for the sport. I don’t think it will be the same situation. I think there was a lot more to it in the Schumacher days. I don’t even bother going into that.
Question: We’ve seen in recent months that Britain has a lot of sportsmen competing at the highest level, like McIlroy, Andy Murray, David Haye. I’m just wondering where Formula One stands in the British sporting hierarchy?
Lewis Hamilton: I don’t compare them. I’m very proud to be a part of British sport. We challenge competitively in pretty much every sport and for some reason, there’s always someone that’s competing, pushing hard enough. We’ve all got very much devoted to achieving our goals and to winning. I think that we as the British public and the British sportsmen we generally have a really good pedigree for sport. I think that’s quite impressive, and I think the more support that we can get from the fans and the more support we can get from you guys, that makes a huge difference to us all so we have to keep it up.
Question: We have a new start and finish line and the first two corners are pretty quick. Do you think that it will be more difficult to gain a position at the start or less than before?
Lewis Hamilton: I think there will be more opportunity for overtaking, I think that was the plan. I think turn one and two are fairly straightforward, flat out, but before you go through Copse, everyone would then get in single file, flat out through the next sector. Now it’s quite quick through turns one and two but you have an opportunity, it’s very wide into turn three so it’s probably going to be relatively easy to be able to follow through turns one and two and then have an opportunity into turn three, I think. I think it will be great for the racing and for the start.
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