Question: Lewis, you have an incredible record here. If you look at your record in qualifying and the race it just goes one, one, one, one, one and then a collision with Kimi Raikkonen. But up until that moment it is a tremendous record so obviously a circuit at which you excel.
Lewis Hamilton: Firstly, it is great to be here. It is a fantastic place. The weather is great here. I really don’t have an answer for you exactly why I have been so successful here. I am sure it is a combination of the climate, the atmosphere. I think the fans here are spectacular. I think this is one of the top grands prix of the year when the city is packed full of people. It is a great place to be. The track also has a great history. Gilles Villeneuve was pretty spectacular here and for us it is a bit like a street circuit. I regard it as a street circuit. It is quite bumpy. It is a little bit like a go-kart track. We have to take the kerbs so I particularly enjoy it and I am looking forward to this weekend.
Question: Your win last year meant that McLaren have won 11 times here, as many as Ferrari, so it is obviously a good circuit for the team as well?
Lewis Hamilton: Yeah, again not quite sure why we are generally so quick here but I think our car is always quite good over kerbs. We have got reasonable high speeds and end-of-straight speed and I guess you have got to be quite close to the walls here which I particularly like doing. Not too close this weekend. It is great that I was able to contribute to those wins for the team and hopefully we can maybe take a step ahead of Ferrari at some stage.
Question: Looking back at the last race. Was that part of the pressure perhaps of being in the World Championship fight, wanting to be in the World Championship fight. Is that what we say the motivations is? Is that the result of that?
Lewis Hamilton: I think it is a combination of many things. All of us drivers here know what it is like, even you guys know, to be under pressure and to put pressure on yourself to succeed. We all have good and bad days in the office. That was definitely one of the worst weekends in the office but that’s motor racing, that’s life. You learn from those situations. It has been great, I have gone back and I have had a couple of days back home training and refreshing my mind and coming back here I feel completely refreshed and really looking forward to definitely a more positive weekend.
Question: Lewis, you said you were good on the track and McLaren is good also. Is it your best chance at the beginning of the year to beat the Red Bulls as they are not so good in Montreal?
Lewis Hamilton: I would like to think so but again they have been fast at every circuit. I think they have been incredibly successful on all the circuits so far, so you have to assume they will be very quick here as well. But perhaps, as in the last race, maybe the gap will be a little bit closer compared to places like Barcelona. I am expecting to see that through a lot of the field. I would definitely say, looking at the next few races, that this is definitely one of the better ones for us.
Question: Lewis, this race will feature two DRS zones. How is that going to change the complexion of this race as you see it?
Lewis Hamilton: We use the DRS in qualifying, so we use it everywhere we can. I think the great thing here is you see quite a lot of overtaking here. You have the great long straight coming out of a hairpin. I definitely think it is not always easy to follow through corners still as you still need downforce. But the DRS, having it in two places, I think will enable people to get even closer. It is a long, long straight. I don’t know where they put the DRS zone exactly for those straights. I think it will just make racing even better. Of course the FIA will assess if it is too easy or not too easy. I think we will work together with them to make sure the zones are set in the right place so we don’t just whizz past people halfway down the straights. I think so far this year it has been fantastic for racing and enabled people to get close to actually make safe manoeuvres, so I think this weekend you will probably see that as well.
Question: Still regarding the two DRS zones, do you think it would be maybe a more exciting show to have the second zone at the Wall of Champions, so that whoever gets past in zone one can try to fight back in zone two.
Lewis Hamilton: Yeah, I guess it will make it much tougher. When you overtake one person you overtake them but then they are able to use DRS in the next zone. It is going to make it much harder as when you make an overtaking manoeuvre usually you are able to pull a little bit of a gap by the next lap so hopefully they are not right behind you but here you won’t have. They will be right on your tail so I guess strategy and depending on where you use the DRS and the way you overtake it is going to be interesting, I would assume everyone would probably wait, just stay behind them and not even bother overtaking on the first DRS zone and wait for the last one so for the rest of the lap they are able to pull away.
Question: Lewis, we have learnt that there has been an exchange of letters between you and President of the FIA about the issues in Monaco. What’s your mood now, don’t you think that you are too often a sort of target for a lot of criticism for your behaviour, not necessarily as a driver? Don’t you feel a little under permanent judgement?
Lewis Hamilton: No. Well, last week, coming back from the Grand Prix, I had some time to reflect on my behaviour and my weekend and again, just a feeling of it just being a bad day, a bad weekend in the office, so I wrote a letter to the FIA to apologise, and I also spoke to the drivers. I just felt it was necessary to do that, I think it was the right thing for me to do and to be able to put everything behind me. This is racing, you know. When you’re competitive - and this is the pinnacle of motor sport - and it’s not easy to overtake in this sport, and so every manoeuvre you make is definitely questionable. Sometimes you get it right, sometimes you don’t. So it’s inevitable when I do quite a lot of overtaking quite often, so sometimes it’s going to be right, sometimes not, but I think the stewards are doing a great job. Since I’ve been in Formula One, it’s been improving, the consistency of the rules, the approach of the stewards with the new racing driver, I think it makes it much better so while I would prefer not to be up at the stewards’ office so often - and trust me, I’m trying my hardest to stay out of there - my whole life I was always in the headmaster’s office so I’m used to it. I would just try to improve and learn from the situations that I get myself into.
Question: Lewis, referring to your Monte Carlo issue, do you think it’s correct to compare your behaviour to the young Schumachers’ and the young Alonso’s?
Lewis Hamilton: Well Schumacher is not really young any more - oh, when he was younger. I would hope not. I think I’m a passionate driver. I can’t emphasise just how passionate I am about racing and about winning and the pressure that I put on myself, with the pressures that go with the job and the admiration for what you do, I think that inevitably sometimes you say the right and the wrong things. Like Gilles Villeneuve and like Ayrton, they were also very, very passionate racing drivers, so I prefer to hopefully one day be referred to someone similar to them.
Question: Lewis, Todt said that, had you not written, he was thinking about a six race ban, so was that in your mind when you wrote, and do you think you’re lucky not to have had that sort of thing?
Lewis Hamilton: It wasn’t in mind, no, but just as I said earlier, I just had time to reflect on the weekend and I wrote a sincere apology to Jean and to the FIA and I got a great letter back, so after that I was able to put it behind me and I’m very grateful to be here. I do want what’s best for the sport and I want to be able to contribute to improving the sport and making things great here.
Question: And when you say you’ve spoken to the drivers, does that include, Mr Maldonado and Mr Massa, Mr Massa being the one who said that he thought that a ban would be appropriate because it would teach you a lesson?
Lewis Hamilton: I know Felipe really well, I’ve known Felipe since Formula Three, maybe GP2 and so have a relatively good relationship with him. I gave him a call and he had calmed down also and he was able to understand the position and I’ve seen him… I’ve known him for many years, actually. We’ve known each other for quite a few years, him and his family. You know he’s doing a fantastic job, he was very quick that weekend and was obviously not wanting to put anyone out of the Grand Prix. It’s one of the toughest Grands Prix to overtake, but I think the drivers understand and it’s easy, in the heat of the moment, to say the wrong things but afterwards to realise that, OK, you probably were not in the right position to make the manoeuvre, so I felt it important for me to just make that clear to them and apologise for my statement afterwards.
Question: Lewis, going back to Monaco again, first lap at Monaco, when Michael passed you into the hairpin, can you just talk us through that? Presumably you thought you had a puncture or something, but it looked like… I don’t know. Can you tell us what happened? The opening lap, going into the hairpin. Michael got you down the inside in a very easy way.
Lewis Hamilton: The opening laps? Yeah. He just caught me sleeping really. Yes. I was keeping an eye on the guys in front because everyone was bunched up. Everyone was going particularly slowly and Michael went for a gap that was there. I noticed very late that he was there and I didn’t turn in, I gave him enough room to let him past. The race is not won on the first lap. I think that experience also led me to believe that overtaking was possible there so that’s why I tried to do a rather opportunistic overtaking manoeuvre, but I wasn’t luck enough to have as much space as Michael.
Question: Lewis, earlier you made reference to your thoughts about how much you enjoy this race in Montreal. I wonder if you could expand on it in terms of the context of the Canadian Grand Prix and Montreal compared to other events on the F1 circuit?
Lewis Hamilton: First and foremost, the city is one of my favourite cities in the world. I think it’s very cosmopolitan and great restaurants, the weather’s generally been fantastic every time we’ve been here. I’ve not been here when the Grand Prix has not been here but every time we’ve been here with the Grand Prix, it just seems incredibly lively. They put on a great show and great hosts for all the fans that come. And then you come to the circuit which is on a tiny island, with great history. I think street circuits are my preferred circuits, they are the riskiest, the trickiest circuits to race on and it’s a great place to drive. It’s one of those circuits where downforce is not the most important thing. It’s a combination of high speed as well, end-of-straight speed, so you can overtake. It has that massively long back straight here which you don’t have at a lot of circuits and the fans…I’ve never been here when the grandstands have not been completely packed. You go to circuits sometimes where there are a couple of thousand people and the atmosphere is just nowhere. But you come here and you immediately feel the huge buzz, as I’m sure do the people who are watching, because you can see all these people in the crowd, passionate about motor racing. It’s spectacular.
Question: Lewis, you sounded quite downbeat about your chances here just then…
Lewis Hamilton: That’s a misunderstanding.
Question: Yeah, I was going to say because on the face of it, this has got to be a circuit that favours you almost more than any so far, hasn’t it? Don’t you go into the weekend as favourite?
Lewis Hamilton: I never like to go into the weekend as favourite and I don’t like to be too upbeat. I’m not Muhammad Ali. I’m not going to come here and say this weekend’s going to be the best weekend ever. I’m coming off a very tough weekend where I had good pace. I’m racing against some very, very talented drivers who are going to be quick as well and I’d rather do my talking on the track, so I’m hoping that our car works well here. I feel like I’m in a good head space so hopefully that will add to a good result.
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