Question: What are your feelings about the track? You had a good result from second to third last year but McLaren actually have not won here since 2000.
Lewis Hamilton: I have only been here once. My first time here last year I qualified on the front row in second and finished third, so I was quite happy with it. I like this circuit and I think it is quite challenging, very technical. I think this year we have a better chance in terms of the package we have. It is a better package than we had last year, so therefore we should be quicker. It is going to be a challenge this weekend but that’s the way it goes.
Question: Lewis, how does your ten place penalty change your approach to this weekend?
Lewis Hamilton: It doesn’t really. It’s a race, I’m here to win and so I approach it the same. Obviously we want to finish, we want to get as many points as possible. It just makes that harder but it’s quite funny, that’s the way it goes.
Question: Have you bought LEW15 (number plate)?
Lewis Hamilton: No. Absolutely no interest. That sounds about the worst number plate I’ve ever heard of. I’m not stupid enough to spend a couple of hundred grand on a bloody number plate. I wouldn’t spend a hundred pounds on a number plate. A number plate’s a number plate. It doesn’t mean nothing to me. I just heard about it today. It was the first I’d heard about it.
Question: Lewis, does starting behind in this Grand Prix change the pressure? Do you feel that you have less pressure than usual?
Lewis Hamilton: For me, I don’t think I have less pressure. At the back I think there’s more work for me to do. Considering we’re all so close in the championship, I guess it spices it up a bit, if that’s what they want. It’s going to be harder, coming from the back, but I don’t have any doubts or any worries, I think we’re going to have a very strong package this weekend, and I think the car will be as good if not better than it was in the last race. With that pace, as long as we stay out of trouble we should be able to score some good points.
Question: Lewis, coming back to Canada, looking at your performance, was it more annoying for you to lose a possible victory with such an incident in the pit lane compared to, say, a mistake out on the circuit and you spin or crash?
Lewis Hamilton: No, for me it was less annoying because I find when you under-achieve on the circuit, if you make a mistake such as hitting the wall when you’re in the lead by ten seconds, that would have really affected me a lot more. But it was such a silly, such a small incident which took two of the drivers out, it was a shame, but as I said, I wasn’t that gutted. If anything, I was more gutted for Kimi because it was just unfortunate for being there at the time.
Question: Lewis, what are your goals for this weekend? Are you aiming for a points’ finish, a podium finish? Do you think it’s realistic to think of a win?
Lewis Hamilton: Approaching a weekend I’m obviously always aiming to win but realistically I think we just have to try and aim for a podium finish if possible, but I think it’s going to be very, very tough. As you can see, we’re all very close and there’s now quite a few teams that are very competitive and this is not the easy track to overtake as well, so I will keep my fingers crossed and do the best job I can and I hope we can push and finish in the top five.
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