Question: Mark, winner from pole here last year. You have finished seven out of the eight Spanish Grands Prix you have had here. Is this a good circuit for you?
Mark Webber: Seems to be, yeah. I didn’t know I’d finished that many races here. I will try to keep that going and have a clean weekend and try to go one step further than the last few races and do what I did last year. It would be nice.
Question: How difficult is it to do that one step better. We know what you mean by that I think?
Mark Webber: We need a perfect weekend. We know that. To win at this level you need to get everything right. It is not like I am starting to try now. I have been trying the last few races. Turkey was the first race where I had a clean weekend with the car, which was nice, so we managed to have reasonable quali, reasonable first stint, and after that it was a good race with Fernando and we still managed to get a good result. But the other races have been a bit more chaotic for different reasons, but we look to have less chaotic races and keep it as Turkey was and keep executing a clean grand prix and getting it all right and that’s what you need to do to win.
Question: Mark, what sort of updates have you coming here?
Mark Webber: No, nothing.
Question: Nothing? It always looks like Christmas Day down there?
Mark Webber: We don’t have Christmas. Spark plugs, new spark plugs.
Question: Blown floor? What do you feel about that?
Mark Webber: What’s the rule this hour.
Question: True. You tell me, I don’t know.
Mark Webber: We don’t know either. It changes every hour.
Question: What is your feeling about the performance you perhaps get from that? It has been around for quite a long time hasn’t it?
Mark Webber: Yeah, it will affect all the fast teams for sure.
Question: Do you imagine losing it?
Mark Webber: Out of our hands, isn’t it mate. At the start of the week it was banned, this week not, today not. Another Technical Working Group meeting after Monaco but I think it will affect all the top teams that have utilising this system, not just this year but obviously a little bit last year.
Question: A lot of people have been talking about overtaking at this circuit. Do you think it is going to change a great deal in this grand prix?
Mark Webber: It will definitely be better than what we have had in the past. It has to be. The tyres are playing a big role these days and the wing on this straight as well. The last sector in Turkey is a little bit more open for different moves, so turn one here is a bit different but you can still get the job done with the tyres and with the wing. It will be a different Spanish Grand Prix to what we have seen in the past in terms of overtaking. Not the most overtakes we have seen here in the past but that will probably change on Sunday.
Question: Can you still get close enough through that final corner?
Mark Webber: Yeah, if someone is in trouble on the tyres, it doesn’t matter who you are.
Question: Is qualifying less important now or is it more important to conserve tyres?
Mark Webber: Well it was absolutely crucial in years gone by, qualifying, we know that. Where you finished the first lap in the seasons gone by particularly when refuelling was brought back in it was very, very sensitive. You had to get it right. When we had pit-stops before that with fuelling it was still important but you could still get something out of it by going longer, shorter and recovering a bit. But, at the moment, we know with these regulations you can recover the most we have seen in the last 10 years so it has changed a lot.
Question: Mark, last year you were mentioning Sebastian’s qualifying; do you have an explanation for Sebastian’s dominance this year, and do you think that the fact that you are coming up to the two races that
you won against him last year will give you more strength and more confidence?
Mark Webber: What’s absolutely clear is that we were very, very, very even on the Bridgestone tyres, and it’s not quite like that on the Pirellis so far, particularly on new tyres. That’s not an excuse, I’m just answering your question. That’s the only thing that’s changed. It’s a big change for the drivers, obviously, to get used to that. Seb’s doing a good job and clearly it’s up to me to do better.
Races here? Well, look, I like Sepang, I like a lot of the tracks we’ve already been to but I didn’t win there. This is another track that’s not too bad. Monaco is a very unique venue, as we know, it’s going to be very interesting this year on strategy. There’s many tracks I enjoy driving on but haven’t had victories on and there are some tracks which I’ve won at which maybe I don’t enjoy as much. Yeah, I’m looking forward to this weekend. It’s always been a good Grand Prix, particularly since Fernando’s been at the front, in the Renault days. There’s a good atmosphere with the crowd, good fireworks and all that sort of stuff. It makes a difference from the last venues; it’s nice to race in front of people. They’re passionate about it now, alongside their motorcycle racing. It’s one of the reasons why I threw my helmet into the crowd last year, to give something back to the guys here. They’re really passionate about the sport and that’s good.
Question: Last year the Red Bull was about a second a lap faster than anything else around here. This year, the Red Bull has been even quicker compared to the other cars than it was last year at other circuits, so what hope or chance is there of anyone getting anywhere near the Red Bulls this weekend?
Mark Webber: Yeah, there were two tracks that stood out last year: here and Budapest, particularly in qualifying where the car was very, very strong and it was a big surprise to us and also the opposition. Of course, we hope we have a nice advantage again, coming to this venue, but it’s not a given. For sure, the car should perform well around here. The gap in qualifying was quite big, the race with Lewis last year, for me, was obviously under control. He was our closest rival, then he had a problem with the front left. Seb had a problem and Fernando got second. But the race was a bit different to qualifying in terms of pace. As we have seen, again in the last three years with the Red Bull, everyone talks about qualifying now, but that’s generally been a trend that we are strong in qualifying and still strong enough in the race. We haven’t been unsuccessful in races in the last few years either, so yeah, I hope we still have a good gap and see what happens.
Question: I guess this question is for the two veteran drivers, Mark and Fernando: with all the buttons and levers and stuff in the cockpit this year, you guys are busier than ever and inevitably it seems all the strategy is being done on the pit wall, because there are so many factors that they can perceive that you cannot. Do you regret that the driver no longer has the same control over strategy that perhaps he used to have in the past?
Mark Webber: I think that, as usual, you will never get everyone to agree on the first part of your question in terms of levers and buttons in the cockpit. Obviously, it becomes a little bit political sometimes on those issues, in terms of what some teams like and some teams don’t but in the end, when we’re all using the same button or buttons at the same time, particularly in qualifying, I’m not a huge fan of us patting our tummy at the same time for no real benefit for anybody. We’re just going round the track doing the same thing, basically. If we’re racing, it’s a different story. Whatever we can do to help the show but there are parts of the weekend when we don’t need to use all the toys for the benefit of anybody. For the strategy side of things, I think we’ve seen the racing change, of course. It’s not often that you see what happened with Fernando and I in Turkey, where Fernando comes past me and then I can come back past him again later in the race. I would like to see the last time we saw that in a grand prix, for a clean… no mechanical problems on the cars, obviously. It was just a different situation that we went through in the grand prix, so that was a little bit unusual and probably will happen again in the future. That’s mainly because of the tyres, so the tyres are now playing a big role in how the grands prix are executed and you’re right, yes, we’re getting a lot of help from the pit wall. We’ve always had that, particularly in the fuelling days. In terms of influence from the pit wall, I don’t think that much has changed. It’s now maybe as busy - maybe a little bit more busy for us in the car than it was in fuelling days, for us, not to manipulate the strategy but we’ve got to try and look after the tyres a bit and that sort of stuff. In the fuelling days, it was basically just flat out and you were going against the fuel in the car. Strategy-wise, I don’t think a huge amount has changed in the cockpit, more pit stops but it’s the same for everyone. So the people are helping us as much as they were in the early two thousands and late nineties.
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