Question: Your feelings about this circuit, Lewis?
Lewis Hamilton: I have had good races here since 2006. Obviously, GP2 was quite an important experience I had here. It was right in front of all the bosses and probably one of the most exciting races I had had up until then in my career. Every year something interesting has happened here. Obviously, 2008 I think I blew up one of my tyres here, through turn eight, but then obviously I got my first win here. That was a great feeling. Coming back it is going to be very, very tough this weekend, not really knowing what conditions we are going to have and it will be very interesting to see the upgrades everyone has to bring here. I just hope that what we have is a step forward. Whether it is a big or small step we will see tomorrow.
Question: Do you think it really is just between Vodafone McLaren Mercedes and Red Bull Racing at the moment?
Lewis Hamilton: I don’t think so, especially with this break. The other guys seem to be closing the gap gradually. Look at Mercedes, they were very competitive in the last race. You see Ferrari, they are always there or thereabouts and it doesn’t seem like it is going to take too much for them to make the quick switch and be right up there with us and also the Renaults are doing fantastic and Petrov is driving fantastically well. I think it is going to be quite close at some point. I just hope that we are able to continue to move forward as I am sure the Red Bulls will do that to.
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F1 Standings Ahead of Turkish Grand Prix
Question: We certainly have not had a wet race here, have we? Have you experienced this circuit wet?
Lewis Hamilton: I don’t think I have been here when it is wet. I didn’t even know it rained here. This is the first time I have seen it rain, so it is going to be interesting. Turn eight is going to be an interesting one if it is wet, but fingers crossed it will dry out.
Question: Can you speak about turn eight and the difficulty and the pleasure of it and do you fear that your tyre will struggle at that turn?
Lewis Hamilton: I think, for me, I had quite an interesting experience through there in 2008, so I probably adjusted my driving style to hopefully suit the tyres a little bit better over the last couple of years and I hope that will help this weekend. It is a great corner. You enter it flat out. I think the Red Bulls were flat out there a couple of times last year and we were quite close. It is a corner where you are continuously building up lateral G and you really have to be quite precise with the line that you take and how much you are taking out of the tyres, and also how much minimum speed you carry through there as you carry it all the way down the next straight. But it is quite a straightforward corner. I don’t think any of the drivers struggle with it but you do have to perhaps compromise the overall set-up of your car to suit that corner perhaps more than the others. At least that is what I have experienced.
Question: Considering the degradation of the tyres, are you more concerned about wet or dry conditions as you don’t know exactly the behaviour of the rain tyres.
Lewis Hamilton: I agree with what they have said. We have not really had a lot of time on the tyres, finding the right tyre pressures, finding the right balance and those kind of things that are going to come into play. But I hope it dries up and we don’t have to experience that this weekend, but I am sure at some stage it is going to become quite important for strategy and we probably won’t see too many people using the tyres in practice mainly because we don’t have too many sets of the tyres. It will be interesting.
Question: Lewis it was exciting for you and for the team that you won last time in China. How realistic is it to expect that you can now mount a season-long challenge?
Lewis Hamilton: Of course you can come from the last race and be very excited and confident going into the next race, but I don’t have particularly high hopes. I generally don’t like to expect too much as then, obviously, if it doesn’t work out, then it is a big comedown from that. But I would prefer to arrive here cautious. We may not be the quickest this weekend, which is definitely possible, but if we are then that will be fantastic and we will do what we can to win. In the last race we didn’t win because we had the fastest car. We won because we generally out-drove and out-did them with strategy. Our car was the next quickest, but I hope we have closed the gap. But you never know again who has improved their car more than others so fingers crossed our upgrade is good enough but we will see tomorrow.
Question: To clarify, you don’t have particularly high hopes for this weekend or for the season for the title challenge?
Lewis Hamilton: I was referring to this weekend, just because we have had that break and everyone is making a step forward. You have to assume everyone is making a step forward. We had a good half-asecond that we needed to jump to catch the Red Bull. Whether we will have that half-a-second we will have to wait and see, but we have to assume that whatever we bring they will have brought the same or similar. But for the rest of the season, of course, we are on top of our game and we are pushing as hard as we can to win more races. I think it was a great boost for us the last race and to then have that couple of weeks break was fantastic from our guys so I was happy I was able to do that for them.
Question: Lewis, I would have suggested that you would come here with confidence and on a considerable high after China so why the caution?
Lewis Hamilton: In terms of my own performance and my driving I am confident that I can get in the car and do the same job that I did in the last race, but race-by-race you learn and people learn from other peoples’ experiences through strategy how to control their tyres and everyone is improving constantly. And just because it is such a big break. In this kind of break, generally we have gone back to Barcelona in the past and everyone has brought quite a big upgrade, so you have to expect that it is the same this weekend. Even though we won the last race, we were still slightly trailing behind the Red Bulls in pure pace, but you have to also be cautious of the fact that others like Ferrari, Renault and Mercedes have also made the step. Perhaps closer to us or past us, you never know. I am just not getting all excited, just looking forward to getting in the car and doing the best job we can this weekend to score some points. I am confident with what is coming over the next few races that hopefully it will put us in better shape.
Question: In the past, the guy who had the fastest car was the guy who was winning and this year, because of the strategy - you may finish fifth with the best car or first with a car that isn’t as good as the best car. Is it something that stresses you, do you like it, personally? Does it add too much pressure to you and you would rather go back to the old system?
Lewis Hamilton: I think it still remains the same - that the fastest car generally ends up at the front. The fastest car has obviously won the first two races and then almost won the third race. But of course, being in the early stages of the season, where strategy is still not fully optimised or the way the tyres behave through each race is not fully known, what the characteristics will be like, it makes it a bit more exciting for us because we can approach the weekend thinking there’s a greater possibility than there perhaps would have been in the past. I think it’s definitely exciting for the fans, which is probably the most important thing.
Question: When you go around the paddock, do you notice the absence of Robert Kubica and do you miss him as a friend and a personality in Formula One?
Lewis Hamilton: I think everyone - all the drivers - have paid a compliment to him and fair dos to that. I’ve known him since I was about 13. We raced together, as soon as I got to Italy, so I’ve known him quite a long time and we generally came up through the ranks together, so perhaps I’ve known him a little bit longer than some others but I think that as we got to Formula One, known him perhaps a little bit less because you have less time for that kind of thing, but obviously he’s a great talent in the sport and he definitely deserves to be here so I hope that he has a very, very fast recovery and no doubt he has the right people behind him to help him recover in the best way. And knowing him, and how competitive he is, he will be doing everything he can to get back on the scene, so I look forward to welcoming him back, the same as everyone else.
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