Interview - Hyperlink Image Article Page - Testing - By NS
DRIVERS: 1 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes) 2 – Daniel RICCIARDO (Red Bull) 3 – Valtteri BOTTAS (Mercedes)
PODIUM INTERVIEWS
(Conducted by Eddie Jordan)
Q: Singapore, what an unbelievable race, particularly after the rain started. We were served up a titanic. Ladies and gentlemen, he looks exhausted…
Lewis Hamilton: I’m not exhausted.
Q: He’s not exhausted. That doesn’t look like champagne to me, Obviously, you’ve made a bit of history here, you really like coming to Singapore, it’s the tenth anniversary, your third win here, come on, tell me about it.
LH: Well, firstly, as always I want to really congratulate my team, this is a great result. Valtteri did a fantastic to get a one and a three up here – amazing points for the team. Obviously, yesterday we struggled. We had no idea what was going to happen today but the thing is we just tried to stay focused and tried to get ahead. Obviously it was very fortunate with the Ferraris at the beginning, so yeah, I couldn’t be happier. I’m really grateful.
Q: I’ve got to ask you this, because we interviewed him yesterday and he said that he needed a miracle today. Well, I think he had Santa Claus, the reindeer and he had the miracle. Come on, tell me, this was just out of heaven!
LH: Yeah, God blessed me today for sure. I capitalised on the incident… I mean who would have know that would happen. Really unfortunate for the Ferraris but it was, as I said, a really great result for the team. Daniel put up a really good fight today, I enjoyed racing him. I was hoping I would get to race with Sebastian at the beginning…
Q: Come on, you don’t mean that. You were just seeing what was going on in front of you. It was classic for your 60th win.
LH: It was, but when I got round to Turn 2 or Turn 3, I had Sebastian in front and I thought ‘I’m going to have a real race here’. Obviously it’s better the way it is, but I’m just glad I brought it home.
Q: We’ll come back to you, but just enjoy the 28-point lead you have in the championship at the moment. Daniel Ricciardo: he’s made a bit of a habit of this. This is his fourth time, out of 10 years, his fourth time on the podium. What is it about Singapore?
Daniel Ricciardo: I can’t win the bloody thing! I’m trying; I’m trying. I like it around here. Today, we probably didn’t show that Friday pace we showed in practice to have the pace on the Mercedes. A little bit disappointed to miss out on a win but I’ve still got to be pretty grateful and happy with another podium and I think there are more Aussies here than last year and there was more then than the year before, so it’s getting better. Thanks a lot.
Q: We’ve got to ask you because it was one of the key factors of the entire race. What was your take on it – without blaming anybody?
DR: I just kind of watched the chaos unfold in front of me. It was probably a good thing I had a bad start, otherwise I would probably have got caught up in it. It just looked like three were trying to go into one. I don’t know whose fault it was but it was just too close.
Q: We know that Lewis won driver of the day but you’ve got the fans here on your side, man, and many congratulations. Fantastic. Where’s Valtteri? Valtteri, you had a Sunday evening cruise. You were just sitting back in your armchair watching what was going to happen?
Valtteri Bottas: Yeah, of course it was, for us, very good damage limitation today. We definitely got lucky, but I have to say the car was working better than expected today. I was really waiting for the opportunities. Personally, I struggled in the wet with the pace, but in the dry it was pretty good and from time to time I could put pressure on Daniel but that was about it.
Q: I’ve got to talk about your own championship. You’re closing that gap now to Sebastian. That must be in the back of your mind, with all these races to come?
VB: Definitely. There are plenty of races to come and plenty of opportunities, so yeah, definitely Sebastian is the next target.
Q: Were you aware, in all the 10 years here, we have yet to have a team 1-2 here and we thought today you might be the first to break that duck. You fought very hard but it didn’t happen. Did you have that in the back of your mind or did you know about it?
VB: No I didn’t really think about it. I was just trying to get the most out of it. I think we take it, although it’s not a 1-2, but on a difficult circuit for us a 1-3 is nearly perfect.
Q: Lewis I’ve got to say to you, when you saw what was unfolding in front of you, what was going through your mind?
LH: You’re just focused on winning so I was just trying to get to the front…
Q: Yeah, but you said yesterday that you needed a miracle…
LH: I needed it to rain. As soon as it rained I knew where I was going to finish. I knew I had the pace when it rains. Unfortunately we just didn’t have the car in the dry. But today, with it raining, those are my conditions, so…
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Lewis, many congratulations. Third win here in Singapore, seventh of the season, perhaps an even more satisfying number, 60th career win, only the second man to reach that number, third win in a row and obviously lots of fun going on to your side? Great win against the odds. I think the real thing is that you seemed to have an answer for everything. Whatever the conditions, whether it was used inters, new inters on Daniel’s car, ultrasofts, you just always seemed to have answer. Just give us a window into your state of mind when he was on the new inters and you were on the used and it was looking as though you might not have the right equipment on the car.
LH: I feel like we distracted you. Have we distracted you? That was a very long-winded question. For those of you watching – we’re all a bit gassy up here. That’s why we are in tears. Yeah, what a day. What can I say? When it start raining when I woke up this morning, I was thinking, ‘fantastic’, because it’s a very difficult circuit on which to overtake. Being fifth, knowing that the Red Bulls and the Ferraris were so quick, on a grippy circuit, being dry, I knew it would be very, very difficult to progress from fifth place. But I did know there is a start, a strategy, and the potential for a safety car, that often happens here every year. It dried up and it started to rain just as I started, which was really a real blessing. Those are my conditions, that I love to drive in. Once we got going… I felt like I had a good start, but I think Kimi had an incredible launch and then I saw this commotion happening, I was alongside Daniel. I had a great Turn 1 and came out behind Sebastian. I couldn’t really see what had happened behind. And then I came out of Turn 3 and I was just excited to race Sebastian. I was like: ‘it’s on; I’m ready.’ But then he had a problem with the car or whatever it was and he lost control. Then I was in the lead and the safety car came out. After that it was about managing the tyres. Daniel had that stop, which was a bit of a surprise to me that you could have a free stop and be behind me on brand new tyres. But I think… if you remember back in 2008 in Monaco, I just nursed the tyres. We often shred our intermediate tyres and the Red Bulls are usually very, very good on them, so today was just about making sure we managed them to the maximum. I was able to keep them cool and not have any degradation. Even at the end when I pitted I still had life left in the tyres, which is very, very rare. After that we had a great battle. It was quite tricky conditions when we went back out but it was really just about managing the gap. I ha da good amount of pace in the car today, it seemed to work in those trickier, cooler, slippier conditions, so a real blessing and just grateful for the team, grateful for all of the effort that went in, strategy. I’m happy with the performance from myself and Valtteri did a fantastic job as well to really solidify some really great points from the team.
Valtteri Bottas has revealed that his eyesight began to suffer in the closing stages of Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix as a result of dehydration.
The Finn, who finished third behind Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo in what was the longest race at Marina Bay on record, was unable to take on any fluids throughout the two-hour event because of a drinks bottle failure on his Mercedes.
Even with the night-time start, the temperature was just below 30 degrees Celsius when the race got underway, and with cockpit temperatures known to hover around the 60-degree mark and drivers capable of sweating out up to 3kg of bodyweight, it's little wonder that Bottas began to struggle.
“Now I feel ok,” explained the Finn to UK broadcaster Channel 4 between sips of water in the post-race interview pen. “It was just towards the end of the race that I could feel my vision was not as clear as it should be.
“But you know human beings can do amazing things as long as you don’t give up.”
Bottas, whose 10th podium finish moved him level with Sebastian Vettel for the most this season, isn’t the only driver to have experienced a drinks bottle failure in Singapore. Last year Kevin Magnussen suffered the same fate while racing for Renault and also made it home safely in the points.
