Q: It appears it was your great pole lap which allowed you to get the lead in the race.
KR: This circuit is very difficult to overtake. The start is the best place and when you have a lot of things going with the safety car you might be lucky or very unlucky, so the best place to try to win is always from the front. It was good yesterday and it really helped us today. We had good speed all weekend.

Q: What were the track conditions like today?
KR: Not too bad. I had one incident in corner three when I was coming in for my first pit stop. There was massive understeer and then the front bites, so I always got sideways. Of course sometimes when you get those unexpected things and it happens in one lap it is more luck than anything else you do not get off. But apart from that the conditions were pretty good today.

Q: Felipe. It was a great Ferrari one-two. And a good start from you to take second place into the first corner.
Felipe MASSA: Yes, it was a good start. For sure as you mention before the qualifying was very important for this race. I had one lap less fuel than Kimi and I just couldn’t put together my lap on the last try when it counts. I started third but I did a very good start and could manage to pass Fernando and that’s it. I had a little moment with the safety car and I saw that he was going a little bit longer than me. That maybe was a little bit of a scare for us but then I managed to build the gap in the second stint in a very good way and it was not a problem to stop one lap before and get in front. We did our homework and brought two Ferrari’s in the front – first and second - which is very important for the championship.

Q: It’s a wonderful position in which you find yourself. It appears you have a great spot for the car now and reliability. Ferrari are in a great place.
FM: We are in the first race of our engine and everything but looking at what we did in the test the car looks more in the right direction. But let’s keep working and improving because we saw that our competitors were very close. If you look in qualifying they were very close and in the race as well, so we need to pay attention race by race and we need to keep working like crazy in the factory to improve the car in every area.

Q: Kimi, focussing on Turkey now and Ferrari are obviously very strong there as well.
KR: I think so. If you look what happened here last year it was quite similar. Last year was a different race. Our car should be quite strong in Turkey. It is a great circuit and I am looking forward to going there and trying to do the best job we can. As a team we had a great weekend here and we will try to repeat it in Turkey and hopefully we can do it. Whatever it brings we need points and whatever we get is always a bonus.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q: Kimi, it looked like a pretty perfect day, was the car perfect?
KR: Yeah, it was pretty good. We could still improve it. We always try to improve it but it was very nice, very good balance all the time, so it wasn’t too bad.

Q: It looked as if you lost a little bit of time on the harder tyres in comparison to the McLaren. Both of you were lapping at the same pace, roughly speaking, but the McLaren was lapping quite a lot quicker on the harder tyres for the first two or three laps.
KR: We didn’t need to push. If we wanted to push, we could go much faster, for sure, but there’s no point in risking anything or using the engine more than you needed to. The first thing was that they were trying to catch us and the second thing was that they would try to overtake, but if they don’t even catch us, it’s fine. In the last part of the race, you don’t see the true speed of most of the people, they slow down if they can.

Q: You also lost a little bit of time to Felipe for about two or three laps round about lap 40.
KR: No, I lost some time in the traffic with the same car. I think it was Sato twice. He wasn’t too helpful but apart from that, I don’t know if something happened. There was no problem with the car. Maybe I made a mistake or had traffic. I don’t remember.

Q: Felipe, Fernando seemed to come over on you at the start. Was that acceptable, anything more than usual?
FM: No. I did a good start and even if he came over, he saw that I was on his side, so there was nothing he could do. It’s not like it was in the braking point, there you can defend your position. If you have a better start on acceleration, you cannot do anything. I also got into Kimi’s slipstream and I also got alongside him on the outside of the first corner, so I made a very good start. For sure it helps a lot to pass Fernando at the start, to build a gap, to be a little bit safer.

Q: And after that, did you pretty much settle for second place?
FM: Yes, the race here looks very similar to the last race. I was one lap earlier on the fuel and the chance to win was very small. For sure, I was pushing for the first stint, second stint, ready to build the gap to Lewis but it was pretty much that unless something happened, it would be very difficult to win the race. I cannot win every race. It was very important to bring home eight points and make another step forward in the championship which we know is quite long.

Q: Same question on hard tyres, you weren’t happy on the hard tyres, presumably?
FM: For sure the softs were much better for us, but as Kimi said, even if Lewis was quite close, if we didn’t make a mistake for sure he wouldn’t pass us. I was doing similar lap times to Kimi and was just looking at the gap behind and it was not such a big problem.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Juha Päätalo – Financial Times Germany) Kimi, first of all, when you saw Heikki’s car in the tyre wall, what did you think?
KR: First of all, we didn’t know which McLaren it was. I asked the team and they said it was Heikki. It probably looked worse than it was in the end. Luckily he seems to be OK, so that’s the main thing.

Q: (Juha Päätalo – Financial Times Germany) You now have a nine point lead in the championship. How much easier does it make your life?
KR: It doesn’t change anything, so far. It’s a good advantage but there are 14 races to go. You have one bad race and it’s all gone. There’s a little safety in it, in that if you don’t finish one race it’s not totally disastrous afterwards, but so far it’s been good. We just need to keep on going and try to improve the car.

Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Felipe, Bahrain seemed to be your circuit, in a way, compared to Kimi. Do you think that Turkey will be the same for you?
FM: To be honest, it doesn’t mean that because you won last year, you are stronger on the track. I feel strong on whatever track we go to and I feel that I can win any time. You need to find the opportunities, you need to pull everything together to win. For sure, here Kimi did a great job, especially in qualifying with a good strategy and the picture was exactly the opposite to Bahrain, so I think it’s important to bring the points home, as I said, and start to build a gap in comparison to our competitors. Whatever opportunity we get to win, we need to take it and today was not possible, but I’m happy with second and I’m sure it’s very important points for the team and for both of us.

Q: (Livio Oricchio – O Estado de Sao Paulo) Kimi, were you afraid at the second pit stop when you were two seconds slower than Felipe? Did you think you could lose your lead?
KR: You’re always thinking about it because you’re going slower and the other guys are going full speed on the circuit but it was only because there was traffic coming when my car was being refuelled and I needed to wait, because there were two cars, Lewis and a BMW at the same time, so I just needed to wait. Once they went, I could leave my pit. You cannot see but the team always tries to tell me (what’s going on) and I had a reasonable gap, so I didn’t really worry about it too much, but you would rather go when you can and not have to wait.

Q: (Rodrigo Franca – VIP Magazine) Question for Kimi and Felipe: Michael Schumacher was here all weekend. How much did he help you and Felipe to win this race, and during the tests and during the briefings etc?
KR: I saw him yesterday for the first time, so I think he’s helpful for the team overall. During the season he did some tests but I do my work with the engineers and he’s not involved. He’s a part of the team and he’s always been there, so if we wanted some help from him, he would help, for sure.
FM: I think he did a good job, for sure, last week, working for next year on the slick tyres and so many things on the car. I think he was very useful there. I didn’t see him so much this weekend but as Kimi said, I’m sure he works very closely with our engineers and Michael will not come one day and start to tell us to do a lot of things that we have to do. That’s not how we work. As I said, he’s very important in the team but we work together in many areas, not just coming here and saying that we need to stop.

Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Kimi, in 2005 you won the race almost in a similar fashion and you said after the race that it was very boring. How was the feeling now? Was it as boring as it was then?
KR: I think my race was much easier that race. OK, we had a safety car then also, but it was on the first lap, so it was a pretty clear race. Now, during the race when you get the safety car, you have got to get back together, you never know if they have even more fuel or less fuel and you need to push again. For sure, I needed to push all the time, so it wasn’t the easiest.