PRESS CONFERENCE

Q: Last year’s pole man, Felipe Massa, sitting alongside. You’ve been so quick all weekend, you were fastest this morning by over 0.7s, were you a bit disappointed to be second on the grid?
FM: Well, in a way I’m happy with second, looking at how we look in the race, but for sure, I think even in Q3, looking at what we did in Q2, it was really possible to be in front. I was a little bit unlucky with traffic in Q3, I was always behind cars and I couldn’t do very clean laps but it’s good to be second, good to start in the front and I think we can be very strong tomorrow as we have shown all weekend.

Q: What was the tyre choice like? It was interesting in qualifying that most drivers seemed to go out on mediums and then on softs at the end?
FM: Well, for sure soft in qualifying is always the best and for the race we need to analyse tonight the best situation, how the track is going to be, how the grid is going to be, even taking the data from today but I don’t think we have a lot of problems with the tyres here. Both seem pretty reasonable.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto Motor und Sport) Felipe, you had been the fastest all the time in the first sector but it seemed that you lost time in Q3 in the second sector in both outings. Any problem there?
FM: No, no problem. I think on the first attempt I was pretty slow in the second and third sector because I was behind Rosberg during the whole lap, and on the last attempt I passed Fernando just before turn nine, but I don’t think he held me up. I don’t think there was any problem.

Q: (Jerome Bourret – L’Equipe) Question for all of you: is it a big advantage to start on the clean side of the track here?
FM: Well, it depends what sort of start you can make. For sure, if I need to chose, I always prefer the clean side but if you look at last year, I think you can see a good start as well. He (Lewis) almost passed me in turn one but I think you can also be strong on the dirty side, so let’s wait and see tomorrow.