Q: Felipe, from the pole you have won your second Turkish Grand Prix.
Felipe MASSA: It’s amazing. The third time here in Istanbul but the second race in a row winning from pole. I love the track, I love the place and here is where my career made a switch and I started to win races and fight with the front runners. It is a very special place for me and to have a second consecutive win here, it’s difficult to find the right words…
Q: It looked like a dominating win from the outside. Talk about it from your perspective. We saw a little drama with your helmet at one point and of course a big surprise for everybody in the pit lane to see both Ferraris on the softer of the two Bridgestone tyres for the first two stints.
FM: The helmet had a crack on the cooling system and I had big turbulence. My head started to go up and I was losing a lot of concentration, so I just took it away and it made a bit of strange behaviour on the straight but then it was better. With the tyres, on Friday we made a long run on both tyres and it was pretty similar, with maybe just one or two tenths between them. We knew that Friday to Sunday the track changes a lot and the soft tyre should improve even more, so we took a bit of a gamble although it was a pretty safe risk. Especially for the start, we knew that the soft would be better and we had fantastic starts; Kimi overtook Lewis and we had a very good race on the soft.
Q: A great day for you to have your family at the race, your Dad had a lot of TV time!
FM: Yes! He is very emotional, like me, and on the podium for sure the TV likes to take this kind of experience from people. But I am really proud to win in front of him, and my mother as well.
Q: Kimi, it looked like a frustrating day for you. As Felipe said, you got into second place from the start but that’s where you stayed. You pushed Felipe pretty hard going into the second pit stop.
Kimi RÄIKKÖNEN: Yeah, we had a pretty good car but unfortunately these days in Formula One it’s pretty difficult to get past, so the race was really decided yesterday already. If nothing else I pushed hard and got as close as I could and tried to do something at the pit stops, but when two team-mates are fighting it is usually that whoever is first is going to stay there. The car was really good but there was nothing I could have done.
Q: Again you chose the softer of the two Bridgestone tyres. Was that a big decision going into the race, how it was going to perform?
KR: I think as Felipe said we were pretty confident that both tyres would work pretty well. It was not a big difference and we decided to take the soft one for the start for many reasons and it worked well. It was still difficult to say which one would have been better. They were very equal.
Q: Well Felipe, we now go to the Italian Grand Prix with Ferrari having another 1-2 behind them, so what’s that race going to be like for you and the team?
FM: It is a very special race for us so hopefully we can repeat the result here. It would be fantastic for the team, for the people, for the tifosi, so I’m looking forward to the race.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: As I said yesterday, Felipe, you’re a bit of a Turkish specialist now.
FM: Maybe after three races and two wins here it can be a special track for me. It is fantastic to win for the second time in a row here in Turkey, starting from the pole, having a good car. A difficult race but I managed to keep my concentration.
Q: What was happening when Kimi was catching you at the end of the second stint?
FM: The gap was pretty similar throughout the stint but then Kimi started to run two tenths quicker and I started to push again. Then I just made a small mistake going into Turn 7 and Kimi was just able to close the gap completely. But the gap was okay to control, the balance was okay and the car was easy to drive, so it was not so difficult but the small mistake made my life a little bit more difficult.
Q: Just explain again what the problem was with your helmet, the visor?
FM: We have a cooling system just on the top and the plastic part cracked and started to go up and so I had huge turbulence and my head started to move a lot – going up and under braking going completely down. That was disturbing me a lot and so I just broke the cooling flap completely and managed to take it away.
Q: How many laps did you suffer that for?
FM: Five or six laps before I broke it. It was still a bit difficult in terms of turbulence but a lot better.
Q: Kimi, tell us about the start.
KR: I got a good start as we were hoping for but that’s about it – I was following Felipe all race long and there was nothing I could have done.
Q: How did you see the end of that first stint?
KR: It was good. I had a little bit too much understeer at the start and I couldn’t push as hard as I wanted. The car got better and better and in the end was very good and very easy to drive. But I had big difficulties with the handling at the start of the second stint. At the end I could go very fast but when you have two guys behind each other in the same team, usually the second guy has to pit first and there is nothing more I could have done.
Q: But a little bit of a statement two laps from the end?
KR: Yeah, but it’s so boring behind other cars. Unfortunately in Formula One these days the races are pretty much decided after qualifying, so it’s a shame.
Q: Fastest lap, two laps from the end, similar to Hungary…
KR: Yeah, it’s something to do.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Juha Päätalo – Financial Times Germany) Kimi, you already said that this is your second race in a row where you are following the leading car and you said it’s a little bit boring being there, but having said that, you did the fastest lap in both races. Is that just to keep you awake or is it more to try and see how much you can get out of the car?
KR: I think we can get more out of the car if we really push but there’s no point in really wasting your second position to push like crazy and maybe go off so… It was just that I wanted to try and see how good the car was and maybe we can learn something. As I said, it’s a bit boring because you quite often know, especially after the pit stop, where the other cars will stop and that’s it. You know that you cannot really do anything if you don’t get past the guys and it’s very difficult to get past.
Q: (Ian Parkes – The Press Association) For all three of you: how much has Lewis’s puncture helped your title chances?
FM: It helped me six points.
KR: Yeah, it was definitely better for us. We know that anything can happen in a race, we gained more than if we had finished third, so it’s helping but there are still many races to go, so we just need to keep pushing and try to win and see what happens.
Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) A question for the two Ferrari drivers: did the positions on the grid decide who will stop earlier than the other in the two different stints?
FM: It was decided yesterday in qualifying. I had one lap more fuel than him (Kimi).
Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Kimi, is starting from pole the only way to win at Monza also?
KR: Not really. It depends how much fuel you have against the others but racing with teammates, you know exactly much fuel the other guy has, so when you are in that situation, you pretty much know what will happen in the race. If it’s someone else it’s a different story but for sure, pole position makes your life easier, you have better chances but it doesn’t really decide the race completely.
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