Coletiva

Versão Octete da coletiva da FIA. Jenson, um dos donos da casa, foi um dos escalados para responder aos jornalistas.

Reproduced with kind permission of the FIA

Q: Jenson, this will be your 12th British Grand Prix. Two-time fourth place, your best here, so how badly do you want to win this race?
Jenson Button: Yeah, I haven’t even got on the podium here before in an F1 car. That will be my first aim. It is one you would love to win, your home grand prix. We all want to fight for a World Championship and I think we all want to win Monaco and I think we would love to win our home grand prix. It is the one I haven’t achieved yet so that is something I will be fighting for and this is a pretty special race for us as Brits. We get a lot of support from the public here. To see so many Union Jacks and St George Crosses around the place and the rocket red caps, so it’s a really, really nice atmosphere. Hopefully we can put on a good show for them this weekend.

Q: Do you think with the new regulations there is a chance there?
JB: There is always a chance. Whether it is a big enough one I don’t know. I think if you look at the last race you’d say the Red Bull was very strong and we were quite a long way behind them. But we have updates for this race, which hopefully will help us and also we have the difference in the blown diffuser this race and the electronics. That might help us more than the other teams. I don’t know, it might not. That’s something we just have to see when we get out on the circuit. But I think the important thing is that we have done a lot of preparation work for this race with the new components and also running with the new blown diffuser system. It’s about preparation for this race. This is a pretty tough circuit to get out onto with the new package so preparation is key and I think we have prepared very well and hopefully that will show tomorrow when we get out there.

Q: Lots has been written about where Lewis might or might not be going. It is all speculation of course, but what about your own situation?
JB: I’m going, going, gone.

Q: In the future, next year?
JB: I haven’t sat down and talked to Martin (Whitmarsh) yet about the future. They have an option on me for next year, I keep reading in the press. It’s not the time to be discussing it I don’t think. We have got more important things to be concentrating on, fighting for a victory here, so we will leave that on the back-burner for now and look into that later this season. But I am happy where I am. We are all fighters and we all want to achieve and at the moment we have been a little bit behind the Red Bulls but we are fighting on. I think the team are doing a great job of bringing updates and reasonably big updates to most grands prix, and especially this one, the home grand prix, so I think we are all doing a very good job. We will see if it works out for us when we get out on the track.


Q: (Stephen Howard - The Sun) Rubens said that Sebastian Vettel cannot sleep but for either of you two guys there (the McLaren drivers), perhaps he could sleep and still win it.
JB: I think if I was in that position I would be able to sleep, couldn’t you? Maybe it’s all the partying that he’s doing, that’s why he can’t sleep. Sorry, I don’t even know the question. I just made up my own answer.

Q: (Stephen Howard - The Sun) I mean he’s so far ahead he could do it in his sleep perhaps.
JB: Yeah. Really? Is that the question? I like it. No, I don’t think so. He’s still pushing hard. We’ve seen that, he’s on the limit. He’s obviously done a very good job in qualifying. It’s very impressive that he’s been able to put it on pole at every race except one and in the races it’s been a little bit more difficult for them. We’ve challenged them a few times, probably three or four - in four races we have challenged them. Twice we’ve beaten them and the other two we didn’t. It’s not a walk in the park for him. He’s still having to push hard and it’s good to see and I hope it continues that way.

Q: (Livio Oricchio - O Estado de Sao Paulo) To all drivers; the blown diffuser helps the car in the braking area, brings more speed in the high speed bends and in general improves the car’s handling. Now you don’t have it any more on a high speed track and you don’t have the opportunity to test it on the track. Are your worried about the safety here?
RB: I think that the answers can be different from driver to driver because in my car there wasn’t such a difference in the high speed, to be honest. The difference was more in the braking area through the low speed so like Lewis said, there’s going to be a lot of set-up adjustments with the new parts on the car, you’re going to be looking for adjustment. Formula One moves on very very fast. You cannot just say ‘yeah, you have lost like half a second’ and that’s it. You’re going to find something better by the end of the weekend, you’ve probably got to the level - if you’ve done a really good job - that you didn’t even lose anything, so I suspect it’s the same for everyone on that part.
JB: I think that the top teams will lose quite a bit, because we’ve had this for a little while now so you start designing the car around the systems that you have in place. It’s going to be a reasonably big hit and you’ll feel it everywhere: high, low speed, not so much on power but it’s more under braking and high speed corners. I think the biggest problem will be is that braking and exit will be very different in corners to the feeling of the car, could be changing a lot, so that’s probably the thing that you need to get used to.

Q: (Livio Oricchio - O Estado de Sao Paulo) Sorry, but the question is about safety.
JB: Safety? No. It’s just like us driving in a slower car, with less downforce. There’s no safety issues. We feel the circuit, we feel the car. When it’s wet we have to drive the car slower because it’s easier to go off because there’s less grip. There’s no safety issues, no.

Q: (Ian Parkes - Press Association) Jenson and Lewis, is there are any concern amongst either of you that we could be entering a period of domination with Seb and Red Bull like we saw with Michael and Ferrari at the start of the last decade?
LH: I think Rubens answered it well. I don’t think so. I think it’s a different time, rules are changing all the time. They’ve clearly established that they’re a strong team but you have lots of other strong teams and it even looks like people like Renault is getting stronger this year. You’ve got Mercedes who are there or thereabouts. You’ve even got Williams, the updates, the changes that they’re going to have over the next couple of years. You never know if they’re going to be back up there with us, which I think will be great for the sport. I don’t think it will be the same situation. I think there was a lot more to it in the Schumacher days. I don’t even bother going into that.
JB: I don’t know. It’s difficult to compare. They’re extremely quick and they have the reliability. Last year they were quick but they didn’t have the reliability, so obviously they’ve taken a step forward. They’re very strong in many areas so it’s tough to beat them but we’ve beaten them twice, it’s not as much as we’d like to beat them but they are beatable and I think Michael won 13 races or something at the start of one year, so we are just going to hope that doesn’t happen but I think we are close. We are close to them. It’s not like they have a massive, massive advantage like one and a half or two seconds or something.

Q: (Gary Meenaghan - The National Newspaper, Abu Dhabi) We’ve seen in recent months that Britain has a lot of sportsmen competing at the highest level, like McIlroy, Andy Murray, David Haye. I’m just wondering where Formula One stands in the British sporting hierarchy?
JB: I’ve never compared it before but I would say that we’re doing alright, as a sport in general. In the history of motor racing, it’s been a British driver that’s been a fighting near the front. I think we’re looking pretty good. You are right. We’re doing well at golf at the moment which is great, also in cycling: Cavendish won yesterday which was good to see. And there are many other sports that we’re doing very well in. I think we should be very happy with how competitive we are at the moment and I think that’s good, looking forward to the Olympics. Obviously we won’t be involved in that but I think we should all be very proud with what we’ve achieved over the last few years and hopefully we will go on to achieve a lot more.
PdiR: Again, as Jenson said, it wasn’t that long ago that we had back-to-back World Champions so I think the coverage that’s being given in the UK at the moment is great from the BBC. They keep saying their figures are rising which is great. I think the racing’s helped that but I think it’s very difficult to compare too much. I think it depends on the season and it depends on what’s gone on, how competitive it is. I’m relatively new to it, so these guys will speak more about that.
LH: I don’t compare them. I’m very proud to be a part of British sport. We challenge competitively in pretty much every sport and for some reason, there’s always someone that’s competing, pushing hard enough. We’ve all got very much devoted to achieving our goals and to winning. I think that we as the British public and the British sportsmen we generally have a really good pedigree for sport. I think that’s quite impressive, and I think the more support that we can get from the fans and the more support we can get from you guys, that makes a huge difference to us all so we have to keep it up.

Q: (Jeff Sweet - The Sun) Could the McLaren boys come clean and tell us how long you took to make up after that slight shunt in Canada? And have there been any team rules ever since, to not really go for it alongside each other, so it doesn’t happen again?
JB: Well, I got out of the car after the first race in Canada, before it was red-flagged, went back to the sort of mobile home thing that we have there and Lewis was there so we had a little chat so it was all done.
LH: It was done before the race was even won, before he won the race.
JB: It’s good that way.

Fonte: Formula1.com

By Lu