Q&A with Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel
Sebastian Vettel did it again in New Delhi, his eleventh win of the season. While he was delivering yet another immaculate race, his competitors were left to fight it out over the scraps. It was Vettel’s goal to leave the first mark at this inaugural Indian Grand Prix and he did it in style. If he keeps up this form he could rack up 13 victories in 2011 - certainly not an unlucky number as far as the world champion is concerned…
Q: Congratulations to the winner of the inaugural Indian Grand Prix. From a spectator’s point of view it looked like an immaculate race. Were there any points when you doubted it run perfectly?
Sebastian Vettel: When you are sitting in the car and you are fully concentrating on the race, then there is not a lot of space for question marks. The most important thing was to get a good start and get away with no incidents, and to get to the first corner with a little bit of space to manoeuvre. It was a relief to see the two cars behind me being in a fight and that I had enough room to pull away. And then I was able to create a 3.5 to 5-second gap. Surprisingly we lost a few seconds with the pit stop, which I couldn’t explain to myself. We pitted a lap later, and it takes probably one lap to get back into the rhythm. Once I got back into that rhythm I was able to attack and get away. Overall it was a perfect race for us and there is no room for complaints. The car was perfectly balanced and I had a lot of fun - the track is a lot of fun. It was great to have had so many laps to myself and be able to push the car and myself to the limit. And then on top of that to receive this amazing trophy is just great.
Q: On top of the win you were again able to get the fastest lap. How important have these records become to you?
SV: Again my race engineer advised me during the race that I won’t get any points for the fastest lap. But then again everything went right, on top of the pole position and the race win. I have to say that I was feeling even more comfortable on the hard tyres than the soft tyres. On the soft tyres I had to be careful at the end of the stint as they started to be a bit slippery. But luckily Jenson (Button) seemed to suffer from the same problem, so things didn’t get too tight.Q: It looks very much like you are not leaving any air for your competitors, even after winning the championship?
SV: I think no one would give in just by himself. Always being the fastest is pretty much impossible, so you have to organize your race and pay a lot of attention to one’s tyre management. For us it was important to show at the end of the first stint that we would still be able to push and that this would not be a chance for anybody to get us. In the second stint we took our time to see when Jenson was pitting to avoid making a mistake by coming in too early.
Q: How much work are you already putting into the next season, particularly with the development of the 2012 car?
SV: Of course we are working very hard on this already. The car will change a bit, according to the changes of the regulations, but then again it won’t be a complete new car, rather an advancement of this year’s car. This season is still not over yet and it is not our intention to lower our efforts for the remaining two races. We still can take away with us a lot of experience and learn from any race. We are still hungry and very motivated to push even harder.
Credit: Formula One Administration Ltd (www.formula1.com)
No comments:
Post a Comment