Q: Fernando, your thoughts on this amazing night in Singapore and how you enjoyed racing at night. Lots of new things at this circuit and you winning again.
FA: Yeah, it was a great weekend for all of us. A great weekend for everyone in Formula One, the first night race. We all had a new challenge in front of us and we will be part of history, the first night race in Formula One. There will be many more to come as I think the experience was great. We had no problems and I think the people will enjoy more this type of races. It will not all be night races but some of them can be at night as the spirit was good. For us, ING Renault, we have had a tough, tough 2008 championship but now we are fighting for fourth place in the Constructors’. This victory is well deserved as the guys worked extremely hard all through the season. We start far behind, maybe one second behind BMW, now we are the same pace as them or even better and this is thanks to a great job. We will keep on pushing. Three more races to go and next year more.

Q: Fernando, what do you think this means to yourself and the team after such a tough season?
FA: Well, it means a lot obviously. We always prepare the races for victories but on Friday already we realise that we cannot fight for victory. This time was maybe a bit different. We were competitive straight away. We had no simulator, nothing to prepare the race and already from P1 we were quick. It means that the car here for whatever reason was competitive. We were hoping to take the benefit of this good car here but after qualifying maybe our hopes were gone already as we started 15 and 16 and you know that it is nearly over. Again, today shows that Formula One is unpredictable on a Sunday.

Q: As you said after the drivers’ parade, anything can happen.
FA: Anything can happen. I was hoping more for rain and maybe you can win if you make the right tyre choice and get an advantage and you can make a lot of places. In normal dry conditions with a normal race you finish more or less two or three places in front or behind you from where you started. There is not much more room to improve.

Q: The strategy was correct as when the safety car came you were right in there.
FA: I don’t know. Without the safety car maybe I was finishing in the same position, 15 or 14. But we knew that one stop was a little bit better for us. Our simulations said one stop could maybe work a little bit better. But we had no brakes to do one stop as the brakes were running too hot all weekend as there are not long enough straights to cool the brakes. It is corner after corner and we did not have the brakes for a one-stop strategy.

Q: Did you have any problems with the car during the race?
FA: The drinks bottle didn’t work. On lap two I tried and I said 58 laps with no water. If I tried on lap 20 it was better but on lap two it was a little bit hard.

Q: You and Nico were the only two to start the race on the super soft tyres.
FA: For me the super soft tyre was not working all weekend. Any time we put on the hard tyre the car had much more grip and the lap time was nearly seven tenths a second quicker with the hard tyre. We wanted to do a very short first stint with a good start and good first lap we said we will put on the super soft and then we will have the good tyre all through the long stints. As I said it worked for me and it worked for Nico but obviously we were lucky.