Zoom Vettel confident in the RB5's potential

Ahead of the first practice session for the Malaysian Grand Prix, six drivers took part in the official FIA press conference this afternoon at Sepang. Sebastien Bourdais was joined by Melbourne race-winner Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Raikkonen, Nico Rosberg and Sebastien Vettel.

Q: Sébastien, can I start with you first. Your feelings about Melbourne and perhaps also a late start for you to the season. What were your feelings there?

Sébastien BOURDAIS: Well, obviously like everybody knows we showed up in Melbourne with very little running of the car and it was kind of a test session for the first few days. Qualifying didn't go well obviously for me but then in the race as usual it was a pretty eventful one and we fuelled to the finish when the safety car happened and tried a gamble, and you can't say it worked perfect but we still made up quite a bit of ground. It was good to kick off the season and to get things rolling and get both cars to the end of the race. I don't know if we will eventually keep that point we inherited but it doesn't matter. It is going to be a long season and both cars at the end will have a lot more development to come and hopefully we can improve our performance level.

Q: Given the late decision that you were going to stay with the team do you feel that you were both physically and mentally prepared for the start of the season?

SB: Yes, absolutely, especially as I had the opportunity to do 12 hours before that first race. It was good, just obviously the biggest problem was the knowledge of the car. We were still receiving parts and it was very difficult to know what was going to do, what to fix problems. That was the biggest challenge but obviously it will improve as time goes by.

Q: Lewis, if I can ask you your feelings about this race. You have qualified fourth here both years though of course you had a penalty and raced to second in 2007.

Lewis HAMILTON: My experiences here haven't been so bad. For sure we have not had the best result here the last year. I would have been third but we had a bit of a problem with the pit stop. But generally it has not been one of my strongest circuits but one that I am working very hard on and one that I really enjoy. The weather is always great, though it is not at the moment. I think it is the toughest race of the year due to the climate, so it is a challenge for all of us. This weekend is going to be very tough again and we don't have as quick a car as any of these guys particularly here but we are doing the best job we can with it.

Q: Tell us about your experiences with KERS in Melbourne. When did you use it and did you feel it was a benefit?

LH: We used it every lap. It is the same for everyone else who has KERS. You use it as much as you can. There are some opportunities when you are behind sometimes to use it all in one lump which does definitely give you a little bit extra end of straight speed to get a toe and have a better chance of overtaking. But it still ends up with you having to overtake at the end of the straight with a late manoeuvre. But who knows? Maybe here it will be even better with longer straights.

Q: And you expect to use it here?

LH: As far as I know. We haven't been told differently but we are fortunate that it is reliable enough at the moment but we definitely need to work harder to make it better.

Q: Nico, fastest in three practices in Australia. How did you feel about the race though?

Nico ROSBERG: Well, unfortunately result-wise we didn't quite get the best out of it during the race. For various reasons I think as a team we just did not do the best possible job. But it was better than we expected coming to Melbourne, finishing sixth and getting three points. We have to go away and be happy with that as a starting base for hopefully a good season.

Q: You started third here in 2006 but you have had two engine failures here. Do you think that is a basic problem with the design concept in the past?

NR: Reliability here in the past, this hasn't been our strongest track. I have always been in good positions when we did stop but I still have high hopes for us here. We still have to be a bit cautious obviously because Melbourne is quite a different track than Malaysia. But definitely we have been a lot stronger this year than last year in Melbourne and we also did some set-up mistakes here last year which really hurt our performance which we have got on top of, so I am really looking forward to the race here.

Q: You are quite optimistic?

NR: I am very optimistic, yes.

Q: Sebastian Vettel, tell us about the incident with Robert Kubica. What are your thoughts on it?

Sebastian VETTEL: I can only repeat what I said in Australia. Obviously I had a bad run out of turn one, Robert had more speed. I was on the soft tyres and they were pretty worn at that stage and he was on the hard compound. Then braking for turn three I was trying to defend my position. I was on the inside and was very cautious to start braking because I didn't know how dirty it was there. He was braking a little bit later. Under braking I was catching up and I was more or less side-by-side. Then at some stage I noticed that he was pulling to the apex and doesn't give me a lot of room. I tried to avoid contact but at that point there was no chance to get out of there, so I was already far to the right, running over the kerb and then we made contact. I lost my front wing and after that point I had no control over the car, so it was a bit of a shame that it meant the end the race for both of us. That's basically it, not much more to tell you.

Q: And racing with a penalty here?

SV: Of course I am not happy with the penalty. For me it was a racing incident. Obviously there is no logic behind taking him out of the race because I took him out of the race as well. It is not just a shame for him but also for us. We had a strong weekend and a strong race and just a couple of laps to finish and we didn't make it, so of course it is a shame. But we have to try to make the best possible job. I think we have a good car. I think we brought a good car to Australia and hopefully to here as well. The circuit is slightly different and the weather as Lewis said is not good at the moment. Let's see on Sunday and we will push very hard to get the best possible result on Sunday.

Q: Kimi, can I ask you about your experiences with KERS last weekend? Was it of use to you and how much did you use it?

Kimi RÄIKKÖNEN: I used it all the time if nothing is wrong with it. For us it has been better in testing, it was good there, so I don't see any reason why we shouldn't use it.

Q: And a two-time winner here. This is obviously a good circuit for you?

KR: I like the circuit. Sometimes it can be a bit tricky. It is a nice place, quite a bit different from others. It is very humid here. When it rains, it rains heavily, so we will see how it is this weekend.

Q: Would you say you are more optimistic than you were in Australia?

KR: I mean the end result could have been pretty okay without my accident. Probably the speed is not where we want to be right now but this is a completely different place. It is more like a normal circuit compared to Australia, so we will see how we can do here but I still think that our car is not too bad, so we should be able to get good results once we get everything going well.

Q: Jenson, have you come down since Melbourne?

Jenson BUTTON: Yeah, definitely. It is only a week between races, so you are straight back into it. It has obviously been a great feeling after the weekend in Melbourne. I think it was a very special weekend, for myself and for the whole team but we very quickly had to look forward to the next chapter and look forward to the race this weekend.

Q: This circuit has been quite good for you. You have had a front row start and a couple of third places here. How good is the car going to be and how optimistic are you about the car as you have tested it on a couple of circuits and it's been very competitive there. It was very competitive in Australia. Is it going to be a car that is good everywhere?

JB: You have got to hope so. In winter testing we were strong on two different circuits, strong in Melbourne, and you would expect us to be competitive here. Nobody knows yet how competitive compared to the rest of the field. But I enjoy this circuit. I really do. It is a very fast flowing circuit and I think it will suit our car pretty well. There are some very low speed corners which I think will suit us. Also, mechanically our car is strong. I am looking forward to getting out on the circuit tomorrow. Weather-wise it is going to be a lot trickier this weekend than in Melbourne. We had a few safety cars thrown into the mix to make it exciting but here with the weather it is going to be difficult to know what is going to happen over the race weekend.

E.A. © CAPSIS International