PART TWO – Fernando ALONSO (Aston Martin), George RUSSELL (Mercedes), Yuki TSUNODA (Red Bull Racing)
Q: Fernando, let’s start with you. You had a tremendous reception at the fan forum last night. You have a couple of wins, seven podiums here. Just what makes this one different for you?
Fernando ALONSO: Well, home Grand Prix. So, it’s different to all drivers when you race in front of your home crowd and, you know. Friends, family are normally in the grandstands or in the paddock. And, yeah, you want to deliver something always extra at your home place. And we know Barcelona very well. It’s not only in my case. I think all Formula 1 drivers, we did a lot of laps here, a lot of testing. So, yeah, it’s a circuit that we know very well, and we push the limits from FP1 to the race.
Q: So, what do you think will happen this weekend from an Aston Martin point of view? Let’s focus on the positives from the last two races since you introduced the upgrade. How much of a performance step forward is it?
FA: Let’s see. I think Barcelona will tell us a little bit more about the new package. Imola was a step forward for sure, but also, I think we ran the Medium tyres and that helped us in qualifying. And then Monaco is such a special place and Saturday is obviously a key part of the weekend, and we put some good laps on Saturday as well. So, Barcelona, with a more normal weekend, we will discover where we are in terms of performance. But, yeah, I think everyone will bring also some upgrades here, especially with the new regulation with the front wing, and let’s see how much it affects everyone on the grid.
Q: Fernando, you referenced Monaco there. I did want to ask you what it was like to work trackside with Adrian Newey. Did it live up to expectations?
FA: Yeah, it was fantastic. I think the way he sees things on the car, even statically in the pit lane or at the grid, also in the garage, spotting some things that we could have done better or do better in the future. But also, yes, his presence in the meeting room is always special. And I think, not intimidating, but the level of the team was higher thanks to his presence because everyone was more focused, more into the details of the car. People that were talking in the meeting knew that they could not say anything too far from the truth because he will spot it. So, I think that was great to witness, and I hope next year with more races that he will come, we will keep learning from him and getting better as a team.
Q: Fernando, thank you for that. I’m sure there’ll be more questions for you in a minute. George, let’s come to you now. It’s been a tough couple of races for Mercedes. What have you learned in the debrief since Monaco?
George RUSSELL: I mean, ultimately, our weekend was over from Saturday. We know Monaco is a qualifying race, and I think there were hopes or expectations that with the two-stop, things would be spiced up a little bit. And I think we’re all grateful for the trial of the two-stop, but clearly, it didn’t change things as people predicted. And it was a real shame because we’d lost our way slightly during the weekend in Monaco, but we went back to a known set-up in Q1 and we were right back in the groove, right back inside the top four, which is where we’ve been always on Saturday afternoons this year. So that was a real shame.
Q: How important is it for you and the team to have a clean weekend here in Spain?
GR: Yeah. It’s obviously been two poor races. We’ve been inside the top five every single session up until Imola. So we’re hoping to get back into our usual form and have a clean weekend. As Fernando said, with the changes to the front wings that have been made, there’s a bit of relearning all of the teams will have to take, but I don’t expect it to shake the order up too much.
Q: You guys were quick here last year, third and fourth in the final result. Do you think you might be able to replicate that if you have a clean weekend?
GR: Yeah, I don’t see any reason why not. As I said, up until Imola, we’ve been inside the top five every single quali and race. And, of course, Imola was a bad race, and then in Monaco things were slightly outside of our control. So I don’t see any reason why we wouldn’t be back in that fight for the top five, hopefully fighting for the podium. But we do know our race pace, especially in hot races, is a step behind McLaren, and this weekend is going to be very hot. The track is going to be over 50 degrees for the majority of the weekend. The only difference being here is we’re on the hardest compound of tyres, whereas in Imola and in Jeddah, where we struggled the most this season, it was on the softest compound of tyres. So that’s one more change.
Q: Thank you for that. Yuki, let’s come to you now. It was a frustrating race for you in Monaco. So let’s look at the bigger picture. It’s now been six races since you joined Red Bull Racing. First, how comfortable are you in the car now?
Yuki TSUNODA: Yeah. I’m still building the progress in terms of confidence and everything. I mean, understanding about the car is getting there. Just, you know, the last few tenths, few milliseconds, especially when you want the track evolution, you want to naturally feel it, right? And those things—when you sometimes change set-up, you want to know what kind of balance you’re going to get. And obviously, with a new car, it’s just hard to know exactly how the car is going to behave. In those things it comes down to experience. And obviously, last four years with VCARB, I knew exactly what’s going to happen, so I didn’t really have to even think about those things. I would naturally react and drive fast. So I think those things will come. I think the Imola thing just made me re-recognise (sic) the amount of understanding I currently have. I was probably slightly underestimating how important it is to know those areas especially. So it’s not that I’ve lost confidence or whatever, but just slowly building up and we’ll be there at some point.
Q: How much confidence does the team have coming into Barcelona? Max Verstappen is going for his fourth consecutive win here. Are you expecting to be much more competitive than you were at the slower tracks this year?
YT: I mean, to be honest, Monaco was pretty good until qualifying. Yeah, red flag and lots of things didn’t go to plan. Obviously, it’s always hard to be on the plan and there was definitely a lap that I could have done slightly better. So in that sense, yeah, qualifying was very tough for us, tough for me especially. But at least until FP2, FP3, I was fighting quite close, and to be honest, the pace was probably best ever. So, it’s getting there. And Barcelona – yeah, I mean, I didn’t see much history about the Red Bull winning here, but you said four times he’s won, that’s good news. But I just keep focusing on myself rather than Max.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Tom Slafer – DAZN Spain) Question for Fernando. Fernando, you’ve mentioned many times that your hopes are focused on 2026. Of course, Adrian Newey was in Monaco, but he’s focused on 2026. Although the team has brought new parts this weekend, they brought new parts in Imola. I understand that there’s new parts coming in Silverstone. What is the focus on the team between 2025 and 2026? Is it not fully focused on next year still?
FA: I think the focus is on 2026. But in order to be confident and strong in ’26, you have to build the momentum also in ’25, and you have to deliver some parts on track that are making the car faster as well in ’25. And that will, I think, give some confidence to the team as well, back in Silverstone and also in our tools to make sure that everything that we are developing in ’26, it makes sense, because we go on track and it delivers the expectations. So, yeah, I think there is a little bit of work still on ’25, but the main focus or the hopes are in ’26. We understand the situation. We understand where we are in 2025, and whatever we bring to the track will just be a minimum change in terms of positions and finishing order. I think the biggest step in that regard can only happen in ’26, where all the hopes are.
Q: (David Croft – Sky Sports F1) Fernando, on that topic—one thing Adrian did say when he was speaking in Monaco was that there was a correlation issue between your new sim back at the technology campus and what you’re now seeing on the track, and it might take two years to fix. So how much of a hindrance is that going to be, especially to yourself as a driver? And what are the team doing to put things right and to give you a better correlation between now and the two years that it might take to fix it fully?
FA: Well, I think all the simulators will have some kind of correlation issues to the real car. And I don’t think that any team has a perfect simulator that you can trust 100%, because the car on the real track and in real life is very dynamic and it keeps changing, always, corner to corner and session to session. There are not two laps on the weekend that are exactly the same, because of the wind, because of the temperature, because of the traffic in front—all these kinds of things. So when you try to replicate that on a simulator, in a consistent and perfect environment, I think it’s very different. But I think it will take less than two years to fix our simulator. It’s not new. Maybe it’s the first time that Adrian said it in Monaco in the interview. But rest assured that drivers, we mentioned it a couple of times already.
Q: (Laurent Dupin – Canal+) Question to Fernando because George and Yuki may not remember. In 2001, you were driving the Monaco Grand Prix…
FA: I don’t remember…
Q: (Laurent Dupin – Canal+)… that poor man, David Coulthard had to start from the back. He spent 40 laps behind (Enrique) Bernoldi in the Arrows, who was four seconds slower in qualifying. Now we’ve got all the pack in one second. Does that mean that people expect too
much from the Monaco Grand Prix on the Sunday?
FA: Of course. Monaco has been Monaco always. But now I think there is a lot of expectations and there is a lot of media—you are not the one to blame—but there is a lot of news generated every single day. And there are a lot of things on the internet, social media. There are a lot of things generated for Formula 1. So, we want to see the show. We want to see the overtaking. We want to improve the sport from our couch at home. Everyone has ideas. And, yeah, I’m always a little bit surprised about the negative comments from Monaco on Monday. But don’t worry, because next year we will go to Monaco. And on Wednesday we will be so excited. Then on Friday we will say that it’s the best weekend on track of the season, and we all want to win in Monaco. And then on Saturday we are all super excited, and the adrenaline that you get on those laps is probably unique in the championship. And then for whatever reason, on Sunday we will be all disappointed once again. But I think it’s what it is. You play all your cards on Saturday. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes not. But there are some other circuits that are also like that. And it’s the nature of Formula 1, even with how competitive the field is now. A few years ago, two or three years ago, I think Max and Red Bull won nearly all the races. And it happened also with McLaren back in the nineties. And this is Formula 1. It has happened and it will happen also in the future. But it’s still the number one sport and we still embrace how it is.
Q: (Alessa Naujoks – RTL Germany) George, you were talking about spicing up the Monaco Grand Prix. You did that with your move. Is that also part of the new George Russell—the team leader, the one who takes more risks?
GR: I was just getting tired of staring at the back of a Williams rear wing for 50 laps, to be honest. I mean, it was a bit ironic because I finished higher up the order by doing that move than I would have done if I just stuck behind Alex. I pulled a whole pit stop in the space of three laps, and then I was free to do my own race. But for us, the weekend was gone so early. We weren’t fighting for anything. You get the same points for P11 as you do for P20. And as I said, I just wanted to enjoy Monaco. I didn’t get the chance on Saturday. Like Fernando said, it’s the most adrenaline you get in a whole season, and I didn’t have that chance because of what happened. I at least enjoyed the last 25 laps of the race. So, it’s not part of the new George Russell being a rebel, cutting the track, it was just getting tired of seeing Alex driving like a grandma.
Q: Was it an expensive restaurant on Sunday night?
GR: Not expensive enough! So, the bill is definitely not even just yet.
Q: (Leonid Kliuev – GrandePremio.com.br) Sort of following up on that topic. Question for everyone. What is your perspective on possible penalties for intentional violations of rules?
GR: As I said, I knew I was going get a penalty, and I said I was happy to take the penalty. And it was a deserved penalty. I think that should never be allowed. And as I said, if I was in the points and if I was racing Alex, I would never have done that. He had already done two pit stops. I hadn’t even done one single pit stop. He was only driving so slow to benefit his team-mate. It wasn’t to benefit him against me, it was to benefit him against the drivers around him. So, as I said, I wasn’t doing it for a sporting gain. I was just doing it for my own enjoyment because it was a bit rubbish. But the penalty I received, on any other circuit, in any other circumstance, was more than fair.
Q: (Vincent Sondermeijer – NRC Netherlands) A question for Fernando. We’ve seen in recent weeks the official announcement of the new Spanish Grand Prix venue in Madrid, even some first impressions of the track. And we also know that this almost certainly means that this track will be gone from the calendar after next year. So, what do you, as a Spaniard, think about the fact that we are going to probably lose such a historic track in exchange for, well, let’s put it bluntly, another street track?
FA: Well, I don’t think that we will lose Barcelona. So that’s my opinion and my wish as well. I think it’s good to have new venues. It’s good to have new countries as well that Formula 1 has moved to in the last decade. But at the same time, we need to keep some traditional circuits where the history of Formula 1 has been written and made. And I think Formula 1 and Barcelona are very linked. We’ve been testing here for decades. I think all the teams choose Barcelona when they have to choose one test track. We come back next year here in winter because we have new regulations, new cars, and again, once again, the teams chose Barcelona because it’s the Formula 1 track in a way. And I think the circuit has made some changes to make it up to Formula 1 standards. So in the last two or three years, all the paddock facilities, the grandstands, everything has taken a new level. And Barcelona has been here for the last two or three decades, and Barcelona will be here for the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years. And some of the venues will be just momentarily on the calendar and then probably they will disappear again. So, we cannot lose Barcelona.
Q: (John Noble – The Race) George, last weekend’s kind of shenanigans showed that no matter what you do, the strategy, until overtaking is possible at Monaco, the race isn’t particularly going to work. What is the answer? Do you think next year’s regulations and manual override, for example, can change the overtaking dynamic and give it a chance, or is it going to need some changes like Alex Wurz has suggested?
GR: Yeah. I think like Fernando said, Monaco has always been the same. I’ve seen some of the proposed track changes that definitely will not make it worse, because… The small problem you have in Monaco is the one overtaking opportunity, which is out of the tunnel. The natural racing line is—you’re going from a left, braking through the middle of the track and then you pull over to the right. So, it’s very easy for a driver to position his car. But honestly, right now, I don’t have the answer. Maybe the manual override would be a solution and, you know, you’ve got to do all of this management through the race. And if you’ve got a lot more power just to pass somebody in an unconventional space, it isn’t going to make the show worse. But part of me just thinks we need to accept Monaco for what it is. Formula 1 is better by having Monaco on the calendar. It is the most exhilarating qualifying of the season. And the race is always pretty boring, but it also makes us appreciate the other races as well. So I don’t know, to be honest. Sorry for the long one.
Q: (Jaime Vigara – TheBestF1.es) Fernando. Welcome to Barcelona. You ran in Indianapolis a few years ago. So what do you think about Alex Palou’s recent victory?
FA: Yeah. I mean, great for Spain, first of all. Great for him to have the Indy 500 now after winning the series and the IndyCar for a few consecutive seasons and now leading the championship as well. So, he’s doing great there. I know that most of the drivers dream about a Formula 1 seat and having a career here. But he had the opportunity in IndyCar and he maximised every single day there. He’s a legend in IndyCar and he will be a legend always in IndyCar. So I think he’s not missing Formula 1, and I’m very happy for him because he’s a very, very talented driver. And yeah, we are just following him from here with a lot of respect and as a fan, because I was watching on Sunday the race and just hoping that he would finally make it—and he did it. So, happy for him.
Q: (Víctor Abad – Revista Fium) Question for Fernando. Much has been spoken about the Monaco Grand Prix in terms of overtaking, in terms of the track layout, but not much of the size of the cars. You obviously have driven a lot of different Formula 1 cars with different sizes—you’ve seen all the evolution.
FA: I never overtook any car!
Q: (Víctor Abad – Revista Fium) Well, in 2010 we saw some great overtaking…
FA: Well, also, yeah, also Lance overtook Nico in the last lap. You know? You see one overtake every ten years. So great, you know? I mean, this has been the Monaco nature. I think Max spoke about this because you asked Max about Monaco, because the last thing that Max has in his head now is just the Monaco race. But there is this constant talk about how bad is something instead of how good is something. And this is Monaco. And I don’t think… You know, maybe there are a couple of ideas that, between all involving the sport, drivers, FIA, teams, we can think about Monaco, but I don’t think that there is any need to think something. It’s only because, as I said, there is a lot of content now to be created, and drivers, we are too nice. So, we answer to every question. Because if 40 years ago, you ask, I’m sure, Senna and Prost, and they are fighting for the championship or whatever—about Monaco after one week, they would be less polite than we are now.
Q: (Víctor Abad – Revista Fium) Just because you drove a lot of different Formula 1 cars, which is your ideal size that a Formula 1 car should have, in any Grand Prix, any season?
FA: Enough to fit Yuki and myself. And after that, it’s George’s problem. That’s out of the—I mean, there are other sports like basketball and other things that you can try. But no, I mean, I always said that the early 2000s, for me, were the best cars that I drove. But maybe you’re a little bit romantic about this answer because it was my first days in Formula 1, and success came also in those years. But I think the V10 engines, the small cars—I have great, great memories from that time. And the cars were nice to drive and fun to drive. But still—no overtaking in Monaco.
Q: (Giuseppe Marino – Motorionline.com) Fernando, the 2026 car be a decisive factor in your decision about staying in Formula 1?
FA: It will be a very important one, yes. Not the final one. I think I need to see how next year starts and how motivated I am. Every year, there is a different mood into the season. There is a different feeling on how you perform, how competitive you feel yourself, how motivated you are to keep your fitness at the high level—personal situation, family situation—all these things play a role in some important decisions in life. I know that a very important decision in life will come for me in the near future when I stop racing. I did my first race in go-kart at the age of three. I’m 43. So, for 40 years, I have had a steering wheel in my hands, and I know that one day I will have to stop. And that’s an important decision that I will think carefully. I did stop Formula 1 already once in 2018, and I came back because I needed it. So, the next one that I take, it has to be 100% sure.
Q: (Carlos Miguel – Diario Marca) Fernando, it’s about the engine. Do you know the reason of the failure and if that engine can be used in other races? And do you think that it would—we don’t want them to repeat that problem. It’s a question of reliability, a question of the team?
FA: From what I know, it was something on the spark plug and then it damaged one cylinder. And then after that cylinder was damaged, I was racing with five cylinders for 20 laps. And then the engine stopped completely, and that engine cannot be used again. It’s gone. So, yeah, that’s the news that I have. I don’t think there was anything really wrong with it or any procedure that was different than any other race. It was just the end of the life of that engine. It happened at the wrong moment at the wrong time. But yeah, nothing probably we could have done differently. And for this race, there is nothing really different to be made, and we should be okay, because we never had that problem and we don’t think that that problem will be repeated.
Q: (Luke Smith – The Athletic) Fernando, picking up on what you said there about motivation and everything—you spoke recently how this feels very different than when you were at McLaren. Obviously, the results weren’t there. It’s been a tough start to the season, but the hunger you’ve got, the motivation you’ve still got—is a lot of that pinned on 2026 and the project being built at Aston Martin? And is F1 still giving you the same joy that it always has?
FA: Yes. Yes. I think Formula 1 is in a great moment now, and we are all enjoying the new fans, the new boom in Formula 1. But, yeah, at the same time, you need to feel it when it’s time. And I don’t feel it yet. I jump in the car tomorrow and on Sunday, and I’m on the grid—and I’m just so happy to be there and motivated and performing well. Because I think at the end of the day, the stopwatch will tell me also when I have to stop. Or I have a physical condition that is bad, or I have pain driving or whatever, that could happen as well. Sometimes you get a little bit injured, you get some bad races. But if we keep it healthy and in good conditions, the stopwatch also will tell me one day that I don’t feel fast enough or I don’t feel that I can put the lap together. But so far, I’m happy with that. I’m happy when I’m on the grid. When I finish the race on Sunday, even if the results are not nice at the moment, I’m so motivated to go to the next race and try to overcome the bad race and have a better one. So all these kind of things are very alive now, but there is no guarantee that this will be forever.