DRIVER GROUP 1 – Sergio PÉREZ (Red Bull), Nico HÜLKENBERG (Haas), Valtteri BOTTAS (Alfa Romeo), Lando NORRIS (McLaren), Charles LECLERC (Ferrari)
Q: Charles, can we start with you. The Scuderia’s home race, just how different is this one for you?
Charles LECLERC: Quite different. We are lucky enough that driving for Ferrari we’ve got support everywhere but when we come to Italy, obviously it’s on a different level. So a very busy week, but also a very exciting one. I’m sure it motivates the whole team. So we are really looking to go out on track and hopefully have a great result this weekend.
Q: New colour scheme, new threads as well. Give us your thoughts on that?
CL: I love it. Especially the Ferrari old-style logo here is what I love most. Also on the cap here, you can see it. So, beautiful. I love it.
Q: Before we bring it onto performance this weekend, tell us what lessons were learned at Zandvoort by you and the team?
CL: Many. Not really in the race, as obviously a part of my front wing went under the floor and broke everything, so I had basically very little grip but for the rest of the weekend, we tried quite a few things. Especially in FP1, trying to put the car in very different places, in terms of set-up, to see how it will react. I think we had some confirmation of what we expected, so we’ve got a lot of work to do now and find solutions to our problems and the weakness of the car – but it’s even clearer, compared to before, where we are lacking at the moment.
Q: What is the biggest weakness of the car? Is it its unpredictability?
CL: Yes. The unpredictability, especially on tracks where we have a bit more downforce. It becomes really, extremely tricky to drive, and we’ve got big changes of balance through the same corner and, as a driver, it’s very difficult to get into a corner not really knowing what balance you are going to get. So, that’s where we need to work at the moment.
Q: And how hopeful are you for this weekend Charles? You were on the podium at Spa. Does that give you confidence for this weekend?
CL: Let’s say it’s… well, it’s not exactly like Spa but these track characteristics are closer to the ones of Spa than Zandvoort and Budapest, so we should be a bit more competitive here. Then, whether it will be enough to fight for the podium, I don’t know but I really hope so and we will do everything for it, for sure.
Q: Lando, let’s come to you now. Good to see you. It was a nice moment earlier in the week when you gave Max his Hungarian Grand Prix trophy in its entirety. Talk us through it?
Lando NORRIS: There’s not a lot to say. They didn’t let me hold it for long, but it was a nice thing to have done. So yeah, it was good, some of the organisers were there and the people who put it all together again. It was nice to meet some of them and yeah, try to give something bac for what I did.
Q: Before we come onto on-track stuff, you’ve also been playing padel with Alex, George and Max. Who was your partner? Who won?
LN: My first partner was Alex. We dominated, we thought the teams were unfair, so then I had to go with Max, ‘cos he’s the newest member to the padel group, and we won again. So the common denominator was I won and George lost. But it was a lot of fun, we had a nice little day. We play every now and again. I played with George already last week and a few other times and it was nice for us all to play. We get quite emotional at times, and think a lot of people were complaining about how loud we were shouting and how angry we were getting – but it was a nice day and a nice way to start the weekend.
Q: How about this weekend then? How much confidence do you have in McLaren’s low downforce package?
LN: Tough! Not as much as I would like. I think that’s obvious: I think we saw in Spa how much we struggled, even though Spa wasn’t where we could have been. I think if we could redo Spa now I think we would be in a better position, and since then we’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to optimize some of the downforce packages that we have for these kind of circuits: maybe not in as confident a position as we are in, say Zandvoort, Silverstone, Budapest and places like that, but definitely a better position than we were in Spa, and that’s definitely given me a bit more hope. We’ve had good races here in the past, it has been one of our best weekends in the last few years, so I’m hoping that will repeat again.
Q: Lando, final one from me. Lewis Hamilton has just confirmed that he’s going to be as Mercedes for two more years at least. Can we get your thoughts on him being on the grid beside you?
LN: It’s great. It’s always been a pleasure to race against him. Even this year we’ve had a few more battles and that’s a cool thing. To have raced against someone who’s one of the best drivers ever in Formula 1, who’s created a lot of history, written a lot of history. I think it’s a… I guess a pleasure for all of us, someone I looked up to when I was a little kid and still get the chance to race against him now. So, I’m happy and will continue to do so for a couple more years.
Q: Valtteri, coming to you. Can we just pick up on that point. Lewis Hamilton re-signing. Are you surprised that he’s coming back for more?
Valtteri BOTTAS: Actually, not really. He really seems to enjoy racing still. He’s still go the fire to get back up there again, so not really surprised.
Q: Belated Happy Birthday to you . Did you have a good day? Get what you wanted?
VB: yeah! I had a pretty easy day – maybe I’m getting old! – but pretty chilled, which was nice after a hectic race on Sunday. So, yeah, had a good day, thank you.
Q: Maybe the new livery this weekend is the team’s present to you?
VB: Yeah, it’s a very Italian design. I think it looks good and obviously it’s the final home race together for Sauber and Alfa Romeo, so it’s a big weekend for us, and that’s why I hope we can also be competitive.
Q: As you say, it is the team’s home race. It’s the closest race track that we go to, to Hinwil. What sort of welcome do you get from the tifosi?
VB: A good welcome. Lot of passion around here, lot of energy. We have a big support group over here and also from the factory, some people have the chance to come here this weekend and see the cars in action. So, it’s not going to be down to lack of support.
Q: And what about performance then? I think you’ve got some upgrades on the car this weekend. What are you expecting?
VB: We’ve got some new stuff for front suspension. Otherwise it’s a low downforce package. Always difficult to predict , it’s super-close. It’s a fast lap so margins will be small – but yeah, we really need some points now. We haven’t scored for a while.
Q: There’s some speculation about who your team-mate is going to be next year. Would you like to see Zhou stay on?
VB: I think he’s made progress from last year. He’s made a big step in performance but also confidence and technical knowledge and I think he really deserves a place in Formula 1. And he’s a nice guy as well. Really good guy to work with.
Q: Nico, coming to you now. This is something of a home race for Haas, with many of the team-members based in Maranello. Do the tifosi appreciate that? Do you feel like you’re driving for a home team?
Nico HÜLKENBERG: A little bit perhaps – but I feel the tifosi, they obviously love Ferrari the most but they’re just very passionate about F1 and cheer for most teams and most drivers I feel, just a lot of love and support. So yeah, always great to feel that here.
Q: Now, the last time you raced at Monza, you finished fifth. What does it take to be quick around here?
NH: A quick car! Be fast on the straights, be good in braking too. Obviously it’s a low downforce package, which has been difficult for us this year. I think we haven’t been too competitive when it’s been low downforce so, frankly, expectations are not too high.
Q: What about the short and the longer term at Haas? You know what the issues are with the car. How confident are you that you can overcome them in the remaining races this year, and perhaps, more importantly, in 2024?
NH: We’ve just got to keep working, like everyone. Everyone is pushing forwards. In Zandvoort, we raced a new front wing for the first time. I think it’s definitely a step forwards. I think it wasn’t really visible or didn’t come out because of the circumstances of the race. But some progress made – but we need further improvements to be competitive – or to be more competitive within the midfield.
Q: Since your last appearance in the press conference, you’ve re-signed with the team. Great news. The team has clearly opted for experience over youth. I wanted to ask, how much harder are the cars to drive now, compared to when you came into Formula 1 for the first time in 2010?
NH: It’s different but it was challenging and tough back then, but it’s the same right now. I feel… it’s difficult. I don’t know, there are quick cars now, especially the race pace, when we don’t have a lot of tyre deg, the pace can be very high compared to five, six years ago. But going back at the very beginning of my career, you know, it was similar too. Cars had less downforce but they were lighter so it’s comparable. It’s always challenging and tough – we’re in Formula 1 and everyone’s pushing.
Q: Checo, coming to you now, you got that brilliant podium at Monza back in 2012 in only your second season of Formula 1. Tell us, why is so special, racing here at the Temple of Speed.
Sergio PÉREZ: Yeah, I think this track offers you this opportunity. Very fast, one of the fastest straight line speeds ever, and then braking for Turn One, it’s always quite challenging, for example, because of how light your car is. So it’s not always a straightforward thing. And especially in the race. Back then, when we used to have earlier and more degradation, the racing was a little more unpredictable in that regard. It’s always good racing around here in Monza.
Q: Now, the RB19 is clearly a brilliant car. It’s won every race this year. Tell us about the margin you think this weekend, that you’ll have over the opposition?
SP: I think it’s very hard to predict. In some races, we felt like we’re going to have quite a bit of margin and then it turns out to be really close. And in some others we really don’t think it’s going to be that far off. It’s quite difficult to predict and I think this is a very different circuit to anything we’ve done before, so it will be very interesting.
Q: Given the success you’ve had here in the past, how much confidence do you have coming into the weekend?
SP: Yeah, a lot. I really, really want to have a straightforward weekend and I think with this new tyre rule for Qualifying, it’s also quite challenging as we saw in Hungary. Having a strong Qualifying, it’s key around this place, so hopefully we can come away with a result.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (David Croft – Sky Sports) Checo, not often I want to ask you about your team-mate but not often we have a driver whose team-mate is going for ten race wins in a row. So, you can witness first hand Max’s approach, his methods, his style, inside the team, and study the data as well. What sets him apart from other drivers and what has brought him to the precipice of the record outright for the most consecutive race wins?
SP: Well, I think we have to appreciate what Max is doing. At the level that he is driving at the moment, it’s extreme. I think the ability he has to perform at his 100 per cent every single weekend, no matter which conditions he’s driving at. It’s something that… yeah… it’s quite hard to see as his team-mate, y’know? It doesn’t really matter what’s happened, whether we have a good margin or bad margins or the car is becoming difficult. He’s been able to extract 100 per cent, out of him, out of the car, pretty much every weekend.
Q: (Christian Nimmervoll – motorsport-total.com) Question is to Lando. Not that good a question for you actually. At the beginning of the last race, there were some serious arguments between you and the race engineer, at one moment you asking him ‘are you stupid?’ I’m sure that’s been debriefed afterwards, did you have a feeling and what was the conclusion, that the driver needs to be listened more in difficult situations like this?
LN: Yeah, we just spoke about it a bit now. And, as always, there’s been a few days of reviewing things, and making sure we look at things first. I always say things that I never… when you look at it after you always think… I always make myself look like an idiot and you, know that I would never mean something like that, of course. So, it’s more that we made some mistakes with our calls and our strategy and things like that. A bit of it is just emotions at the time. I think I said it the other day, like I always sound like I’m crying or moaning on the radio. I don’t know why. I hate it but I feel like I’m really relaxed and chilled in the car but then I’m always the opposite when I listen to myself afterwards. So, yeah, there’s just always discussions, I guess, there’s always things that you’re trying to tell them and information that you’re trying to get. It’s just a couple of times when the information was not to the level it should have been – clearly. Then yeah, I guess it gets a little frustrating a couple of times. But stuff we’ve reviewed… it definitely won’t happen again.
Q: (Niharika Ghorpade – Sportskeeda) Lando, Max has said that you and him have often talked of partnering each other in teams. Do you think that’s a possibility in the future. Do you think that’s a possibility and do you think it would work?
LN: It’s definitely something I would be open to in the future. I think I can happily say Max is probably one of the best drivers ever in the history of Formula 1. I never raced against him until I was in Formula 1 but I was always in the category below. In karting I already knew him reasonably well. Back in 2012-2013 was the first time I got to meet him and get to know him, so I’ve been able to witness what he’s doing and I think it’s not just that he’s in a good car and he’s able to perform. I think no matter what car he’s in, he’ll be able to perform at a similar level. Maybe with different results but at a similar level and I think at that point it’d be great to work alongside someone like that and, at the same time, see where I can really stand against him. I’d be open to it. I invited him to McLaren the other day. So, if he wants to come any time, he’s very welcome.
Q: (Alex Kalinauckas – Autosport) Question to Checo please. After Max won last weekend, he said when he was chasing you to the finish in Baku, there were things that he felt he could change within this current Red Bull that would be beneficial for him, and that has been a key thing in his run of success since then. I just wondered, do you know what he means by that and is that something the whole team has been using to go forwards, or is that just him specifically?
SP: Yeah, it’s certainly something to do with his balance, to do with how he’s driving the car and looking after the tyres. Something that he found, and he’s been operating in that balance-wise, and he was able to cope with it already in Baku.
Q: (Scott Mitchell-Malm – The Race) Question to Lando. Just to come back to the comments you made about how you are over the radio. Is that something that you sincerely think needs a bit of work, or is it something that the team knows where it comes from and knows that you don’t mean anything by it, then it’s fine? It’s not like you’re Yuki, for example.
LN: No, my team knows. People always judge things from the outside and like to make comments but the team know how I work and how we say things and so forth. I’m not denying… I think at that time I was a bit frustrated with what I was getting told and things like that. I’m not denying at times, and also in the past, when you’re under pressure it gets a bit stressful at times, then I maybe don’t sound the most relaxed. But a lot of the time I am, and it maybe doesn’t come across that way, especially if you’re on the outside, listening to things. The team know how I work, and when I’m performing well, and when I’m not and they know how I work. Simple as that. As long as they know that, and I know how they do things and how they speak to me and how we interpret things, that’s all that’s, from my side, what’s needed. From what people see from the outside, I care, but in a way, I don’t care, because I’m doing my job and I just do that the best I can.
Q: (Christopher Lindén – Vasabladet) A question for Valtteri. You have a lot of off-track activities, bike racing crisis, collaboration on products. How do you manage to balance all this? And do you feel this has any influence on your performance during race weekends?
VB: It’s true. I’m involved in quite a bit. But all that I am involved in is what I have a passion (for), like, for me nice they are things to do and to be involved (in). And with many things I do have people helping me, so I can really choose the load I take from those activities, and especially on race weekends I also always try to minimise things that I don’t want to do, and I can basically choose, so I think, for me, it’s a great balance. I think it’s nice to have other things than Formula 1, just to keep things mentally fresh so that every time I come to a race weekend, I really want to be here and I really want to perform the best I can. So for me it’s a good balance at the moment.
Q: (Ed Spencer – Total-motorsport.com) Charles and Checo, Mercedes have nailed down their driver line-up till 2025. When will you begin talks with your respective teams on your future or potentially extending your current deals?
CL: Yeah, I mean, on my side, we are in quite a difficult situation at the moment and the priority is to first focus on the job we’ve got to do with the car, because we are quite far off the Red Bull. But then I’m sure that at the end of the season we’ll start the talks. I think I’ve made clear quite a few times what are my intentions for the future. My dream has always been of being a Ferrari driver. And I would love to be winning a World Championship with them. And yeah, I’m not too worried about when the discussions will start. I’ve still got a year and a half of contract for now. So I’m not in a rush.
SP: From my side there is still a year and a half to go. So I think there’s no need to change anything. It’s more important now to focus on the races ahead and finish the season on a high. And then we will start discussing early next year what’s the plan to go forwards?
Q: (Jon Noble – Motorsport.com) Checo, you said after the last race that you felt the car kind of gone away from you in the last few races with its development path. Is this a repeat of 12 months ago? Are you in the same situation? And in terms of turning around, do you have to pull the car back to you or do you have to adapt your driving style to it?
SP: I think every driver through their career or through each season, you know, you get some upgrades to the car that adapt easier to your driving style than others, you know, like, sometimes you will put a part in it and you will straight away go faster with it. Sometimes you will have to adapt to it. And it’s something that we are all facing through our times during the season with the upgrades. And I haven’t been able to adapt as quickly as I should, you know, and I had to change my driving style a bit to adapt into the car more than in the beginning of the season, for example, when things were coming more naturally. But that’s something that most drivers at some point we go through.
Q: Checo, Toto Wolff expressed surprise at the gap between you and Max in Qualifying last weekend. Can you explain, for Toto, where that gap came from?
SP: I think it’s hard to say, you know, I think we have to look at it race by race at the end of the day. Sometimes the gap is bigger. For example, how it was in Zandvoort, it was mainly getting the conditions right and exploiting everything out of the car, and the differences, if you don’t get the conditions right, you will see a big delta. It’s how it works sometimes. We’ve seen with other drivers those sorts of gaps. It’s a long season in F1 and it doesn’t really matter, in my opinion, where we are now, it only matters where we are able to finish and then we can summarise our season in Abu Dhabi. Definitely I went through a bit of a tough patch through the middle of the season where I was struggling the most with the car. But I think that’s all behind us and we should be having good races from now on.
Q: (Alex Kalinauckas – Autosport) A question to Charles, please. You and Checo both made the same decision to stop on the first lap last week. Red Bull were able to get Checo out with the tyres ready in time, Ferrari wasn’t. It’s accepted that was the right call to make and Fred said it was afterwards. I’m just wondering has the team made any sort of procedural changes so that if the same situation happened again they would be ready for you?
CL: Well, I think first of all, my call came really late, much later than the one of Checo. I was fighting with Oscar and I think I did the call in the last corner, which is very late. But I also knew that with the amount of rain there was in the last corner, whatever I will lose inside the pits, whether it was five or 10 seconds, I will recover them on the out lap, because there was way too much rain for slicks, which we did. So at the end, it was the right choice. Then we could have optimised few things. But yeah, we’ll keep that inside the team. But, yeah, for sure, there were things that we call have done a little bit better. It wouldn’t have made a huge difference, because again, the main thing that made us lose time is just a call that arrived late, but that was the right choice anyway.
Q: (Carlo Platella – FormulaPassion.com) A question to all the drivers. Speaking about 2026, Carlos Sainz said that he would like to discuss the excessive stiffness of these cars, because other drivers are experiencing some back pain. Is that so? Are you having some problems with your back?
NH: The cars are definitely super, super stiff, the stiffest I’ve ever driven and witnessed in my time in F1. So it’s definitely, I think, something… Most drivers feel it’s something we would like to work on. It also limits you sometimes in races when you want to offset yourself, getting out of dirty air, you can’t use many kerbs because of stiffness. So it just limits what you can on lines, racing lines, etc. So, it is tricky. There is some, you know, some difficulties with that for sure. Pain, I don’t have (any) but you know, obviously that’s very different, everybody’s built different, everybody has a different seating position. But yeah, they are very, very stiff.
VB: Not so much to add. My back was already destroyed in 2015, so there’s no feeling anymore, so it doesn’t matter! But in the end, everyone will always search for performance versus comfort. You take it, even with not being so comfortable in the car. And that would be definitely by the regulations somehow to be improved, not by the teams, because teams wouldn’t go softer if it’s slower.
LN: I mean, I would love it. I wouldn’t say no, if we could have softer cars or something that makes it a bit more like it was in ’19, ’20, ‘21. I’ve struggled a lot with my back. I’ve had to make quite a few seats and do a lot more training just to try and strengthen my back, my lower back. I’ve had a lot of issues over the last 12 months or so. Similar to Carlos. It’s probably mainly referring to me, I think, when he said it. Yeah, I guess everyone’s had different things and struggles with different bits and cars are different and whatever. But yeah, for different reasons, but a bit of it including the car and how stiff it is. I’ve struggled quite a bit.
CL: No. For me, I really don’t mind. I don’t know. I’ve never been sensitive to that. Even the porpoising wasn’t something that was really disturbing me. I don’t know why. But yeah, for me, it’s for me, it’s fine.
SP: For me, also fine. I haven’t had any issues with my back. My back is as fresh as when I was 15. So I’m lucky in that regard, I guess. Certainly the cars are on the stiff side, but I haven’t had any problems.