1 – George RUSSELL (Mercedes)
2 – Charles LECLERC (Ferrari)
3 – Lando NORRIS (McLaren)

TRACK INTERVIEWS
(Conducted by David Coulthard)

Q: Welcome to our Sprint finishers. Well, Lando, we spoke before the race. You were a little bit concerned about it. It was a damp inside start line, but you converted that well. And then thereafter it seemed that you had a bit more difficulty keeping the balance of those Medium tyres.
Lando NORRIS: Yeah, not a bad result. Not the best. Would have been nicer to be a little bit faster today, but Charles was just too quick. So I don’t think it was a tyre, it’s just we lack pace. We’re not quick enough and we have some work to do.

Q: This gives us good insight to what we can expect in these cooler conditions. In Budapest before the break, your car managed those hot conditions really well. So, what can you adjust in your set-up and what have you learned from this Sprint?
LN: I mean, the difference is we’re very good in high speed. We’re just not… The car’s not performing to the level it needs to in the slow-speed corners. So, there’s not a lot we can do. I think we’re optimising a lot of things. It’s still a good result. I think we still have to be happy with the progress we’ve been making, but just we need more. So, we’ll see what we can do. We’ll work hard. The team are working hard already, so hopefully we can do a better job.

Q: Okay, congratulations to you. Charles, good race. You’re sitting on the grid, all the tyre blankets come off, and there’s only one other car on the Soft tyres. What were you thinking at that moment?
Charles LECLERC: Well, I mean, always when you are the only one doing something, it’s either very right or very wrong. I think it was a good choice at the end, so that’s good. It means we did well our homework in FP1. But surely when I was on the grid, yeah, you just hope to have done the right choice.

Q: You had to be patient there to get the pass. It was end of lap 18 down into Tarzanbocht corner, but it was very effective.
CL: Yeah, I mean, I knew Lando didn’t have much deployment on the main straight, so I knew I had to maximise that. But then we still arrived at the braking point more or less at the same level. But it worked out, which was good. I did not expect to gain position at the end of the race with these tyres. If anything, it would have been at the start, but I didn’t have a great start.

Q: As much as we can tell from the body language of the car, it looked like you were having fun out there on this racetrack.
CL: Yeah, I mean, the car is feeling good since FP1, which is a good thing to start the second half of the season like that.
Q: Okay, thank you, Charles. George, welcome back. Summer break has treated you well. You’ve got engaged and you’ve celebrated that by nailing your third Sprint victory of the year.
George RUSSELL: Yeah, obviously great start to the weekend. One more lap… The three of us were just talking and if it was one more lap, it would have been a potentially very different end to the race. So, I was glad the rain came when it did. But, yeah, really good start. The Ferrari looked really fast, so, yeah, it’s going to be a tight one this afternoon.

Q: In the early stages of the race, it didn’t look like you were breaking away, so we were trying to figure out in commentary: did you have an issue with your tyres, or were you just managing things? And then as the race progressed, yeah, the pace was really there. So, yeah, the victory, all things considered?
GR: Yeah, I knew if there was going to be any overtakes, it was going to be towards the end of the race. So, I knew I just wanted to manage my tyres a little bit through the high-speed corners and have a bit more in the tank come the end of the race. And I knew if Charles got past Lando at all, he would have been fast. And as soon as I saw Charles behind, I sort of dropped the hammer a little bit and the two of us pulled away.

Q: So you’ve proven track position is absolutely key here. We’ve got the Grand Prix qualifying later this afternoon. Are you going to be making many changes, or are you basically happy with that set-up?
GR: A few tickles here and there, but nothing too major, and see where it leads us.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q: Back with a bang after the summer break, George. Very well done. You looked very calm out front. Is that how it felt?
GR: Yeah, it was a good return. I was just managing my tyres a little bit at the early stage of the race because I knew if there were going to be any overtakes, it would be in the latter phase. And we saw yesterday morning how fast Ferrari were, so it was just keeping a bit in the tank for the end. And as soon as I saw Charles get ahead of Lando, sort of picked up the pace and the two of us pulled away. So, I think it was a well-managed race.

Q: You were on the Medium tyre. Charles was on the Soft. Were you surprised?
GR: I didn’t even realise that.
CL: I was the only one.
GR: Were you? Okay! I had no idea.

Q: Were you surprised to see him on the Soft. Did you consider the Soft yourself?
GR: No. So, yeah, you learn something new even afterwards. So, yeah, that’s surprising to hear. So, yeah, obviously gives us a bit of a choice into tomorrow.

Q: Can we talk about the start? After what happened in Hungary last time out, just how nervous were you ahead of the getaway today?
GR: No, I wasn’t nervous at all because, you know, Hungary was a technical issue with the race start and was nothing, really, I could have done. And we put some precautions in place to avoid that happening. So, yeah, I wasn’t nervous at all. Felt pretty calm, pretty relaxed, and was just excited to get racing again.

Q: You seem very happy with what you’ve done so far. Just how much confidence does this give you going into the rest of the weekend?
GR: Yeah, definitely confidence is higher than it was, you know, 24 hours ago. But it’s so close. You know, yesterday there was a tenth between the top four drivers. Kimi was very close as well. Lewis was fast throughout the session. So, you know, there’s probably six drivers all in the fight for pole, and when it comes down to that one lap in Q3, it can go any way. So, you know, that was my time yesterday. I hope I can convert again this afternoon, but it will be a tough fight.

Q: Charles, if we could come to you now. Great P2 for you. You rolled the dice on the Soft tyre, we’ve just discussed that. Just how crucial was that to this performance?
CL: I don’t know, to be honest. I think our pace has been quite strong yesterday in FP1, on the long runs, which we did on the Medium, and we were very strong. So, we knew we had a good race car. However, in qualifying we are lacking a little bit. But, yeah, I was expecting to make positions at the start rather than at the end of the race with these Soft tyres. But, yeah, it was quite a good race. I think the pace was there, as we’ve seen yesterday in FP1, and now we’ve got to hopefully start a bit higher for tomorrow in order to make our race a bit more easy.

Q: George has just said he didn’t consider the Soft tyre. Was it an obvious choice for you?
CL: Well, it wasn’t because, I mean, we had Lewis and I on two different strategies, so surely it wasn’t obvious. But I thought it was a good tyre after FP1, even though I had done very few laps, and I wasn’t so comfortable with the Medium. So, yeah, I was happy with that choice.

Q: And once you were past Lando, did you think you could get George?
CL: Well, I believed in it, but after two, three laps he started to push a little bit more and I knew it was going to be difficult. As well as, I think, Lando on the main straight was quite slow. He didn’t have the deployment that I had, so I knew there was an opportunity there. After the first two laps, I saw that George had a different kind of deployment on the main straight, which meant that it was always going to be very difficult for me to get past, even if I was getting very close.

Q: Okay. So what have you learned in the Sprint that can help you for the rest of this weekend?
CL: Well, many things. I think our balance, the way the tyres are behaving, but I’m not going to say what we’ve learned. But overall, I think it’s good to have this Sprint race after the break to get back a little bit into the rhythm of tyre management and everything. And, yeah, I feel like we are ready for tomorrow’s race.

Q: Well, and with a few changes to the car, do you think you can challenge for pole later today?
CL: I think yesterday we did. I mean, I did a really good lap and the car felt really good as well. So, I’ll be surprised if we start on pole tomorrow, but I’ll do everything in order to make it happen.

Q: Thank you for that. Lando, if we could come to you now. Of the top three here in the room, you struggled the most. Can you just outline what the issues were for you?
LN: Just, I don’t know, I just don’t have the pace in general, especially the slow-speed corners. We just struggle so much compared to the others. We saw that the whole weekend so far. There’s nothing we can do. It’s just the car is very good in high speed and it’s just nowhere near good enough in slow speed. To be able to keep up was very difficult. Can’t over-push in high speed during the race, and therefore it’s just we can’t, you know, optimise our strengths and more of our weaknesses show. And therefore, just the pace was not good enough today.

Q: You say there’s nothing you can do. I mean, let’s throw it forward to Grand Prix qualifying and the race. Surely there’s something you can do to improve the situation for the rest of the weekend?
LN: No, otherwise we would have done it already.

Q: Would you be happy to sacrifice some one-lap pace this afternoon to improve the situation tomorrow?
LN: Is there anything you recommend? It’s not like we’re not doing that. You just make the car as quick as possible.

Q: After your pace in Hungary last time out, are you surprised to be having these problems here in Zandvoort, which some people say has similar characteristics to the Hungaroring?
LN: No, not at all. I think we knew in Budapest we’re very good in high-speed corners and we’re pretty terrible in slow speed, but we still managed to win. Here there’s a lot more of the very, very slow speed and more of our problems show. So, no, not a surprise at all. It’s exactly what we expected.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Diletta Colombo – AutoMoto.it) A question for Charles. How did your Soft tyres feel as the race progressed?
CL: Well, quite okay. I mean, I was on the same pace of George and I felt relatively comfortable with the car. I think the car balance was good. As I said, I think our race pace has been strong since FP1, not particularly on the Soft, but just on Medium or Soft, we’ve been strong. And so that’s positive for the rest of the weekend.

Q: (Ronald Vording – Motorsport.com) It’s a question for George. On Thursday you said you want to follow your instincts a little bit more while driving. Is that easier on a track like this, where it’s less dependent on energy management anyway, or do you feel it’s more based on lessons from the first half of the season that you can use everywhere, basically, going forward?
GR: No, I don’t think it necessarily has anything to do with the energy management. I think the energy management these days is a little bit more straightforward than we were all talking about at the start of the season and pre-season. It’s just, when it comes to driving, just not thinking too much when I’m in the car and just trying to drive as fast as possible, really, and trusting my instincts of what the car balance needs, how I need to adapt my driving to compensate that, and not trying to follow the data too much. You know, the data’s good to give you the indication, but, yeah, then you just sort of need to go back and trust all your years of experience to adapt to what is required.

Q: (Graham Harris – Motorsport Monday) A question for all three of you. The rain came on the last lap. Do you think it would have been a completely different race had the rain arrived 10 minutes earlier?
GR: Well, I think if it arrived 90 seconds earlier, it probably could have been a very different race. You know, when you’re approaching Turn 1 at 320 kilometres an hour, that was the first corner to get hit, and it was pretty hard on that in-lap. So, you know, at least for myself as the lead driver, you’re going into the dark, really. The drivers behind can see if you’ve just locked up and gone straight off or you’ve got around the corner, so you can adjust. But it would not have been a very pleasant place for myself, probably also for Charles as well, but maybe slightly nicer for Lando and Kimi.
CL: Nothing to add.
LN: Same.

Q: (Jon Noble – The Race) to George. Mercedes has had a different strategy in terms of upgrades this year. You’ve backloaded everything. Are you surprised, considering how much more aggressive Ferrari and McLaren have been with their upgrades, you’re still able to kind of maintain an advantage. You aren’t losing too much, apart from, it seems, in the high-speed corners?
GR: Well, I think we do have a very strong car, have a very strong base. We clearly had a sizeable advantage at the start of this season. Only time will tell if we’ve made the best sort of compromise in terms of when we bring these upgrades to the car. We may be surprised and see our rivals also bring another upgrade. We don’t know what they have in store. It’s a real challenge with cost cap these days to find that right balance. But, you know, we have a real fight on our hands these days and I think that’s quite fun, and that’s how Formula 1 should be. It shouldn’t just be two teammates going for race wins week in, week out. Everybody should be in with a shot.

Q: (Leonid Kliuev – GrandePremio.br) Different question for all three. How different are those deployment strategies between teams and what role can they play in the race tomorrow? Is it the way to make a real difference? Deployment strategies. Who’d like to go first? George is drinking. Charles, why don’t we start with you?
CL: I mean, surely it’s a big differentiator on a year like this year with these new cars, and we’ve seen it today. I think here in Zandvoort it’s close to impossible to overtake, and I could have never made the overtake if there wasn’t a different deployment strategy between teams. However, we seem to all converge to a kind of a similar place come Sunday, so I don’t expect big differences coming tomorrow. And also, throughout the season. I think we’ve seen the first two, three races there were a lot of action a bit everywhere because I think everybody was not so sure about what was the right thing to do. Now, again, everybody seems to converge more or less in the same place.
GR: Yeah, I think everyone’s going to converge coming tomorrow, and I think it’ll probably be a bit challenging to overtake until you get that tyre advantage.

Q: (Luke Smith – The Athletic) George, for you. You said to DC in parc fermé your car only needed a “tickle” in terms of set-up going into the rest of the weekend. Is it fair to say this is the most comfortable you’ve felt with the car this early in a race weekend for a little while? And if so, have you changed your approach at all in terms of approaching set-up and the way you kick things off?
GR: Well, I think since Barcelona I’ve sort of been in a bit of a better place. But then, you know, I had the two races in Barcelona and Austria where I was on pole, and then Silverstone, Spa, we had issues sort of outside of our control, or outside of my control. And then Budapest, I was maybe a bit off the pace. So the results haven’t been there, but I think the underlying performance hasn’t been as bad as the results have probably shown. And for whatever reason, Sprint races have been a bit of a strength for me this season, which has been a bit of a surprise because in a normal race weekend I usually tend to build up to it and I find more come qualifying than I do on a Friday afternoon in an FP2 session, as an example. But, you know, we’ve had five Sprints and we’ve been on pole now in three of them and won three of them. So, yeah, it seems like them.

Q: (Adam Cooper – Adam Cooper F1) A question for Lando. Obviously you’re very disappointed with third. Is there some frustration that the upgrades maybe haven’t brought what you were expecting, or is it not as straightforward as that?
LN: No, they’ve done exactly as they should, so I’m very happy. Like, you know, we still managed to progress. It’s just certain areas we’re just nowhere near quick enough. The slow speed, we’ve just struggled the whole weekend and seems clearly the weakness we have in the car at the minute. You know, I feel if we still went back to Monaco now, we’re going to be shocking, as we were. So I think we’ve clearly progressed a lot, and especially in medium and high speed, which is why we’re quick here, why we were so quick in Budapest. And it wasn’t like we were quick everywhere in Budapest, and that’s why we won. The slow speed, we were still slower than Ferrari and matching Mercedes just about. So we still have weaknesses, even though we managed to win one race. It’s just the strengths really shone there, and here it’s just the deficit is too big in the slow speed. Like I said, there’s just nothing we can do about it now. It’s just how the car is for the time being. That’s where we still have to focus as a team. We’ll try and get everything out of it. I feel like I still did a good job today, even with the P3. It’s just, yeah, I want to be fighting for top spot and be fighting and going forward and catching George and putting him under pressure rather than trying to survive in every slow-speed corner and fighting for my life. So I’m very happy with the team and the progress we made, and the upgrades have all worked, and they’ve allowed me to be P3 today. But we just need more if we want to fight for a championship, that’s all.

Q: (Ronald Vording – Motorsport.com) Question to Charles. I appreciate that you don’t want to go into detail about today’s learnings, but you just said that overtaking is virtually impossible around here. Does that mean that there’s anything you can do to maybe sacrifice something for better one-lap performance, or is it just using the strength and hoping that the tyre delta will be enough to make something happen tomorrow?
CL: I think we often speak about how to make a car faster for race or qualifying, but I don’t think it’s that black and white. I think you always try to make the car as fast as possible, and if you do that, then that’s positive for qualifying and the race. Then there are maybe slight fine-tuning you can do, but I wouldn’t say it’s a game changer, and it’s not always black and white, as I said. So, no, to reply, I don’t think there’s anything we can do at the moment to kind of fix and have a bit of a better car in qualifying. We know it’s a weakness, but we just didn’t find the solutions just yet.