FIA post-Qualifying press conference – Mexico City

1. Lando Norris (McLaren), 2. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), 3. Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari)

PARC FERMÉ INTERVIEWS
(Conducted by James Hinchcliffe)

Q: Lando, 14th pole of your career, first pole for McLaren here in Mexico City since 1990. And in a season where the gaps have been pretty tight in qualifying, that was a monster lap from you in Q3. Can you just talk us through it?

Lando NORRIS: Yeah. Thank you. I mean, I'm happy to be back on pole. It's actually been quite a long time, so a good feeling. The lap—I don't know. It was one of those laps where you don't really know what happened. It felt decent, but then when I crossed the line and saw a 15.5, I was very pleasantly surprised. So I've been feeling good all weekend, especially from today. Like FP3, Q1, Q2, Q3. I got a little bit nervous with the Ferrari in Q3 at the end, but I pulled it out when I needed, and I'm happy because of that.

Q: You talk about it—it's been a minute since you were on pole. Last time was Belgium, and you said then, pole is sometimes a disadvantage there. We've got the longest run down to Turn 1 of anywhere on the calendar here. How much sleep are you going to lose tonight going through all the different scenarios of what could unfold in the run down to Turn 1?

LN: Not a lot. I mean, I haven’t been sleeping well lately, so maybe that’s the key to it all. But I won’t. You know, I’ve had some good races here in the past, so I’ll just focus on what I can control, and that’s all I can do.

Q: Alright. Well, don't leave—we're going to come back to you. Charles, congratulations. Front row start. Great run for Ferrari. It’s been a track you guys have been competitive at, but at a track where the surface grip is so low, and the downforce is lower than anywhere else that you guys run, how difficult is it to not overdrive when you're trying to push 10 tenths on a qualifying lap?

Charles LECLERC: It's very difficult. This qualifying is very, very difficult, because there's very little grip, so the car is sliding a lot. And in order to put everything together, it's very tricky. But I'm pretty happy with the job we've done. I don’t think there was much more in the car. There’s a bit here and there, as always in qualifying, but very happy with the performance.

Q: It's been a year since Ferrari last won a Grand Prix at this race. How much would it mean for you to bring home a victory tomorrow for the team?

CL: It would mean a lot. So we'll do everything in order to get the first place into the first corner and then we’ll see what's possible.

Q: And Lewis, P3 on the grid. This is sometimes a race where being P3, you get that double draft—it can be a bit of an advantage. Are you kind of rubbing your hands together at the possibilities into Turn 1?

Lewis HAMILTON: I have no clue what you just said. but—you know what, I’m really, really happy. Thank you so much, everyone. I'm honoured to be up here with Charles and with Lando. These guys have been so quick all year, and it’s an amazing feeling. This is the first time we've both been up in the top three in qualifying this year and the team truly deserves it. So, we're just working as hard as we can. Super grateful to everyone in the team for continuing to push and for not giving up. You know, we've not really moved the car forward necessarily in development, but we've extracted more from it. Our process is better this weekend, and that's what you're seeing. So, grazie a tutti.

Q: The qualifying pace is obviously good. How do you guys feel about your race pace tomorrow?

LH: Well, it’s hard to beat these two guys today, but I mean P3 is kind of the perfect spot actually at this track. So I'm hoping I can make the most of that at the start. I think our race pace is not too bad. It’s difficult to know already, but I'm really hoping— you know, with this crowd—I know there’s going to be an amazing crowd there tomorrow, so we'll try and give it a good race.

Q: I was standing in the stadium during FP3, and every time you went by, that place erupted. I know a lot of people will be cheering for you tomorrow. Best of luck. Lando, we'll finish with you. Crucially, in the championship battle, you qualified ahead of both drivers that you're fighting against. Tomorrow, is it more focused on collecting points and staying ahead of them, or is it just all about going for the win?

LN: No. I'm here to win. No, I'll be looking forward. I know I'm going to have some quick guys behind me, and it's a long run down to Turn 1 and so forth. And the race pace from the Ferraris is normally very strong. So I'm expecting a battle. I'm not expecting it to be easy. But, no—eyes forward and I’ll see how much I can win by.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q: Brilliant lap to take pole, Lando. Many congratulations. You even said "What a lap" over the radio. Just how good was it?

Lando NORRIS: That's the confusing thing. I mean, obviously it was an incredible lap. I pushed the braking everywhere. I pushed the high speed a bit more and all those things. But I don't have a delta, so I didn’t know if I was up, if I was down, if it was good, bad, whatever. There were a couple of little places where I thought I messed up a touch and didn't get the best exits, like out of six, but the rest of it felt pretty decent. I was happy, but I thought I'd be more like a 15.9, 15.8. I thought if I'd get ahead of Charles, I'd be pretty happy. So when I saw 15.5 on my dash, it put a pretty big smile on my face because it was one of those laps which was — everything just came together in terms of feeling. It was very natural and similar to my lap in Monaco. A good feeling because it's been a while. It's not that often this year I get that feeling in this car, even with how quick it is. But yeah, happy because of this.

Q: You found nearly six tenths between Run 1 and Run 2 in Q3. Whereabouts?

LN: Honestly, I don't know. I have to go and see on the data. Like I said, I just pushed the braking in a few little places a bit more. Took a couple of bits more risk in the high speed. But yeah. Quite often, the laps I do best, I don't really know what's happened or how it's happened. Like I said on the radio to Will and Jarv, the less I know, the better I do normally on my quali laps. So it was one of them. But yeah, six tenths. I was surprised. I got a bit worried Q3 Run 1 when Charles did a 15.9. I was like, “damn, that’s a pretty impressive lap”. So, like I said, nice when I saw 15.5.

Q: Are you surprised by the gap to your main rivals in this championship?

LN: I mean, maybe. It's tough because I do feel like I’m doing a very good job. I feel like I have been for a good amount of weekends now, especially when I get this feeling that I had today. Actually, the whole day today. It’s not just my Q3 lap that was good. FP3 was strong already and a good step better than it was yesterday. Q1, Q2, Q3 — all of my laps were good. No mistakes. No lock-ups. None of these things. And I could just, in a good way, improve. The car is incredibly quick, but it's not easy to drive. I think we both complained of that as drivers, but when you just get in that little bit of a rhythm, it's flying, and that’s where I was today.

Q: Let’s throw it forward then. Can we start by talking about tyres? Some drivers have raised questions about the Medium tyre. Do you think this could be a complicated race strategically?

LN: Potentially. I mean, obviously with the Hard being a step harder, that can change a few things. But the race last year was very nice and we were very confident. Our race pace was very strong with the Medium-Hard last year. So yeah, I don’t think we’re too worried about anything. I think the pace has still been decent, even with missing FP1 and just kind of getting that high fuel stuff in FP2. But you never know. Many things can happen around here. It’s a long race. Easy to make mistakes. A lot of overtaking opportunities, that kind of thing — but the pace is there. So as long as I get my head down and focus, then I’ll be fine.

Q: And a final one from me. The long run to Turn 1 has provided plenty of drama over the years. Just how do you plan for those opening 10 seconds or so of the race?

LN: That’s tonight. That’s with my engineers and my team around me to review things, see what’s best. Of course, you want a good start and go from there. But it’s a long run. I don’t know what our straight-line speed is like compared to the Ferrari. In general, I think we’ve been a touch down, so we’ll wait and see.

Q: Lando, very well done to you. Thank you for that. Charles, let's come to you now. Is there a semblance of disappointment from you given that you were quickest after the first runs, that you're not on pole position today?

Charles LECLERC: A little bit. But yeah, after the first lap in Q3, I thought this was a really good lap. So I knew there was a little bit more to come, but not so much. But considering the gaps that were behind, I was like, “OK, let’s see how it goes. I will still go flat out on the second lap and see where we end up”. But I was very surprised, obviously, by the jump Lando did from the first to the second run in Q3. I just don’t think we had the pace today to match that. There was a little bit here and there, but I don’t think it would have been enough for pole position anyway.

Q: How has the car been? How difficult was it to extract the lap that you did?

CL: I think the car was actually really good today. The whole weekend has been pretty strong. But on a track like this, it’s very difficult because it’s such a low grip track, and it’s very easy to make a mistake. Whatever small mistake you do is exaggerated in terms of lap time lost. So it was very tough, but I was pretty happy with both of my laps in Q3.

Q: Tell us about track improvement during the session. Did it ramp up progressively?

CL: A little bit. I think the track got cooler in Q3, and that definitely helped. The grip was a little bit higher, and I felt in some corners I was a little bit under the limit, if anything. But yeah, the car reacted well, and again, I don’t have anything to complain about car-wise.

Q: Let’s throw it forward to tomorrow. Obviously, Lando had the one-lap pace. Just how confident are you in Ferrari's race pace?

CL: He’s got the race pace too. We were speaking about it earlier. I think he will be very strong tomorrow for sure. But the start is definitely a chance for us — it's an opportunity for us to try and make something special even though starting second here on the dirty side of the track. I'm not sure it’s great, but it's OK. I’ll just focus on what I can control and hopefully it will be enough to be alongside him into Turn 1.

Q: Alright. Good luck with that, Charles. Thank you very much. Lewis, very well done. Your best start of the year with Ferrari. First of all, what does this mean?

Lewis HAMILTON: I was just saying to these guys, it’s been a long time since I’ve been up here, so it feels fresh. And yeah, really grateful to the team for the hard work and just the constant effort through the year. Of course, I wish we had this experience earlier on in the year, but the fact is we’re continuing to improve and continuing to stay positive, and so it’s just great to be up here with these two.

Q: Tell us about the car. As you say, Ferrari seems to be finding a bit of form now. How good was your side of the garage? How pleased were you?

LH: Relatively happy. As Charles said, it is a really difficult circuit. We're all sliding around in general. The grip is quite low at this circuit because of the altitude. But even with that, clearly, everyone’s experiencing the same thing and our pace has been great all weekend. I think we’ve made good steps with the car through the weekend. Obviously, I missed FP1 — I wouldn’t say that hampered the weekend, but of course, you learn more with more laps on the track. I think I got the car to as good a place as I could. It’s definitely not easy to put a lap together. But yeah, I’m just happy to be here.

Q: You said a moment ago that the processes have been better this weekend. What did you mean by that?

LH: We continue to improve on our process — from the moment we arrive, to our debriefs, to the decisions we make as a team within engineering, within when we going out — all these different things. So I think we’re just continuously tightening up on some of those areas. And I think just how Charles and I have worked together to move the car and develop it forward has been really positive over the race weekends. Our cars are pretty much identical now, and I’m finally figuring out how to drive this car that Charles has been fortunate to drive for the past seven years, in terms of the characteristics. But I’m finally feeling like I’m getting there. So it's good.

Q: So what's the plan tomorrow at the start? Tuck in behind Lando, sneak out under braking, get him into Turn 1?

LH: I don’t know. Definitely want to be racy tomorrow. I don’t have anything to lose, but he does. So I’ll be… Yeah, we’ll be quite aggressive, I’m pretty sure. Hopefully we’ll be close enough to put up a good fight.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Fred Ferret – l’Equipe) Question to the three drivers. How worried are you about the possible use of lift and coast tomorrow during the race? And can you tell us how you manage to do that during a Grand Prix?

LN: I mean, ask these guys — they’re pros at it. These guys, they do it every race. Yeah, I think you always have to do it a little bit, but never as much as these guys.

CL: Let’s say I think we’re ready for this. It’s always a track where lift and coast is a big part of the race, especially for the people from second onwards. That’s why I think the start is so important on a track like this, because when you have free air, everything comes a lot easier. So yeah, we’ll be quite aggressive into Turn 1 if I have the possibility and then manage from where we are. But it's definitely going to be a big part of the race.

LH: Not much to say. Lift and coast is pretty much what Charles said.

Q: (Christian Menath – Motorsport-Magazin.com) Question for Lando. I think you said earlier that you didn’t have the delta in your last Q3 lap. Was it just that single lap that you didn’t have the delta time on your dash? And can you elaborate a little bit how much you usually rely on the delta time and if it could have even helped you?

LN: No, I’ve not had it since Monaco. I’ve never used the delta since, in qualifying. So, yeah, I don’t know. Who knows if it would have helped me or made me worse? I think the thing when I don’t have it is, I push no matter what — no matter how the start of the lap was, no matter how any corner was. I guess it’s because you have no reference of maybe the overall lap time, you just always try and maximize every corner to the maximum. And yeah, otherwise sometimes I just stare at it too much, and that’s never the best thing. So yeah, it's just nice because normally when it goes well, like today, it’s a pleasant surprise to see the lap time pop up when it’s as good as this one.

Q: (Filip Cleeren – Motorsport.com) Congratulations, Lando. You’ve obviously been quite open this year about how tough it was at the start to get a good feeling with the front end of the car. So how much is this pole the result of all the work that you and the team have done about fixing that? And do you think this is repeatable? Like, do you come into a weekend now confident that you will be able to extract the maximum out of the car for one lap?

LN: I think, even when I look at my first lap in FP2 — my first lap of the weekend — it’s a track which is not easy because of the downforce and the grip and things like that. High end of straight speed, big braking zones. But my first lap, I was on it. I was, again, pleasantly surprised at how quick I was on the pace compared to everyone — to the others who already did FP1. But certainly, it’s hard to quantify how much the work the team has done behind the scenes to give me a bit more of what I want and what I need in order to perform at the level that I can perform at, which is the level of today and certain other places where we’ve been this season. But it was only a few weekends ago in Singapore where I almost felt like it was the beginning of the season again — no feeling for the front, no confidence, no ability to go out and do what I did today. No confidence to do what I did today. So it’s a little bit up and down still. There’s certainly areas we have to improve. And if I want to be able to do what I did today more often — which I do — we have to improve the car more. And I’ve got to try and make it more to my liking. But there’s certainly a lot of work that I’ve also done personally, away from the track, with my team, with a lot of people to understand what my struggles were, reasoning, all those things, and then how I can combat it. Because the last thing I want is to make the excuse. Like, at the end of the day, it’s my job to drive whatever car I get given, whether it’s a great one or a terrible one. I don’t feel like I should ever have a reason to have an excuse. There’s reasoning for things — why I struggle here, why I’ve struggled there, and so forth — but it’s not an excuse. If I’m slow, I’ll say I’ve just done a bad job, and I wasn’t a good enough driver on that day. And I think I’ve always been open about those things. But yeah, there are clearly things which work for me and things that don’t. I hate that because I hate to have a reason for why sometimes I struggle. I just want to be able to drive whatever car I get given. But certainly, progress has been made. And I’m very happy that the team has worked hard to improve on those things. But we still need to make more if I want to be even better.

Q: (Luis Vasconcelos – Formula Press) For Charles and Lewis. This is a bumpy track, you have to ride the kerbs. The car was not particularly good on that earlier on. It was today. You were also able to improve a lot in the last run of Q3, which was not the case earlier on in the season as well. Can you elaborate a little bit on where the team has made more progress, and if you think that with the knowledge of what now works for the car, there's still a little bit more you can extract until the end of the year?

CL: I don’t think there’s a silver bullet or something that we’ve changed significantly that makes us a lot better now than three, four, five races ago. I think it’s a little bit everywhere. Like Lewis was saying earlier, I think the processes and all the small differences make a big difference at the end, and we improved all that in the last few weekends. Yeah, on the bumps, I don’t think this was particularly a weakness at any point. I think we had to manage some other things at one point of the season, which now we are in a bit more of a comfortable place. But yeah, the pace in itself is more down to small details everywhere rather than something standing out.

LH: Yeah. I mean, I second what Charles has said. I think this is a peculiar circuit, obviously, with the altitude, so we perhaps are closer than we would normally be, I would say. It’s difficult to say where we’ll be in the next races. I’m not sure we’ll be as close as we are. But I do think through those small improvements that Charles was talking about, that we’ve made — they make big differences. And it feels great to finally get into Q3 and be able to deliver good laps and be competitive. That’s been a problem all year, particularly on my side.

Q: (Gabriel Martínez – TV Azteca Deportes) Lewis, you’ve always had great support from Mexican fans. How special is it for you to have your best qualifying result so far with Ferrari in front of a crowd that really appreciates you?

LH: Yeah, it’s beautiful. It’s really been amazing. Every time I come to Mexico, honestly, I’ve always felt very welcome. I really, really love the city. I mean, I grew up watching it in movies, and it’s even more beautiful in person, I would say. When you get into the city and see the restaurants, the lights that are hanging, it’s just got such a great feel to it. And then obviously we’ve been coming to this race, it’s been growing year on year, and I would say I’m pleasantly surprised to see the positive response that I get from the fans every year here. It’s something I’m incredibly grateful for. So, muchos gracias.

Q: (Tim Hauraney – TSN) Charles, you found a pretty big amount of pace from Q2 to Q3 — I think it was about seven tenths. Can you just explain where that came from?

CL: Well, I kept a new soft for the race. So yeah, in Q2, I had done my lap early on in Q2 compared to most of the others that had put a second set. I went on a scrubbed tyre then. So obviously there was a little bit of a gap there more than anything. But the lap time came quite nicely. I was quite confident with the car, so I knew where I had to push and where I had to improve. Everything came together very nicely on that first lap in Q3 — just like, honestly, the second lap in Q3 as well. So yeah. But I think the biggest explanation is mostly that I only put one set in Q2 when most of the others went for two.

Q: (Filip Cleeren – Motorsport.com) For all three. You mentioned the dirty air before, and Max is fifth, Oscar is seventh — which is obviously quite significant in the championship. So how difficult will it be for them to come through the field? And do you think the order will largely be dictated by the start?

LN: Well, I think you’re talking about two of — along with these guys here — two of the best drivers on the grid. So I don’t think you can ever put it past them to come back through. From my side, our race pace has always been very strong this season, so I’m still expecting Oscar to come back through and race well. He normally does. So, let’s see. That is my expectation. And same with Max — when has he ever not been on the attack and come forward? Hopefully I can just stay ahead on lap one, and then these guys can hold everyone else up for me.

CL: Yeah. I mean, it’s probably going to be tough. I’d rather be in my position than theirs, but yeah, they’ve got the pace. Especially if Oscar finds the pace that Lando had on the high fuel, I think he’ll probably have the pace to come back. But it’s obviously a lot more difficult.

Q: Lewis, anything from you? And how hard is it to follow? The championship contenders — the progress they’re going to make — how hard is it to come through in dirty air?

LH: It’s tough with the altitude, with the overheating of the car, with the overheating of the brakes. I mean, I don’t know how it is for everybody, but I’m pretty sure most people have that experience here with the lack of cooling. So it won’t necessarily be easy. But you’ve got some great drivers behind us. So we shall see.