1 – Charles LECLERC (Ferrari)
2 – Sergio PÉREZ (Red Bull)
3 – George RUSSELL (Mercedes)
TRACK INTERVIEWS
(Conducted by Mark Webber)
Q: Well, George Russell, fantastic podium performance mate, a little bit lucky with the Safety Car but ultimately you drove an extraordinary race. You must be stoked with the performance of the car today?
George RUSSELL: Yeah, absolutely. I mean you’ve got to be in it to win it. We capitalised from others’ misfortunes and obviously we got a little bit lucky today, probably twice, but you know we take it and there’s so much hard work going on back at base Brackley and Brixworth to try and get us back to the front, so to be standing on the podium is special.
Q: I saw you off camera, going to your team, going to the mechanics. It just means so much to you guys given the start that you’ve had and the high standards that Mercedes in the organisation has to get a podium for yourself, Lewis has had one in Bahrain, you’re always there, you never give the opposition a free pass do you?
GR: You know, we’re never going to give up. We’ve got to keep on fighting and this weekend we were a long way behind our rivals but here we are standing on the podium so you know, we’ve got to keep this up while we’re on the backfoot and I’m sure we’ll get there after a few more races.
Q: Looking forward to the next one buddy, what do you think? We’re getting back to Europe. Upgrades?
GR: I think it’s going to take some time until we can fight these boys in red and blue, they are pretty exceptional at the moment but if anyone can do it, Mercedes can, so let’s go for it.
Q: Well done. George, good job. Sergio, great drive mate. I think you got everything out of the car today. You did what you could. The start looked a little bit tricky down into Turn 1. Run us through that first of all.
Sergio PÉREZ: Yeah, that was a bit tricky. You know, getting my position, Lewis overtook me on the inside, he broke really late, he had a really good turn one and Yeah, after that it was about getting him. Then the Virtual Safety Car and so on. My first stint was very poor, in terms of degradation we struggled quite a lot. Then on the hard with the Safety Car, we were a bit unlucky that we lost two positions, which we recovered later. Yeah, it’s a good result but unfortunately we lost Max, you know, it would have been great to have a double podium for the team. But yeah, looking forward you know, we’ve been a bit unlucky in the first two races.
Q: Absolutely. Run us through that move with Lewis around the outside into the fast chicane, it was a phenomenal move and then all the Safety Cars helped him on the fight back with you on the rundown to turn 11?
SP: Yeah, always with Lewis it’s very entertaining. Very hard racer but very fair. Yeah, we always have fun together
Q: Well done. Enjoy your flight back to Mexico tonight. And here’s the man of the moment. My God, driver of the day, fastest lap, mate you were on another level today. Record crowd here in Australia, it was a phenomenal turn out to see (unclear)… Was that the easiest win of your career so far?
Charles LECLERC: I mean, in Formula 1… It’s the first one where we could control a little bit the gap and honestly, what a car today. Of course I did a good job all weekend, but it was not possible without the car and this weekend, especially on race pace, we were extremely strong, tyre felt great from the first lap to the last lap. We were managing the tyres extremely well. And I’m just so happy.
Q: Well done, mate. Run us through those restarts because you had to deal with two of those. Little bit nerve wracking on the front straight with the restarts, making sure that you didn’t have to deal with Max on the brakes for Turn 1 or Turn 3?
CL: It was very difficult, especially the Safety Car restart, I had a huge understeer into the last corner and I was like ‘whoa, it’s going to be difficult to get that first position’, but then, yeah, we managed to do so and after the first two or three corners I managed to regain the grip and then the pace was back so yeah, incredible to win here.
Q: Just one last one. I heard on the radio on the in lap, I’m starting to sense a little bit of belief here. You know this momentum, the car’s been very strong at all types of circuits and now you must be looking forward to getting back to Europe to see if this momentum [continues] and [you can] start to put a huge campaign [together] to fight against everyone that can, you know, throw the battle against you guys?
CL: Yeah, well, obviously we only had the third race, so it’s difficult to think about the championship, but to be honest, we’ve got a very strong car, a very reliable car too. And for now, we’ve always been there, so I hope it continues like this and if it does, then we probably have chances for the championship, which obviously makes me smile after the last two years that have been difficult for the team and obviously for myself, so it’s great to be back in this position.