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Japanese GP: Post Qualifying press conference

NEWS STORY
03/10/2009

Sebastian, a crazy session, it was stopped three times for accidents. Great performance by you, but can you explain to people at home why it was so difficult today and how all the stoppages affected your preparations?
Sebastian Vettel: The key is not to get distracted but it was a strange session, obviously. First of all, the most important thing is that all the drivers are OK. It's usual that in qualifying you try to figure out where the limit is. Obviously, it's about setting one fast lap time, but I think mainly in turn nine where people went off it's quite difficult when you get a little bit too wide on that kerb, you're basically just a passenger and by the time you come back, you're not able to get rid of the speed and then the corner goes to the right but you struggle and there's not much run-off, so the wall is pretty close and that's why I think people hit the wall. For Timo, he obviously had the worst crash out of the four. It looked like he had a problem with the steering as usually it is easy flat and you just continue to go on the straight, but it looked like he could not control the car anymore. Fortunately he is okay, that is what we know. You are sitting in the garage basically waiting and depending on when you plan to go out. Sometimes you are lucky as you get the red flag when you are about to warm up your tyres, sometimes you started your flying lap already. Especially in Q3 it has an effect on the fuel load. I think we were quite lucky the time we went out, so in the end we had only one run and the car worked fantastic. Quickest Q1, Q2 and Q3. Probably the most difficult was Q3, back with fuel, and only having one run. It is not easy especially through the esses. You have only one lap and the tyres don't last much longer. You have a second one but you can feel already the tyres starting to go off, so overall I have to say very, very happy. Since Singapore I think we are back in old strength you can say, struggling a little bit before that, and finally able to put the car on pole. Again red flag in Q3 but this time it didn't matter to us, so I am very, very happy. Good day, so let us see tomorrow.

Jarno, a strong end to what has clearly been a difficult day for the Toyota team and for you personally to have to rebound after your team-mate's accident.
Jarno Trulli: Well, obviously the first thing I did was to ask about Timo's (Glock) condition. They told me he was okay. They were obviously upset about the crash. I don't know what happened. We will find out later. It was a crazy session but the car has been performing pretty well from the beginning and for this I have to thank the team and my mechanics. They are always doing a very good job with my car and they give me chance to fight for the top again. I knew it would be really hard as I saw straight away that they were very quick. It was all about keeping concentration and getting it right at the right time. That was the best I could pull out of the car and for tomorrow my only concern is tyre degradation as we have seen this morning that tyre degradation is very, very high. As well the start as, unfortunately, we are not known as a good starter. I just hope we can have a good start in my race.

Lewis, your first visit to Suzuka. You were not expecting with the car you have got to be in the top three. How did you get here?
Lewis Hamilton: Firstly for Suzuka I have dreamt of coming here for many years, so very happy to be here. We have been received very well. The Japanese people have treated us like kings. The track is very special and for any youngster out there who has played it on a computer game or anything it is just as special as you can possibly imagine. We did not expect to be as competitive as we were today. Yesterday was not a good day as it was wet but this morning the car was terrible to drive. We had to make some serious changes but we only had one practice session, so we went into qualifying with all these changes hoping that they were the right step forward and they were. As Sebastian and Jarno commented on, the accidents that happened today, I was happy to see the drivers walk away. It just shows how good a job the FIA and the sport have done on safety. Obviously the medical team here have done a great job, so overall a good day.

Sebastian, the Brawns are down in fifth and seventh on the grid. Is there a chance for you tomorrow to do something in the championship?
SV: Three races to go and quite a big gap, so every race has to be a chance if we still want to keep our chances alive. All we can do is race. We came here to race and we want to win, so I think we are in the best position for tomorrow's race. The best starting position, so we will see. It is a long race and tough as Jarno mentioned on the tyres. Also I think really tough for the drivers. You have to keep the concentration up especially in the esses. It is pretty amazing how quick.... I think there are physics and some rules but still how quick you can go with the car and how much grip you can produce it is just fantastic. In qualifying when the car is empty it is great. You wish to carry on another lap but to come back we will see tomorrow. It is a long race, but I think we have a very good chance but also looking for the championship.

Press Conference

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