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Abu Dhabi GP: Post Qualifying press conference

NEWS STORY
31/10/2009

Lewis, your fourth pole in seven races. You have been on fire here all weekend in Abu Dhabi. Was it as easy as it looked?
Lewis Hamilton: Like I always say it is never easy but it definitely was as fun as it looked. The car has been I think probably the best it has been all year. It seems to really feel quite comfortable on this circuit. What they have done here is incredible and I think it is just a real pleasure to drive here and when you have definitely got the car beneath you it is just a great drive. That lap for me, we could have thought about going a bit longer, but I don't think we were particularly too aggressive but it was quite a smooth lap. It just kept getting better and better. I am very happy with it.

Sebastian, you said coming into the weekend that you wanted to finish the year on a high. Second on the grid is a great way to start.
Sebastian Vettel: Yeah, it is. Just looking ahead both of us are a little bit surprised by the gap. Lewis has been strong all weekend and generally McLaren is very strong here and we could see already in Q1 and Q2 that it would be difficult to match them. But let's see later when we get the strategies. I think it was the maximum we could do, so very pleased so far. I think tomorrow we should have a good race. The car is working well here. It just seems that our KERS button which we have on the steering wheel is not working, so it is not an easy one but let's see tomorrow. I think we do have a good race pace. The car is getting better throughout the distance, so I am looking forward to tomorrow.

Mark, two Red Bulls in the top three and the two Brawns just behind you. A great qualifying performance from you, but do you think you can hold the new champions behind you?
Mark Webber: We hope so. The grid tonight is the story of the second part of the championship. Lewis has been here and there at a lot of venues, clearly they are very strong here and we will see when we get the weights, but also Seb and I are pushing as hard as we can. I enjoyed qualifying tonight and Brawn are there as well, so it is very much a message of how the second part of the championship has gone. I was pretty happy, considering when I did my lap within the session, as obviously other people can run after, so I was pretty happy.

Lewis, new circuit, new country. Your feelings on this Yas Marina track and the job that they have done here to create it?
LH: Coming here I had not really seen any pictures. I had seen perhaps a picture of the hotel or something, but the place is just stunning. They all said it would be a great event, but it is mind-blowing. What they have been able to create here is really fantastic and I expect more and more people will want to come here in the future. It is a great race to come to. I definitely will try to bring my family next time. It is a great country, it's a great part of the world. We came to Bahrain. I have been in Bahrain. I was there earlier in the week, then we came through to Dubai and then here. The weather has always been great. The people have been so respectful and so welcoming and I am sure we are going to put on a great show for everyone, so fingers crossed it is a great day tomorrow.

Press Conference

Lewis were you ever not going to be on pole? You have been dominant so much this weekend.
LH: Anything could have happened. Clearly we have been very competitive all weekend and the car has felt great and I didn't have any particular doubts in my mind whether we could have done it. But it is still finding the gap, getting your tyres up to temperature, all these different things and it is easy to make mistakes but fortunately I didn't and put a really nice lap together. Very, very happy with it.

What is suiting the car here particularly? The lack of slow corners, KERS worth four-tenths-of-a-second Heikki (Kovalainen) said yesterday.
LH: Yep, it is the same at every race. You ask that question at every race. KERS, when you press that button, is worth four tenths pretty much everywhere. Three to four tenths. Here in qualifying it is around four-tenths, but obviously you have got to use it to optimise it and get the maximum from it but it works really well. The great thing is the car is working and feeling better than it has all year, so it is such a great feeling for me in the car and also for all the guys. What a great job they have done all year and what a great way to finish at least our practice session and our qualifying session and I want to go out and do the job tomorrow.

What's the circuit going to be like to race on? A lot of people were worried that off line it might be dirty.
LH: It is always dirty off line but it is not going to be somewhere like Montreal with all the bubbles off line. I don't think it will be a problem. I have been off line a couple of places and it wasn't too bad. The track surface, I mean we are always trying to improve other circuits saying the kerbs should be good here or we could improve the rumble strip here, but I can honestly say I think they have really done almost a perfect job at this track. They have really done a good job with the layout, with the track. It is very, very smooth. The kerbs are nice and in the right places and I think for the racing it looks very safe. I think there are quite a few opportunities to overtake, so it should be quite an exciting race, especially for the spectators here.

How was the car on the option tyre?
LH: For me the option and the prime are pretty much the same. Normally we see quite a big difference between them with obviously the option being a lot quicker and a little bit grippier. Here I generally find it is very, very close. There is a different kind of warm-up, different way of using them, but I preferred the prime. For me they just seemed to be a little bit more consistent throughout the lap but no doubt the track will get grippier, so who knows what tyre we will use tomorrow.

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