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Japanese GP: Post Race press conference

NEWS STORY
07/10/2012

Sebastian, yesterday pole position, today winner but you pushed very hard until the last laps. Did you know Fernando was not racing again?
Sebastian Vettel: I saw the safety car at the beginning. I think first of all we had a very good start which was very important because I think right behind me there was a little bit of a crash and I saw a Ferrari was out. I wasn't sure, halfway through the race when I was looking at the tower to see where the others are, I saw the car that was still racing was Felipe, so I was assuming Fernando was not racing any more. First of all I would like to thank everyone. The atmosphere here every weekend is unbelievable, we leave the hotel, we get so much support from all of you, the grandstands are full when we go down the main straight, nearly every single corner is full of people and it really makes our job very, very special. Thanks for all of that, domo arigato, and… unfortunately that's all of my Japanese. I'll try to pick up some words for next year. Thank you very, very much. Thanks to the team, thanks to Renault, all the guys have pushed so hard the last couple of months and I said on the radio, when you're dreaming at night, you dream about being able to race a car like that. The balance was fantastic, and I was enjoying every lap. That's why, I think we were has such a big gap to the guys behind - so I'm very, very happy.

Felipe, we cannot say the race or the podium of your life… but almost. Two years without a podium, now you're back. How do you feel about that?
Felipe Massa: I think it's fantastic. To come here in Japan, starting tenth, which I was very happy with the car since the practice and then qualifying was not so good. I'm sure I was able to start in the top five so I was tenth. I was able to do a very good start, very clever on the first corner with the accident and everything that happened, and then the pace was very good from the car. Since the beginning of the race the pace was really good. I was behind Jenson and I was quicker than him, when he stopped to do the pitstop I was straight away half a second quicker per lap, so then I was able to push hard and overtake Jenson but also Kamui which was very quick in the front as well. So, for sure the race was much better than I expected. We did a good job, unfortunately Fernando is not here, fighting for the Championship as well, but I am very happy with my race and let's keep pushing hard to be on the podium now, more than two years but every race now.

Kamui, you can also speak in Japanese as well today, congratulations, the first podium of your life on your home racing track. Tell us about that.
Kamui Kobayashi: English or Japanese? I think first of all, thank you very much for everyone. Everybody know this is my first podium, in Japan this is fantastic and unbelievable you know?

Press Conference

Sebastian, that looked like a near-perfect race - a near perfect weekend in fact.
SV: Yeah, as I just said, it's unbelievable. Since yesterday in qualifying, nothing I think could be better. You come across these kinds of races or weekends very, very rarely. Unbelievable. We had a very good start, obviously it was important as Mark was running into trouble at Turn One and Two, I didn't see what happened behind him. I saw I had a better start than him and Kamui was probably already past Mark before the first corner, I was focusing on my car and to get through the first couple of corners. But, yeah, obviously very quickly saw the safety car boards. Wasn't sure what happened. When we came around the first time, surprisingly there was nothing there, so I think the marshals probably did a very good job cleaning up the track. I don't know how many cars were involved but obviously, yeah, it was crucial to not be in that kind of pack. And after that I had a very, very good race car. It was behaving very well, so yeah, it's very difficult to describe why. We didn't have major upgrades for this race. I think it was just the fact of the car suiting to the track, finding the right setup on Friday and then toward Saturday it was just coming together. The balance was there and it was just working. I think we had a fantastic race and I said to the guys, when you have a dream about how your race car should be, that's exactly what you're wishing for, so I'm very, very happy and very proud of the team. They stayed very calm all the race. The pitstops obviously we had a big gap so we had a bit of luxury to the guys behind to drop some time - but they seemed very focused. Also, inside the car I tried not to drop too much time, because obviously with the sun coming down, the sun was quite low in the end and there's a couple of tricky corners, especially Turn Eight, entrance of 13 where we've seen cars spinning over the weekend. And it's very easy to get carried away and think about the corner after the present corner; you start to think ahead and lose the focus and do a little mistake. I tried to stay in the moment and until the end it was fantastic because I had a car where I could control the race and I could push as hard as I wanted to and take care of the tyres, so - not to make this too long - all in all it was… fantastic.

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