Part 1: With Esteban Ocon, Max Verstappen and Zhou Guanyu.

Q: Can we start with the hometown hero? Max, how was the break?
Max Verstappen: Yeah, it was very good. Spent a good time with friends and family. It was a lot of fun, honestly. I think it passed way too fast. If I could, I would have added another week, but that's how it goes. But it was good to refresh a bit, not really think about Formula 1, and just have a good time with funny people.

Q: And what a place to kick-start the season again. Your home Grand Prix at Zandvoort, clearly it's a busy one for you. How difficult is it to treat it like any other race?
MV: To be honest, it's OK. I mean, just coming after the break as well, I always know, of course, that it's maybe a little bit more busy for me. But at the other hand, you just focus on performance. And yeah, just happy to be here. Also looking forward to the weekend itself. It looks like there's a bit of rain around as well, typically. But that's OK. I'm just excited to get started again.

Q: And it's race number 200 for you in Formula 1. And you're still only 26! Do you see yourself here in another 200 races?
MV: No.

Q: Really?
MV: Nice and easy, yeah. So we passed halfway for sure, but it's been already, of course, an incredible ride. 200, yeah, I mean, it doesn't feel like 200, but of course we're doing a lot of races now in a year, so you add them quite quickly.

Q: Can you pick one highlight from the 200 or the 199 so far?
MV: Honestly, I think winning your very first race, that is always very emotional, because you dream of that when you're a little kid, to be on the podium in F1. And then being on the top step, I think, is always very special. Winning your first championship, these kind of things, yeah, they will always be something incredible that I will look back at after my career. Two highlights, yeah.

Q: Alright, and what about this weekend? You're unbeaten at Zandvoort, three wins from pole. Do you think this is going to be the toughest one yet?
MV: Looking at how the season is at the moment, for sure. It looks like also there are many more teams involved that can actually win a race. So for sure, I'm not coming into this weekend saying that we're going to win the race. I just want to have a clean weekend, understand the car a bit more, learn from it. Of course, we analyse a lot over the break and try to do things maybe a bit different or better. And we'll find out, of course, over the weekend how that will go.

Q: Alright. Best of luck. Thank you, Max. Esteban, let's come to you next. First up, how was the break?
Esteban Ocon: Yeah, very good. Similar to Max, I think. Spent some good time with family and friends. Had a good week off and then went straight back to training. And yeah, it went very quick, I would say, because we also tested after the race in Spa, so the whole week was a little bit more of a working week, more than a race week. But yeah, all recharged, ready to go, ready to go back racing. And yeah, can't wait to put some laps in the car.

Q: You got your best result of the season so far at Spa. How much confidence does that give you coming into the second half?
EO: Yeah, we knew that, you know, Spa is a place where, you know, historically the car has been performing quite well and better than other places. So I knew that there was going to be an opportunity that we had to take. Obviously, it's only a top 10 finish. It's P9. But, yeah, it's going to be harder, I think, for the rest of the year. So we are going to try and do our best see where we can be in this race. But yeah, for sure the car performed well in Spa. The upgrades worked as expected and yeah I look forward to see if of course we can repeat some of those but I expect that it's going to be a little bit more difficult for us.

Q: Why do you think it's going to be more difficult? Because when you think where you started with this car, you've improved it a lot. How much more is there to come?
EO: Yeah, we've improved a lot. Clearly, we were on the last row in Bahrain, and now we are navigating close to top 10 finishes. But if we look at a race, for example, like Budapest, it was a race where we struggled a lot, and we were very far from the points. Spa typically works well for us, and some races have worked well, like Canada as well. But, you know, this type of tracks, you know, could be more difficult. So, you know, we need to just make sure that everything is perfect, that we get the maximum out of the car. And hopefully that will be a successful one for us.

Q: And Esteban, this is the first race weekend with Oliver Oakes as team principal of Alpine. First up, what are your impressions of him so far?
EO: Yeah, quite sudden news. I believe everything happened pretty quickly, but obviously those high-level decisions, we as drivers and many of the team members don't know really what's going on behind the scenes. But yeah Oliver has been somebody that I've met some time ago now. He was looking after a kid that I was looking after as well. So we're talking about that quite a lot. He's someone that knows the drivers very well. He's been a driver himself. And he has a lot of experience, obviously, in motor sport. So, yeah, he's going to be here tomorrow. So, yeah, I wish him the best of luck. And obviously, yeah, we're going to be working for the rest of the year together.

Q: What is job number one for him as he joins Alpine?
EO: Well, he's going to have a lot, for sure, a lot of work. A head joining mid-season is not an easy task, but he's somebody of such a calibre that I'm sure he will find his way very quickly.

Q: Alright. Thank you. Best of luck to you this weekend. Zhou, coming to you, first up, the break. How was it?
Zhou Guanyu: Yeah, it was good. I mean, same as the others. I had a good time. I went back home because obviously I love spending time at home and that's what we miss during the season. So just had some great time with family and friends and had a fun, let's say, two weeks back in Shanghai.

Q: And how do you view these last 10 races? Sauber is the only team yet to score a point this season. Is the car, is the C44 more competitive than the results have shown so far?
ZG: I would say, in terms of the results, I feel like that's kind of where we are. But we did miss quite a lot of opportunities, especially at the beginning of the season. I think there's a few occasions we could have had a chance, maybe finishing just around the P10 position. With, you know, the issues we had, I wouldn't go into too much detail, in the pit lane, you know, getting slow stops that that was like kind of resolve a lot of the opportunity, the potential to score the points. So I would say definitely the beginning of the season, we had a lot more opportunities to be fighting closer to the points. But then for the last four or five races, before the summer shutdown, definitely I felt like that's kind of where we were, and unfortunately not competitive enough and not where we hoped for. But looking forward to the remaining ten races, that's for sure, because for myself, finally having the same package and also having some new development coming for not just this race, but for other races as a team, I think gives us higher hopes to be back in format.

Q: And a new team principal, or new boss, I should say. He's not team principal. But how much contact have you had with Mattia Binotto so far?
ZG: Yeah, I mean, Mattia is a kind of a person that I knew from before, just because, you know, back in the days when I was with Ferrari Academy, he was there together in the race team. And then he officially only started in Hinwil this week, on Monday. So there's plenty of stuff, works that he have to extract and also to be going through behind the scenes. So I think he's having a quite busy couple of months ahead, but I'm looking forward to working with him. I already had a few chats about him. I think he can really bring his knowledge from the other team to us. I think it's going to be very beneficial.

Q: Have you spoken to him about 2025?
ZG: We're talking about it. And of course, we spoke about that. That's, of course, one of the topics that's going forward for the next few weeks and to see where I belong for the remaining [races], next season and onwards.

Questions From The Floor

Q: (David Croft - Sky Sports F1) Max, I'll start with you, and I'm intrigued by your answer to Tom's first question and I know you've touched on the fact that you're not going to stay in this sport way into your 40s before, but are you saying now that 2028, when your contract at Red Bull runs out, that's it, you're not going to stay on in Formula 1? You're beyond halfway, you say, in your career, or is there anything that could persuade you to stay on for a bit longer beyond the end of this current contract?
MV: I mean, of course, '28 is still very far away but in my mind at the moment, I'm not thinking about a new contract at the moment. I just want to see how it goes. Also see the new regulations first, you know, if it's fun or not. And then even in '26, '27, there's a lot of time to decide what happens. So I just keep everything open. But yeah, I'm quite easygoing about it.

Q: (Felix Gerner - RTL) Question to Max. What do you think, who is your main rival for this season championship? Is it Lando? Is it Oscar? Is it Charles? Who is the main contender?
MV: If you look at the championship, Lando is closest. But lately, you can see there are a lot of cars actually winning races and drivers, of course, of the team. So it's just very unknown. I mean, it's very close. And yeah, attention to detail and getting the car in the right operating window can really make a difference with so many teams and cars that close. So yeah, we'll see what happens. I mean, it's very difficult to comment on that right now.