DRIVERS
 
1 – Lewis HAMILTON (Ferrari) 
2 – George RUSSELL (Mercedes) 
3 – Lando NORRIS (McLaren)
 
TRACK INTERVIEWS
(Conducted by Nico Rosberg) 
 
Q: Lewis, you did it. You’re a Ferrari race winner. After that difficult start last year, how does this one feel for you?
Lewis HAMILTON: First, I have to start by saying a huge thank you to everyone here, my team here at Ferrari, everyone back at the factory, Fred, for believing in me and bringing me to this team. I started out a dream last year, which seemed almost impossible during my time last year, but we never gave up hope and the team just continued to lift me up. We made so many changes and we made so many improvements and, on top of that, I’ve got the greatest fan base a sportsman could ever ask for. So thank you. Thank you to everybody.
 
Q: We’re hearing huge applause for you, Lewis. That’s 106 wins. How does this one rank in those 106? Is it one of your best, feeling-wise?
LH: They’re all special in their own way, but this one, this one’s something else. I always watched Ferrari have all that success when I was younger, watching it on TV, and as I’ve been racing here, I’d always watch the screens and wonder what it’d be like to win in that car. And it’s come, and everyone worked so hard for it. Everyone truly deserves it. So, I’m forever grateful to them and this is just the first, I hope, of many. But great pit stops today, great strategy, the car felt fantastic and, yeah, forza Ferrari.
 
Q: George, question to you. So, of course, Lewis is your ex-team-mate. Do you have some words seeing Lewis win in the Ferrari for the first time?
George RUSSELL: Yeah, I mean, first, a huge congrats to this guy because I know how hard he works and obviously we spent a lot of years together with Mercedes. So really pleased to see him back to Lewis I remember when I was growing up watching Formula 1. But, yeah, tough day. It’s good to be back on the podium and have a bit of a clean race from my side, but Ferrari mighty impressive today and, yeah, we need to keep on pushing.
 
Q: You had a really strong weekend, yeah? All weekend looking confident and everything. Is it you finally back to your best here?
GR: Yeah, I mean, Friday and Saturday was a really strong and solid day for me. Today was a little bit more challenging. Everything started off quite well. I felt good in the first stint and then the last two stints it was a bit more difficult. But, as I said, it’s good to be back here.
 
Q: Are you worried a little bit now by the challenge these guys are posing? Pace, reliability issues we’re seeing with you guys?
GR: Yeah, I mean, yesterday was a real surprise for us in the team and then the pace today was insane from Lewis. So, yeah, they’re coming, I think.
 
Q: Lando, P3 for you. Great race pace. I mean, yesterday qualifying was a bit difficult but today was awesome out there, right?
Lando NORRIS: Yeah. I guess, first of all, I want to congratulate Lewis. Nice to see him back on top, so I’m very happy for you, mate. Yeah, a tough race. I did my best to keep up with these guys but too quick. So, we stayed there, we gave ourselves a chance if anything happened and we obviously got a bit lucky with Antonelli going out, but otherwise very happy, very happy for the team, very happy to be back on the podium. So a good day for us.
 
Q: What’s missing still to win? You’re coming closer to them, you’re close in the race today. What do you still need to deliver to get that win soon?
LN: Just a little bit of everything. At the minute, we’re doing a good job as a team. I think we’re making good progress, but these guys are just doing a better job, so we have to give credit to them and admit that to ourselves that we’ve got to keep working hard, we’ve got to keep putting in the effort. But the whole team are doing it, so I’m very happy with them. But we’ve just got to keep our heads down and keep working and we’ll be there soon.
 
Q: It’s a special day for Great Britain, by the way, because the last all-British podium was 1968. Long, long time ago. So that’s pretty incredible. So congrats for that. 
LN: Well done, boys!
 
Q: Lewis, back to you. Where’s all this confidence now coming from? I mean, you’re flying out there today.
Lewis HAMILTON: I think just working my way back to my centre. I’ve had great prep, I’ve trained so hard to be here today. There’s so much work that I’ve done, I’m doing in the background, but also, again, just as I said, the team are giving me that confidence with the changes that we’ve made, believing and trusting in the decisions and the things that I’ve asked for. And we’re slowly starting to see this all come together. And I guess I’m just happy in my life, you know, so I’m in a good place. I love doing what I do. There’s no greater feeling than racing a Formula 1 car.
 
Q: Does that mean it’s game on for the championship? No points for Kimi today. You made up 25. Is that what you’re saying?
LH: I’ll definitely take it. It’s a long, long way to go and they still have great pace, as you can see. But we’re going to keep working, we’re going to keep trying to close that gap. It’s not over, that’s for sure.
 
PRESS CONFERENCE 
 
Q: We are going to be joined by race winner Lewis Hamilton very shortly, so George, let's come to you first then. An important second place for you today. Just how would you sum up your race?
GR: I mean, 18 more points than I’ve achieved in the last two races. I would take the positives from that and I would take the positives from the weekend as a whole. The race was feeling good, to be honest. I felt solid at the start and just slowly eking out the gap to Lewis, and he obviously committed quite early to the three-stop and then we covered, but stuck on the two-stop and, yeah, from that point onwards it was quite challenging and just didn’t have the pace and wasn’t feeling too happy with the Hard tyre.
 
Q: I mean, did you maximise the car’s potential today? If not, why not?
GR: I’m not sure. We need to look at it afterwards, to be honest. You know, I think Lewis would have come through regardless, but he obviously jumped us with the Virtual Safety Car and I got fortunate with Kimi’s failure as well. So, it’s a shame to see how the race ended for him and obviously for us as a team and as HPP, we’ve had a few failures recently, so that’s a big concern for us.
 
Q: OK, George, thanks. There’ll be some questions for you in a minute. Lando, let’s come to you. Look, great job by you to take your second podium of this season. Just how much confidence do you take from the performance today?
Lando NORRIS: Quite a bit actually. I just wasn’t expecting to be… It wasn’t like I was fighting the Mercedes, but I was always there. You know, I wasn’t far behind at all, and I probably wasn’t expecting to be quite that close for the whole race, especially because after the first stint, I think I was already like, I don’t know, 12 seconds behind George. So, the fact we kind of pulled things around and we seemed to be stopping on good laps and things like that, I think shows good signs. So, I was pretty happy with the race today. I think it was clear how much more I had to push comparing to them in kind of the first parts of, you know, the first third and second third of a stint, because it was clear how much more I deg’d off after in the final third of a stint. But the fact I was there so close shows some good positives for us as a team. A better day than I was expecting. I certainly wasn’t expecting to be on the podium today, so it’s just nice to be back here, nice to finish a race. I’ve not seen a chequered flag for a while, so it’s good to be here and just nice to reward the team once again.
 
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
 
Q: (Fred Ferret – L’Équipe) For the two drivers, please. Your thoughts on Lewis getting his first win in red.
LN: I think pretty cool. It’s pretty special. It’s nice. You know, the last few weekends he’s certainly seemed to have upped his game and as much as it, yeah, was something we once could kind of take advantage of and try and make the most of, it seems like he’s making the most of what he’s got now, and that’s cool to see. I grew up as a fan of Lewis and I don’t know if I would still say I’m like that kind of fan, but I’m still a fan of him. And as a seven-time World Champion, it’s always a pleasure to see those kinds of things. And with Ferrari again, it’s even cooler to kind of see that partnership come through and kind of pay dividends, as it is doing now. So, yeah, special. And also, to share the podium with him and then with George, to have three Brits up there, I think the first time since 1968, I think someone said. Pretty special, pretty cool for us to represent our country that way. And, yeah, I’m happy for him. I hope he’s not this fast the whole season, because it would be nice if we could battle a bit more, but good for him. I think you could see how much it meant to him. At the same time, he’s obviously had a lot of people talk badly about him and he’s got a lot of crap online from a lot of people, so it’s nice that he can stick the middle finger up to all of them.
GR: Yeah, I mean he said it pretty well. We both sort of grew up as fans of Lewis and, you know, for myself, spending three years together in Mercedes, so much respect. It was a big, bold move to join Ferrari, and to see it now paying off for him is very special to see given the magnitude of the decision. And, yeah, he’s going to be a real threat. So, as Lando said, hopefully it doesn’t continue for too long, but to be standing up here, three Brits, first time in 60 years, it’s a special feeling.
 
Q: (Luke Smith – The Athletic) George, just picking up on the threat that Lewis is going to pose, do you think that’s going to require you and Kimi to maybe approach this championship at all differently, if there is this third party potentially challenging you guys?
GR: Well, at the moment, you know, Lewis is obviously ahead of me in the championship. We need to see across the course of a couple of races. They did bring a big upgrade here and I think the development slope is so steep at the moment for all of the teams. Whoever is going to be bringing those upgrades earliest is going to be taking a step forward. And we saw it with McLaren in Miami, having a really strong weekend, and then ourselves and Ferrari have taken a step forward thereafter. So honestly, the approach doesn’t change for me. I’m just looking to maximise my weekends. It hasn’t been the case recently and see where it takes us.
 
Q: (Velimir Veljko – Avto Focus) have a question for George. You are a mature, experienced, fast driver, but you are today and maybe this year on a real test of hardship. How do you manage all these difficult moments? How do you control your emotions in moments when you are on test?
GR: It’s tough. You know, it’s not an easy sport. We work every single day of our life to achieve this dream, and when things out of your control go against you, it’s difficult to accept. And if the performance isn’t where you hope for it to be, it’s also difficult to accept. We have to continuously dig deep every single day, dig deep, remind yourself why you’re doing this, and thinking back to, you know, Lando said, when we were younger, looking up to the likes of Lewis and dreaming of being sat here. You know, we probably wouldn’t have been able to believe this 15 years ago, that we’d be sharing the podium together as a three. Now, of course, we both would have preferred to sit in the middle from the three of us, but this is why we do it.
 
Q: (Valentina Peña – Dario AS) George, you just mentioned the strategy. Do you think it was maybe a bit too early for that first pit stop, having started with the mediums? Do you think you could have done something better in a strategy or Lewis simply had more pace?
GR: Well, Lewis had really great pace. If I was in the race on my own and there was no other drivers and I was doing a two-stop, I would not have pitted on lap 13. Now, you’re never in the race on your own. You’re reacting to your competitors and they put us in a very challenging position to pit this early. The truth is my pace wasn’t quite strong enough today, but I do think I could have just mirrored his strategy on the three-stop, but that would have maybe left me exposed to Kimi on the two-stop and maybe I wouldn’t have been happy about that in the end. So, I need to go through it with my team.
 
Q: George, how much did your battle with Kimi in the middle stint cost you in terms of time?
GR: It did cost us a little bit. I think Lewis, with the VSC, was always destined to come out ahead, to be honest. You know, he came out with a two-second gap. We probably lost a second, but he just had really great pace today. It was really impressive to see. And even in the first stint, at one point I was expecting to see Kimi make the move on Lewis and I was watching the TV screens and Lewis just seemed to have it covered.
 
Q: (Nate Saunders – ESPN) George, another question for you. Just specifically on Kimi, I know you’re not sat there wanting your team-mates to retire, but you talked coming into the weekend about the loss of points over the past couple of weekends. Obviously, you’ve gained a chunk of that back. Just where is your mind at coming out of this weekend in terms of the championship and in terms of, I suppose, righting some of that kind of bad luck you had over the past couple of weekends?
GR: I’m going to be honest: I’m not really thinking about the championship. I’m thinking about just controlling my controllables. And, you know, Friday and Saturday I felt like I did everything to the best of my ability and got absolutely the best result possible on almost every single lap I did. Today, I made a great start. The first stint was solid, but the last two stints on the hard wasn’t good enough. So, my head is coming out of this race thinking performance was not strong enough and I need to make some improvements. It’s a challenging circuit. It’s the first race of the year where we’ve had major tyre degradation. You know, the winner on a three-stop strategy. The six races prior have been an easy one-stop. So totally different ballgame today. We’ll reassess in Austria. But as I said, I’m going to control my controllables and keep on trying to apply the pressure.
 
Q: Lewis, huge congratulations to you. You’ve now had a bit of time to let it soak in. For a man who’s achieved so much in his career, what does this first one with Ferrari mean to you?
LH: That was the longest TV pen I’ve ever had. I think it’s going to definitely take me some days to really… I’ll look back at this for sure and be like, “Damn, I wish I had the right words.” How do you find the right words to express an emotion that’s beyond your wildest dreams? You know, I truly believed in my decision in joining Ferrari. I truly believed in what this team could achieve, what we could achieve together. And I know it started out with lots of excitement and then lots of doubt and lots of negativity that followed through a whole year. And I really feel like my fans really rescued me last year, my family also, and friends that stuck with me through it all. And starting into a new season, a new year, lots and lots of changes enabled in the background me to get to this position that I’m in today. I just feel a lot of gratitude, a lot of pride, and very, very proud of the people that I work with. They’re so passionate and have so much humility and they are so kind. And, you know, seeing them sing the national anthem today was wow, was an incredible feeling, man. Just the best.
 
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
 
Q: (Luke McLaughlin – The Guardian) Lewis, in all the victories that you’ve achieved, would you describe this as a uniquely special victory given the journey that you’ve been on recently?
LH: I mean, they’re all special in their own way. You know, there’s different journeys to each of them. And, you know, like the last one, or not the last one, the one in Silverstone in 2024 was in its own way a monumental moment for me, because it’s a moment where I never thought maybe that I’d ever get to win again. And then after a year like last year, there was definitely moments that I was like, “Sheesh, maybe it is true that, you know, when you get to a certain point, you lose it.” But I’ve proven that you don’t. You always have it and it just takes work. It takes perseverance, that constant believing in yourself to tap into your inner self and keep yourself alive, keep yourself fit. And I feel great physically, you know, racing with 19-year-olds, you know, who are doing amazing, but I feel great. I think this is, it’s so early in the season to get to this point. These guys have really listened and really worked hard to add performance and be innovative. This year is all about innovation. You know, we came out with the bit on the rear exhaust. We came out with, what else was it, the rear wing, the Macarena. You know, and this is what I was asking for last year. It was like this team has to be the leaders in that, and they’ve shown that they can and they will. And we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. By no means is this something that’s just going to happen all the time. We’ve got a heavy, heavy, steep mountain to climb up ahead of us to try to do this as Mercedes has all year so far.
 
Q: (Tom Cary – The Telegraph) Lewis, congratulations on the win. You mentioned about the negativity last year, and also, I guess in the end of your time at Mercedes as well. How hard is it? I know you all say that you don’t listen to or don’t read social media, you block it all out, but how hard is it when that’s coming on so strong? And how close were you to not giving up, but starting to really doubt yourself enough that you felt you might leave?
LH: Well, I mean, I’m only human. So, you know, there’s moments where I see the stuff and for sure there’s moments where I allowed it to get to me and penetrate deeply. But, you know, then I went through a sequence of unplugging from that matrix. I mentioned it last year, I spent lots of time with family, lots of time with friends, real people that know me, that have never doubted me, have stuck to and by me my whole life. And then I just went on the mission from Christmas Day. The training that I put in was harder than I’ve ever experienced, to keep myself in good shape, because I think at the beginning of last year I got injured here, actually, and carried that for months. And, yeah, I think just things that I know is to never second-guess yourself, never doubt yourself. You’ve got to continue to believe in yourself at the core. And those are the things that I’ve managed to reimplement into my mentality. I’ve rebuilt my mind to this point, to get myself back to where I was. And it’s a great feeling to stand here, or to sit here right now, but to stand on that podium. As I was saying earlier on, I’m probably going to sleep in this red top tonight. It’s a good feeling to have the horse on there at top.
 
Q: (Jack Smith – Motorsport Monday) Lewis, you probably heard the mechanics were chanting your name when you were on the podium. And you talked a lot about remembering who you are this year. It’s a thing you said quite a lot. Do you feel that maybe you’ve reminded the team who you are as well and that you’ve maybe done something to cement the relationship between driver and team a little bit more?
LH: I don’t know… I don’t really feel that I’ve had to remind the team. You know, they’ve been so kind. You know, you come back to the garage after a difficult race and they just say like, “Don’t worry, next time.” You know, they’re just so supportive through it all. But for sure, results like this change everything and for sure reinstate, if there is a lack of confidence, reinstates it all. And I hope that this was a convincing gap and race, but I think it’s been happening over the last few races. The changes that I’ve asked for and pushed for all last year have been made and I now have the right team around me, I now have the right car around me, and now I can start doing what I do best.
 
Q: (Frédéric Ferret – L’Équipe) Lewis, you spoke about the national anthem sung below you. What was the feeling with your new Italian Bono beside you?
LH: Yeah, it was great to have him up there. I think, you know, him kind of substituting this year, jumping in and diving in deep with me. We didn’t know each other, we’d never spoken and I didn’t really know much of… I didn’t know anything about him. And we met and I think got on straight away. But it’s great to be able to connect with an engineer other than what I used to have. You know, I had it for such a long time and then you kind of lose that feeling because Bono’s now doing it with Kimi. It’s really great to be able to share that experience with him on that stage, and also probably, like, he’s very, very quiet. You could tell it’s hard for him to express his emotions. He’s just smiley and, you know, I’m giving him these big hugs and pulling him in, saying thank you. I like to think that this has probably reignited the love that he has as being an engineer as he has done for me as a driver.
 
Q: (Luke Smith – The Athletic) Lewis, you said this is now a chance for you to do what you do best. Toto has just spoken. He was very complimentary about the win and said that when you smell blood in a title race, he knows how good you are, so he doesn’t want to really fight you this year. Is the dream of the eighth World Championship alive and well after this?
LH: Well, honestly, with the way that the year started out, I have not really been thinking about it like that. I’ve not been thinking about an eighth. Of course, what we had worked towards has been being able to win, but I’ve always been conscious of the fact that it takes time. And Mercedes have come out the gates with a blistering car and blistering pace, both drivers doing such a great job. We know we have this power deficit. There’s going to be tracks where we go to with long, long straights where that makes it even harder. But as I said, we’ve got a great car at the core and if we keep adding performance and we can go through the corners quicker, maybe we can narrow that deficit down a little bit until we improve or until we close the gap on power. Very, very hard to think long-term at the moment. I think it’s just about taking it one race at a time, one week at a time. I’ll be at the factory next week. We’ll do a download, we’ll speak to the aerodynamicists, looking at all the different things that are in the pipeline, when they’re coming, what effect they’ll have, re-steer if I need to in whatever direction I feel that the car needs to go. Yeah, we just keep pushing and enjoying it. We have to just have fun with it as well, you know.
 
Q: (Giuseppe Marino – Motori Online) Maybe it’s one of the best days of Formula 1 history, because a legend driver won with the most iconic team ever in Formula 1 here, where 30 years ago another legend, Michael [Schumacher] won his first race in red. How do you feel about it? And is this the first step of a legendary story?
LH: I think this is the first step of our story. And I just learned just now that it was 30, just been reminded that it was 30 years ago that Michael won. You know, I would have been at home on my couch watching that race, probably like many of you, and with a plate on my lap, eating like a sandwich, or maybe chicken noodle soup or something like that. On a Sunday, I was 12, if I wasn’t racing. And, yeah, just looking at that red car and thinking, “I wonder what it’s like sitting in that red cockpit?” My cockpit happens to be white, which I’ve not been too happy about. I wanted to be red like Michael’s. I’ll get it back red at some stage. But, yeah, what it would be like to sit in that red car, which I got to experience last year, but then be in that red suit, standing in first place in front of that amazing crew who was singing the national anthem. And I think the sound was off today because they were like out of sync with the song, but it was really amazing to witness and to see the joy in their eyes and to feel it with them. I nearly passed out after I hugged them. My heart was exploding with joy.
 
Q: (Nate Saunders – ESPN) Congratulations, Lewis. We just spoke to Fred and he very modestly said, sorry here, Fred just very modestly said he can’t take any credit for kind of the turnaround that you’ve had over the last year and a half. But I wondered what role he’s actually played through this journey with you, especially through some of the worst moments last year. I know that you guys go back a long way. How much credit would you give Fred for just kind of keeping the faith and keeping you focused on this prize and whatever’s to come?
LH: Well, firstly, I wouldn’t be in this team without Fred. Fred is the one that made it happen, of which I’m incredibly grateful to him for. I think last year was really, really tough for him to deal with. Me coming was a big shock to the system because I am very, very vocal. If I see something that I don’t think is right, or I push very, very hard, that’s at the core of who I am and I’m relentless with it. And I think it’s not easy to be on the receiving end of that when you’re also juggling a whole organisation, you know, and a culture that in its own is set in a certain way. But, and also, you know, he’s French in an Italian culture. It was a lot for him to juggle and I think very, very tough because obviously he would do media as well. But he continued to believe, continued to be a good friend, continued to be a great team-mate and an ally and really supportive. And, you know, ultimately, he really listened at the end and I had to really ask, really ask for some of the changes. And he enabled them to happen, which I’m forever grateful for, because this wouldn’t have happened without those changes. So big, big thank you to him.
 
ENDS