Lewis Hamilton continued his superb run of form by powering to a commanding victory at the Brazilian Grand Prix – his first career victory at Interlagos – mastering challenging the treacherous conditions to narrow the gap in the world championship standings to 12 points from 19 before the race.
The reigning world champion spoke about his race, in which he did everything he had to do and as a result takes the title to a final race showdown in Abu Dhabi.
Clearly a very special satisfaction for you today, your first Brazilian Grand Prix win as we were hearing on the podium there with Martin. But I don’t know if you’re aware it’s also a new record: it’s the 24th different race track you’ve won on and that’s never been done before in Formula One history. Obviously today was about what Formula One is all about – but just sum up your feelings and the emotion, I guess.
LH: I just feel very grateful right now and just incredibly happy. Of course this is a race I’ve been dreaming of winning since I was very, very young. Unfortunately these experiences feel very surreal and probably won’t really kick in until later but after so many years of trying to win this grand prix, all the ups and downs, the emotion, y’know, it’s a hard grand prix to win and today was one of the most difficult in terms of being wet and aquaplaning and everything. Probably the most smooth-sailing race I’ve had here in ten years. I’m just very, very grateful for all the hard work my engineers and mechanics have done because I wouldn’t have been able to do it without them.
When the race was stopped straight after the resumption, you were a bit surprised on the radio. You were saying: “the track is fine.” Tell us a little about the condition at that point and how you felt about the decision to stop it.
LH: Yeah, I mean, it’s understandable after the first red flag obviously because people were going off, and then the second one… once we went back out after that the track was intermediate tyres – but the Safety Car stayed out for ages. And then that went back in. And then I don’t really understand why the last one came out but the track was the same pretty much throughout, apart from after the first Safety Car so it was kind-of a pointless need to have a Safety Car come out, we should have just kept going. But, y’know, obviously safety comes first and they obviously felt that was the case. Fortunately everyone’s safe so it was obviously the right decision.
The race was twice interrupted, you had to hang around for half an hour each time. How distracting is that?
LH: Well, honestly it wasn’t distracting at all. Just very focused at the beginning and managed to maintain that. Got to stop and have something to eat the second time. Fortunately, I just never had to step out of the zone, I was in the zone the whole time which was a positive. In those conditions, obviously it’s much easier to lose focus, particularly in those stops but fortunately I didn’t have that.
The Brazilian fans don’t have a Brazilian driver winning and fighting for the title and they stayed from 7am until now in the rain, so I would like you to comment on that because you guys gave them a very good race despite the conditions. And I would like to know if you feel the energy of the Brazilian fans because of your admiration of Ayrton Senna?
LH: Without a doubt this is one of the best crowds we have in the whole season but the Brazilian fans have always been incredibly passionate about Formula One. I came here with a helmet which was a mix of mine and Ayrton’s as everywhere I go around the world and bump into Brazilian people they think about Ayrton and it’s just incredible how much he meant to the people here. I feel incredibly proud to have now won in the place that he has done but yeah, the fans are remarkable, to be able to get here that early and even though it was raining… most people would go home but they stayed and cheered the whole way. That’s just fantastic. Brazil generally spits out pretty good drivers so over time I’m sure there will be another winner at some stage.
In the past we’ve had much worse conditions than these, much more rain – for example Fuji 2007 – but it seems more and more that driving with these cars is almost impossible, too dangerous in these conditions today. Can you explain why it gets more and more difficult to drive these cars in the rain and can you understand that some people can’t understand that a racing car is not driveable in the rain by the best drivers in the world – how is that possible?
LH: This is Formula One and the rain conditions are the trickiest conditions. If everyone just went round and didn’t make mistakes it would be too easy and then everyone could do it. We are going at some serious speeds and there is a lot of water to disperse by the tyres and the tyre just struggles; the faster we go, the harder it is for the tyres. This wasn’t a particularly difficult race in terms of being wet, there’s been much much worse races in terms of aquaplaning.
A comment in general about the last round of the championship.
LH: Obviously I have to continue what I’m doing. Nico’s finished every single race this year apart, obviously, from Barcelona which we both didn’t finish so he’s had fantastic reliability, so I think right now, as the way it’s going it’s going to be very hard to beat him. That doesn’t mean I can’t win the race, so I’m going to take the energy I have now and the speed that I have which has been great this past few races and really try to push as hard as I can in that race to get as far ahead. That’s all I can do.
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