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Belgian GP: Thursday Press Conference

NEWS STORY
26/08/2010

Gentlemen, first of all, what did you do during the break? Pedro, with the family I guess?
Pedro de la Rosa: Yes, it has been a very good break. I was always with the family. We went to Majorca, on holiday, where we normally go. Great time I must say, very good. I did a lot of cycling and realised how bad I am at that, but it was very good.

Sebastien Buemi: I think everybody is the same. I spent some days in Switzerland with my family and then in Monaco and I was one week in Salzburg for some fitness tests, just to check out where we are in the middle of the season. It has been a good break and it was good to relax a bit.

Lewis Hamilton: For me I went straight from Hungary to the States and spent time out there with some friends and with the girlfriend, so it was good training, good weather, lots of sun and good food.

Michael Schumacher: I have been home with the family. I just took it easy.

Nothing more than that? Lots of riding?
MS: No, other stuff but all from home.

Sebastian?
Sebastian Vettel: I think like the majority of the drivers, a bit of holiday in the beginning and then as soon as I was back I tried to get back into the rhythm. Lots of training. The weather wasn't always fantastic in the centre of Europe, but the usual stuff I guess. Then I tried to prepare to come back here.

Pedro, the improvements that Sauber have made, can you maintain those?
PdlR: Well, we hope so. We have introduced quite a lot of changes since Valencia, already for Valencia and since and I think that we have raised our game. We are a lot more competitive, not only in high speed tracks like Silverstone but also in low speed tracks, corners, which were our weakest point like Hungary. That was good for us as we realised that all the changes had worked and we were targeting the right places and we were suddenly a lot more.... We have increased or widened our window of competitivity which is very important.

And yet it was suggested that here you might be hurting a little bit on the straights?
PdlR: Yeah, we still have to do a lot to improve. Don't get me wrong. We have improved our competitivity but we are still lacking in other areas. One of them is top speed. There are two sectors here - sector one and three - where you will rely heavily on top speed. Pretty sure that sector two will be quite good for us though.

Sebastien, one of the things that I believe you did during the break was a certain amount of self-analysis; having a look at how the season had gone so far. Any changes for the rest of the season?
SB: Obviously when you have two races in a row it is a bit difficult to analyse well what we did well and what we did wrong, so I spent one or two days in Faenza just trying to look at it carefully. We know a little bit more where we have got to improve ourselves, especially in qualifying. This is the place where we seem to be lacking pace, especially with new tyres. We will try some new things on Friday and Saturday just to see if we can improve it a bit. If we can just start a little bit closer to the Q3 then it might help a lot in the race.

Is there much more development coming from the factory? There doesn't seem to have been a huge amount in comparison to some of the other teams.
SB: Yeah, what I can say it is a big difference for us from last year to this year. Especially this year as we have got to do everything on our own, so it takes a bit of time to get things working well. We have got some good things coming for the future with the F-duct and the blown diffuser but it is still not really planned when but it will come. This is important. We just need to try our best with what we have got now and then when the new parts come we have got to get the maximum out of it. It takes a bit of time but I am pretty sure the team is giving everything to get better and this is important.

Lewis, a similarly interesting comment from Martin Whitmarsh. He feels there is a lot of performance in the car which is still to be unlocked. Is that your feeling as well?
LH: I think for me every time I have gone to the track I have done the Friday and the Saturday and my comments are always 'this is the best the car has ever felt over these years at this track, but it is still not quick enough compared to others.' But we believe there is still some untapped downforce in the car which we have not been able to use at the moment or at least draw out, so we are working very hard. The team are working flat out as always to try and pull that out. I am trying to do everything I can to encourage and paying very close attention to what is going on and keeping a close eye on everything.

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