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German GP: Post Qualifying press conference

NEWS STORY
21/07/2012

Congratulations Fernando, a second successive pole, but we heard on the team radio before the start of Q3 saying it was just too dangerous to go out there. It's stopped raining now so do you want to go back and do it again?
Fernando Alonso: Well, I think it's still on the limit, the conditions. As far as it's the same for everybody, I think sometimes it's good to check the circuit conditions. But we did Q3, but I think going into turn six it was not easy for anybody - there was a lot of aquaplaning and we are at 280-290km/h. But you know, I think everything went well for us. We got caught a little bit in those aquaplaning moments but the rest of the lap was clean. I also think we made a good strategy call, doing a pit stop in Q3 and then having very fresh tyres in the last minute when the track was in a little bit better condition and I think that helped us a lot to improve the lap time.

Sebastian, second on the grid for you, and the first time you've beaten a team-mate in the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim. You and Mark were running quite close together. You could have gone a bit faster? Were you held up?
Sebastian Vettel: Well, I lost a lap obviously running into him, but it's difficult in these conditions. You can see nothing in the mirror. He probably didn't see me and then with two laps to go the chequered flag, or the finish line, you can't back off enough to let people go, and get your lap again. So, for sure that lost a little bit but the track was best at the end, so it was the last lap, which not entirely clean. In these conditions it's extremely tricky. You lose the car a little bit over the rivers on the track and you're in a different place than you target to be. So, tricky but nevertheless I think we had the pace today to put the car on pole in the end, I think the lap time was possible. We need to look at what Fernando did at the end, as he touched on, with the strategy. Maybe that was a better way to do it. But overall I think that in these conditions it's always a bit of a lottery as well. You can lose the car without doing any mistake, in aquaplaning conditions. So, fortunately we didn't lose it and yeah we are on the first row which is good, and I'm starting on the inside as well so we'll see what happens tomorrow.

For you Mark, going into qualifying you knew there was a five-place penalty coming your way, so how much trickier did the conditions makes things: knowing that if you did run wide or crash that would totally ruin your race?
Mark Webber: Yeah. Tricky for all of us - dodgy conditions, especially when it got wet. Obviously, I did a better job than the other guys who have five-place penalty. It was very, very easy for all of us to not get it right today. So I'm very happy to be quite a long way up. We could have done a bit better here and there perhaps but we did our best out there at that point. We could have maybe done something when Fernando stopped but ifs, buts, 'shoulda', 'coulda', 'woulda': it doesn't count. We're third. Eighth now with the penalty for the gearbox but looking to come forward tomorrow.

Back to you Fernando. How confident are you for tomorrow that your Ferrari is the car for all conditions, whatever the German weather might throw at it this weekend?
FA: Yeah, it has been a strange weekend for conditions on the track. I think we have touched on all conditions through the weekend - we've run on inters, extreme and dry tyres both days, and tomorrow the same. If we have to repeat the same thing we will do it. But a dry race: the forecast should be a little bit better for tomorrow so let's see. But I think that the car was performing well in all conditions so we are quite optimistic for tomorrow.

Sebastian, if I could turn to you briefly. We've seen Ferrari and Red Bull [battling for victory] at the last race in Silverstone. Is that a foretaste of the season to come? Is it Ferrari and Red Bull that will be having the closest battles at the sharp end?
SV: I don't think so. I think there are also other teams you still need to be aware of, there's still a long way to go. There's no big difference in points so far. I don't think you can rule out McLaren. They have been extremely quick in qualifying though in the last qualifying on the extremes I don't know quite what went wrong but they were quite a bit far behind. They will be extremely quick tomorrow. Lotus have been extremely quick in the race in the last couple of races. So it's still extremely close I would say. It looks like we are consistent and consistently strong, able to finish in the top three, which is the key. So we try to do our best tomorrow and see what the weather does. I think the forecast looks dry so we'll see where we are.

For your Mark: you can at least do a little bit of overtaking during the race tomorrow. Is this the right track; are these the right conditions; are you in the right car to try to achieve that?
MW: Of course. We'll aim to go forward, for sure. We've shown the car is strong in all conditions and we're going to look to come through. But we have many, many quick cars out there. It's never ideal to put ourselves on the back foot by shooting ourselves in the foot, with some penalties here and there but we'll keep boxing and we're looking forward to the grand prix tomorrow.

Press Conference

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