Part One: Isack Hadjar, Charles Leclerc and Alex Albon.
Isack, if we could start with you. It's great to have you back with us. You're back racing this weekend. You have a new contract in your back pocket for 2027 as well. Today must feel like a very good day.
Isack Hadjar: It's good to come back in these conditions, for sure. I'm really looking forward to driving again, you know. The last time I touched the steering wheel was in Budapest, so it's been a very long time, it feels. So, it's good to be back. It's definitely a challenging track to come back to, but I'm excited. And it's also good to have it announced now, so everything is great.
Can we just talk about the wrist briefly? Is it 100%? Any restricted movement?
IH: Yeah, it's good enough to drive, so that's all I need.
And tell us, what have you missed most while sitting out these last three races?
IH: Just competition, you know. Just the pressure and the fight out on track. When you step out, you realise that life is a bit... it's just flat and boring. You just want to come back. It's been a frustrating couple of weeks, so now it's good to come back to the fight.
And what does it mean for you to know this early in the year what you'll be racing, what you'll be doing next year?
IH: It's good, it's nice, but it's natural. You know, I'm not here to be hopeful. I'm here to show what I do on track and naturally the rest comes, so it's normal in a way.
And have you set yourself any particular goals for this weekend here in Baku?
IH: No. The car is competitive, and I just want to be in the mix, in the fight with the guys ahead. That's all.
All right. Well, welcome back. Good luck with it this weekend. Thank you for that. And Charles, if we could come to you now. Given your qualifying record around this racetrack, it seems crazy that you haven't won here yet. Is this the year that you can correct that?
Charles Leclerc: Well, I don't know, but surely this year qualifying is probably where we struggle the most in terms of car performance. So, if we are in front in qualifying, then I'm hopeful for the race. But before thinking about that, I think we've got to prepare the weekend as we should. And with this year's car as well, it seems that there's a lot of variability from one weekend to the other, just based on the optimisation of your power unit. And on a track like this, it will play a big role as well. So, I think that's where we should focus. Then it's surely a track that I enjoy driving and that has been good for me on the Saturday mostly, but the races have been more challenging. So hopefully we can fix that for this year.
Looking at the variability, as you call it, Ferrari's performance since the summer break hasn't been quite as strong as it was earlier in the year. Is that track-specific, or do you think you need to find more performance to challenge for the win again?
CL: It wouldn't be fair to say that it's track-specific because we've done quite a few races now since the summer break. So no, I don't think it's track specific. I think that McLaren has done big steps forwards. Mercedes has always been kind of the reference and is always a top team, no matter where we go or at which time of the season. But McLaren definitely came back on our side. We've been struggling with a few things here and there in the last few weekends, and it's in our hands to do a better job. Surely, it's much closer now with McLaren, and Mercedes remains the team to beat.
And can we talk to you about your on-track battles with your teammate Lewis Hamilton? They've been great to watch, going right back to Shanghai, in fact. Are you happy with the way you guys race wheel-to-wheel?
CL: Yes, I am. Then, of course, there have been moments where I went too far, where Lewis went too far, but I think the key in that is to discuss. I mean, I've been with Ferrari since 2019 now and I know everything we do is overanalysed, over-discussed, and very often the conclusions that are taken after those kinds of fights are the wrong ones. We only need to speak with Lewis to kind of understand. We've been doing that all our life, so we both want to win and there's competition, but we also want to win as a team and to make Ferrari come out on top eventually. So that is the priority. But I mean, I enjoy fighting with Lewis and that's what is exciting in Formula 1, is to be fighting against the best, and Lewis is definitely up there. So, for me it's a big challenge, but I'm enjoying it.
And the rules of engagement between you are clear?
CL: Sure. I mean, Turn 2 in Monza is something that I've said repeatedly, that it's not something that we want to see ever happen again, and that's going too far on my side. But I've been through it already. Yeah, I think it's pretty clear that we don't necessarily have to write those things. I think it's clear enough. Again, I feel like it's being over-discussed and overanalysed when it's about the red cars. That's not really fair. In Monza, if you look at the four top teams, three of them had fights like this, with the car finishing in the grass, and at the end of the day the only thing we are speaking about still now is the red cars, which I don't think is fair.
Charles, thank you for that. Good luck this weekend. And Alex, if we could come to you now. You have some significant upgrades on the car here. Does this feel like a defining moment in your season?
Alex Albon: Yeah, I mean, they're significant if they work, so let's see how it goes. We have to be honest with ourselves. We know what it should do on paper. I think the weight's been a big talking point and normally weight's a guarantee, so hopefully it's going to put us in a good place. The team have done a massive job back at the factory. To do a chassis change in the middle of a season is not easy. So, it's putting us in a good place. Whether that's to fight the midfield now, time will tell.
You say, "if they work". What do they feel like on the sim?
AA: They normally work on the sim, yep. That's where a lot of our calculations come from. I think we've seen before that sometimes the sim and the track don't always correlate, but I'm hopeful. Cosmetically, you won't see the car to be so different, but there are some small, good changes in the car that will also hopefully improve the balance as well.
And irrespective of the upgrades, is Baku a track that actually lends itself more to your car anyway?
AA: Yeah, it does. It's a track that suits us. We know we have a car generally that's quite good at ride. We know that we have a car that's normally quite good in these 90-degree corners. We don't like long corners, and we like short corners. Baku is pretty much all short corner-based. So even in my time here at Williams, we've always gone well around here. So hopefully we can have a good result.
What are the goals?
AA: Goals are progress. Goals are hopefully to be able to fight with the, you know, call it the upper-midfield fight, the RBs, the Alpine and the Audi. But we've been quite far away from that in previous races, so it's still a big jump to make to be able to race with those teams. So obviously we need a lot for that to happen.
Questions From The Floor
(David Croft - Sky Sports F1) Isack, question for you. First of all, congratulations on the contract extension, well deserved. Secondly, on the injury, two-part question. A, what did you actually do? And B, tell us about the rehabilitation, what you've had to go through and why you're now absolutely certain that this is a good time to come back and everything's fine?
IH: Yeah, I mean, I have a small fracture outside of the wrist and it's just quite a long process. I didn't need any surgery, so it's all natural and it takes some time. It's still going to be painful for a while, but now it's going to be six weeks soon and, you know, it says that it's strong enough at the moment to resist the tensions. I had a test on the sim, it went well. So, you know, I think it's a similar environment to the cockpit. It's actually, if anything, nearly identical. So, if it's fine on the sim, with the adrenaline on track and everything, I think I should be okay. And yeah, the training sessions have not been fun, you know, because I've been doing basically nothing with the left limb. So yeah, it's been a bit boring.
(Craig Slater - Sky Sports). A question for Charles. Charles, there's talk that you might go back [on the grid], to take the upgraded Ferrari power unit for this weekend. Are you still evaluating that, or has that decision been taken? And does it make sense here? How would you feel about starting at the back and trying to come through the field, a bit like Kimi the other week?
CL: Well, Kimi went from last to first, so, I mean, I don't know if that's realistic for us if we will have to take the penalty. But as of now, yes, I mean, it's in the pool of our engines that we can use. I won't go too much into the detail on what's the plan and what engine we will use or not, because that's still something strategic for us and we don't want to give that away. But it's definitely back in the pool of engines that we can use, so that's a good thing.
(Diego Campoy - DAZN Spain) Question for Isack. Isack, it's good to see you back. I would like to know if it's true that you spoke with Marc Márquez, the MotoGP rider, after your injury. What did he tell you?
IH: It's true.
(Diego Campoy - DAZN Spain) What did he tell you?
IH: Not to race!
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