Parc Ferme Interviews - Conducted by Jolyon Palmer

So, down here with your top three, and very much the man to beat at the moment, Max Verstappen. What a job, what a weekend so far. How was the session for you?
Max Verstappen: It was good. Just very close. The margins are very close, I think, between us throughout the whole of qualifying. So, of course, very happy to be on pole because this is, of course, the one that I wanted. So, yeah, very happy. I mean, the car has been pretty strong all weekend. Of course, there are always things that you look into that can be better, but it was enough for pole, so very happy with that.

Are you surprised? This is the one, apart from Madrid, that you've not got a win on. For some reason, we've always come here and it's not been a Red Bull circuit, or you've not found yourself in the right window. But this weekend you've had a great drive to win the Sprint, soon to be ahead of your rivals.
MV: Yeah, new regulations, and I think our car now works a little bit differently compared to the previous regulations, where we're stronger in different areas of a corner. But yeah, we take it. I mean, we have been really on a positive trend, you know, so it's, for us, I think, very special to take a pole here.

All right, well done, Max. We'll come back to you in just a second, if I can break you guys up just for a moment. Charles, great job. You're back on the front row here in Singapore. I have to say, it didn't look like the easiest of sessions for you for a lot of it, but that last lap was fantastic.
Charles Leclerc: Yeah, let's say that the good lap was on the right lap at the end. But I had a lot of struggles during this qualifying. Q1 and Q2 were very difficult. I had some weird things going on with the brakes, car pulling a bit under braking, which is not so nice on a track like here. But then in Q3, the lap was OK. I did some mistakes. I think there was potential to be on pole today, but Max just did a better job.

We saw a lot of other drivers struggling with the brakes early on. How many changes did you make? We know you guys were running different setups in yesterday's running. Did you converge? It's obviously difficult to know after an intermediate race where to go, I assume.
CL: Well, I guess, yeah, on my side, I changed a little bit the car to make sure, for the last fine-tunings. I was relatively happy with the car yesterday, so changed a few things, not so much. But yeah, at the end of the day, just a bit of misjudgement in Q3 with the wing. Maybe we could have done a bit of a better job, but I think if you ask all drivers on the grid, everybody can find something on that last lap in Q3.

All right, well done. Front-row start for you. And Lewis, what a job. I've loved watching you drive around this circuit this weekend because it has been animated for you. So much oversteer, you're hanging on to it, but in the end, looks like maybe that cost you in the final sector a couple of times. How do you see that session?
Lewis Hamilton: Yeah, another difficult Q3. Congrats to Max, he did a great job. Yeah, we made some changes going into qualifying. The car was feeling so much better, and I really felt like she had more in her. So we were just pushing her more and more through the laps and through the sessions. Q1 and Q2 were awesome. We got to Q3 and snaps in Turn 1 and 3 put me two tenths down. The rest of the lap was good, and then the last lap, just again struggled with snapping. So I think there's a real fine line with our car where it's over the edge or under the limit, and finding that sweet spot is very, very difficult. I think I probably had it in the first two, but you have to look for the progress of the track, the grip coming up, and so you have to kind of react to that. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn't have. So it wasn't great enough for myself.

It's obviously a difficult circuit to overtake, but there's two Ferraris, one Red Bull, Isack Hadjar's right at the back of the grid. Is that some hope for tomorrow? In a strategic race, maybe you can still jump on the top step by the end?
LH: Yeah, well, I think, I mean, Red Bull have done a fantastic job. You know, they've done a great job with their engine, but I think also with their car. It's obviously a great team, and I think they brought an upgrade in Baku which has really put them at the front. And I think it's really still a good result for us to have two Ferraris up there. We could definitely hopefully work as a team tomorrow to try and hold on to Max and put him under pressure. I think that's the only way it's going to be. I'm sure he's going to be fast, but hopefully together as a team we can potentially, who knows? We'll see if we get ahead of him.

All right, well done, Lewis, and good luck tomorrow, guys. So Max, a couple of races in a row now you've won, but you've had pretty bad starts. I think "terrible" was your own words for the one earlier on today. Are you feeling confident tomorrow, if it's dry, your problems are solved, you can just keep the lead and disappear off in the distance? Or are you still doubting how the Red Bull gets off the line?
MV: Well, you have to look at it positively. It cannot get worse, so it can only get better, right? So, we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

Press Conference

Very well done, Max, and sensational pole lap by you. It looked like this one meant a lot.
MV: I mean, it was nice, yeah. It's always good, I think, to be on pole position. I think the whole weekend already we've had a strong car, so I knew it was going to be a tight battle, and I think you could see that throughout qualifying. But yeah, of course, nice to be first.

Fifty is a milestone. Does that mean anything to you in particular?
MV: Better than 49, not as good as 51. So we just try and keep going.

Tell us more about the session. How did you improve the car? We heard you say at one point that you weren't happy with the shifts.
MV: Yeah, that stayed, so we just had to live with that. But I think the car has been in the right window the whole weekend, so it was more just fine-tuning and tweaking tiny little bits, and that's what we did.

And after the rain earlier in the day, how were the track conditions?
MV: Track seemed a little bit slower. If I'm not mistaken, I think we went faster yesterday. So yeah, it's been just a bit slower, less grip maybe from driving in the wet, and yeah, the rubber probably disappeared a little bit.

What about the race? Tell us about the long-run pace of the car in practice, and what do you see as the biggest challenge in the Grand Prix here?
MV: I think no one really knows about the long runs because we didn't really get to do any. But for me, the most important part is more the start. We know that that's not really been our strong area, so we need to work on that for tomorrow.

What kind of things can you do overnight just to try and improve that?
MV: Just trying to understand why it keeps going wrong, first of all, and then try to just do a better job tomorrow.

Very well done, Max. Thank you for that. Charles, let's come to you now. You found more than two tenths between the first run and second run of Q3. Just tell us where you found the time and how the car was.
CL: Well, just in commitment. I just committed a little bit more in Q3, last lap. I had a very difficult qualifying session. I had quite a bit of... I mean, on the brakes, the car was pulling a little bit in Q1, Q2. In Q3, maybe slightly better, but I had this issue on braking that was taking off quite a lot of confidence. And in Q3, I just went for it, no matter how it felt, and yeah, it paid off. But yeah, just struggled to put everything together. I think the car had potential for pole today, but we didn't have a smooth session enough in order to do the job, and Max just did a better job.

But still so close to pole. Can you visualise a part of the lap where it may have slipped away from you?
CL: Yeah, I mean, Turn 13, Turn 16/17, these probably are the two main ones. But yeah, I'm pretty sure that every driver has got something to gain, one corner or the other. So yeah, it just wasn't enough.

Tell us about tomorrow then. How confident are you in the long-run pace of the car?
CL: Long-run pace should be fine. I mean, I think in FP1 we didn't do many laps consecutive, but the few we did, the feeling was great. So yeah, confident that we shall be on the pace. The start will be very important. This morning we didn't have a great start, so we'll have to make the perfect start tomorrow.

All right, well done. Thank you very much. And Lewis, if we could come to you now. Still incredibly close to pole. It was so tight between the three of you. Now, you struggled with snapping, your words just a moment ago. Tell us a little bit more about that. What was triggering it?
LH: I think it's just balance. The car felt good. I think my team, the engineers, did a fantastic job, as well as the mechanics, between the sessions. I think the car felt amazing in Q1 and Q2, and when I finished the laps, I was like, "She's got more in her." And the only way in order to try and extract that is to try and add wing. And in doing so, I think it just tipped it over the edge. It was only like one hole or something like that, but it was just on the knife point, and after that then the car was just snappy, and none of the laps in Q3 are any good. So, I'm grateful to be third, to be honest, given that those laps weren't very good.

Throw it forward to tomorrow, Lewis. We saw a sensational start by you in the wet earlier on today. How confident are you of being able to repeat that in the dry?
LH: I mean, the right side is hopefully a little bit better to start on. It's obviously a short start, so the start that I had was obviously in the wet, so it's much different when it's dry. And I think tomorrow is dry. It'd be very hard for us to beat Max tomorrow, but there's two Ferraris there, and I think we can hopefully, you know, there might be opportunities for us to work together to try and apply the pressure. They're very, very quick, but I think we have the car in a good place that hopefully we can at least hold on.