DRIVERS
 
1 – George RUSSELL (Mercedes)
2 – Kimi ANTONELLI (Mercedes)
3 – Charles LECLERC (Ferrari) 
 
TRACK INTERVIEWS 
(Conducted by Jenson Button) 
 
Q: Congratulations, George, you just won the Australian Grand Prix, but not only that, you’ve also just won the first F1 race of the new era. How are you feeling?
George RUSSELL: Feeling incredible. It was a hell of a fight at the beginning. We knew it was going to be challenging. I got on the grid, I saw my battery level, I had nothing in the tank, made a bad start, and then obviously had some really tight battles with Charles, so I was really glad to cross the finish line. But honestly, thank you so much to the whole team because it’s been a long time coming to have this car beneath us and I’m, yeah, going to start off in a better way.
 
Q: If you look at the results after the race, if you haven’t watched the race, you’d think, “Oh, Mercedes just had it easy, George just walked away with it.” It wasn’t quite like that, was it? And it was so nice for us as fans to see you guys fighting out there.
GR: I’m glad you guys enjoyed it. It was… We had this suspicion that it was going to be a bit of a yo-yo effect, and as soon as one of us got in front it just felt impossible to hold it. And obviously with this Straight Mode we lose a lot of the front end on the car, so we’re sort of just understeering a lot around these corners. So, I’m sure, you know, we’re going to have to improve that a little bit because it was a bit sketchy. But yeah, made it in one piece and just, yeah, glad to be one-two.
 
Q: You started the year as you would have hoped, I’m sure, so congratulations.
GR: Thank you.
 
Q: Kimi, that was a very up-and-down race, but congratulations on coming home P2, one-two for the team. How are you feeling?
Kimi ANTONELLI: Yeah, I mean, it was the best start we could have wished for. Unfortunately, the start was really bad and I lost a lot of pace, I mean a lot of places, and I found myself, you know, that I had to recover. But overall, it was a good race. The pace was very strong, especially at the end, and yeah, just looking forward to next week.
 
Q: I think every time we watched the screen you were overtaking another car, so it’s nice to see in this new era that there is that opportunity to overtake.
KA: Yeah, I mean, the racing was incredible. The first few laps, you know, with the overtake is so powerful that it can, you know, give a lot of action. So, it was really good fun at the beginning, and yeah, now a bit of rest and looking forward to China.
 
Q: Charles, first of all thank you for making that race proper exciting with George. How was the car, how was the race, how is this new era of F1?
Charles LECLERC: It was a very, very tricky race. I mean honestly, at the start, I don’t think anybody of us knew what to expect with the fights, with the energy, and then it’s even more tricky, for the overtakes, to defend. You don’t really know when your engine, your battery is going to cut in the straight, so while defending there’s massive speed differences. So, it’s been quite challenging, but I was happy to get out of this battle in first. Unfortunately, that didn’t help us for the rest of the race, but it was a fun first part of the race. P3 is the best we could do today.
 
Q: Yeah, that start was kind of what everyone expected from Ferrari, but you made the move on George in Turn 1. It looked like it was actually on the brakes rather than acceleration.
CL: Yeah, and I think the person that is switching off the lights has been quite cheeky, because for the first start of the season with these cars, to go lights off so quickly was, I think… It took everybody by surprise. And we’re always very much on the limit with the power units, so I think that played a little bit in our hands. But it’s part of the game.
 
Q: I have to ask, without the Virtual Safety Car, do you think you would have had an opportunity to fight George for the win?
CL: I don’t think so, but maybe I’m wrong. Yeah, it looked like Mercedes maybe had a bit more pace than us today, but maybe not as much as what we saw yesterday, so that’s a good thing. But I don’t think we could have won.
 
PRESS CONFERENCE


Q: Well, George, many congratulations. A hugely impressive weekend from you and Mercedes. What was the most impressive part for you?
GR : I think definitely our race starts were the most impressive part of the weekend! No, I think qualifying was a real surprise to us. I think the pace we saw today and the fight we had with Ferrari was more like what we were expecting and what we had predicted pre-Melbourne and after testing. Qualifying was a real shock, but yeah, Ferrari definitely, yeah, they’re in the mix.
 
Q: And we saw a great battle with the Ferraris in those opening 15 laps or so. Is it easier to race these cars than it was last year?
GR: There’s definitely more opportunity and you do have to be more strategic. I think on a circuit like this where you have four straights and you’ve got to split… Let’s say you’ve got 100% of battery, you’ve got to split that between four straights. No team is splitting that, you know, 25% per straight. Some teams are doing it more on one straight, some other teams are doing it more on the other, and if you use your Overtake Mode, your boost button, you will pass the driver in one straight and he will then pass back. So it was, yeah, it was dicey for the two of us, but I hope you enjoyed it.
 
Q: The final one for me, George. This is the first time you’ve led the World Championship. Just how sweet does it feel at the moment?
GR: It just feels like another race win, to be honest. I mean, we’re race one into a very long season. Of course I want to fight for race wins week in, week out, but we’re all here now to fight for a World Championship, and that’s what we’ve been working so hard towards. And if we want to do that, we still need to raise our game because there were a lot of areas today that we underachieved, mainly around the race start, having the battery in the right place, and we were lucky not to come worse off.
 
Q: Kimi, let’s come to you now. Many congratulations as well. It was a frenetic race for you, especially after the start. Were you always confident that you could fight your way back to the front?
KA: Well, I didn’t really know, to be fair, but obviously the pace of the car was very strong and the pace was strong too. I felt very, very good in the first stint. Then on the Hards, I started to grain very early on and had a bit of a difficult time, but then, you know, at the end the pace came back. But of course, the start was a game changer. It obviously was very stressful because I didn’t have power out of the last corner, so the car was not responding to any inputs and it was very stressful, and then the start was poor, very poor, and I just lost a lot of places and found myself having to chase. But the car was very strong. It was good fun at the end, and yeah, the team did an incredible job because I think the result of today was thanks as well, you know, mainly to the mechanics for the incredible job they did yesterday after FP3. So yeah, definitely it was a good end of the weekend and now we will focus on China.
 
Q: Charles, let’s come to you now. The Mercedes guys have talked about their difficult starts. Was yours the near-perfect getaway?
CL: Not at all, not at all. I mean, it looked from outside, but I think we all had the same problem for some reason, so this is something we’ve got to review because also my battery was very, very low for some reason, probably a bit higher than them, which helped me to get in the front, but very sub-optimal anyway. I thought I would end up P8, P9, but then I started and I saw everybody had issues and I had the one with the least issues, which at the end is what counts. But there’s a lot of margin to improve those starts. It was very sub-optimal, I think, for everybody. We kind of expected a messy start and then I think on top of that as well we are such on a fine line before getting everything right on the PUs, and the lights off were very, very, very quick, so I think it surprised on top of that everybody and made it even more critical. So it was kind of crazy.
 
Q: And were you very pleased with your pace relative to the Mercedes today?
CL: Very pleased is maybe a big word, but I am positively surprised for sure. After qualifying yesterday, I think yesterday for sure we were not in our optimum window, but we are still very, very far off the Mercedes in qualifying. In the race, though, we seem to be closer. Doesn’t mean we are the fastest car, I don’t think we were, but we are a bit more reasonably behind. So yeah, lots of work to be done, and I think this championship anyway will be won by development and upgrades, and for that we need to be on it.
 
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Oliver van Bronswijk – The Roar) A question to all three of you. Lando in the pen described the overtake button as creating “artificial racing”. You all had a good amount of wheel-to-wheel combat. Do you think, or do you like the system, or do you think it was detrimental to some of the racing action?
GR: It’s different, it’s definitely different. But I think the interesting thing with these regs is every track we go to, they’re not always going to be like this. You know, we’re going to Shanghai next where you’ve got one big, long straight, so the majority of drivers will be using their energy on that one straight. You don’t need to divide it up between four like you do here in Melbourne. So, everyone’s very quick to criticise things. You need to give it a shot, you know. We’re 22 drivers. When we’ve had the best cars and the least tyre degradation and when we’ve been happiest, everyone moans the racing’s rubbish. Now drivers aren’t perfectly happy and everyone said it was an amazing race. So, you can’t have it all, and I think we should just give it a chance and see after a few more races.
 
Q: Kimi, Charles, anything to add?
KA: No, I think in a track like this the overtake was incredibly powerful and you could overtake. It created a lot of action in the first few laps of the race, so I think, you know, on this kind of track there will be a lot of action, in some other track maybe a bit less. But I think today was much better than what we all anticipated, so I think, yeah, as George said, we need to just wait a few more races before actually commenting on this new regulation.
CL: I kind of agree. I just think that it will definitely change the way we go about racing and overtaking. Before, it was more about who is the bravest at braking the latest. Maybe now there’s a bit more of a strategic mind behind every move you make because every boost button activation, you know you’re going to pay the price big time after that, and so you always try and think multiple steps ahead to try and end up eventually first. But it’s a different way to go about racing for sure.
 
Q: (Michael Butterworth – Xinhua News Agency) George, you mentioned Shanghai briefly just there, and obviously we’ve had people say that Melbourne, for one or two reasons, is a little bit of an outlier. Are you expecting the likes of Shanghai and Suzuka to be more representative of where you measure up relative to everybody else?
GR: I think it’s an outlier in terms of how the battery is deployed across the lap. I don’t think it would necessarily change the order that much, to be honest, but it would just change how we go racing and how much variability there is in the deployment.
 
Q: (Phil Duncan – PA) To George, just following on from the question about Lando and his comments. Obviously yesterday he said as well that we’ve gone from the best ever cars to drive to the worst. Is that just sour grapes from him because McLaren aren’t where they were and you guys have got a big advantage?
GR: Yeah, well, he’s always… yeah, yeah. I don’t know. If he was winning, I don’t think he’d be saying the same. You know, we weren’t happy with how stiff the cars were last year and the porpoising, and everyone had a bad back and drivers were complaining about that, but McLaren drivers said there was no porpoising even though we watched their car and they were porpoising. So, you know, everyone’s always looking to themselves and we’re all selfish in this regard. The truth is last year we had the same engine as them and McLaren did a better job than us and they beat us. Now McLaren have got the same engine as us, the same as Williams and the same as Alpine, and so far we’ve done a better job than them. So that’s just how the game goes.
 
Q: (Isabelle Coghill – 4ZZZ) I have a question for all three of you, especially for Kimi. What did we learn from this weekend and what can we bring to Shanghai next week, especially it being a Sprint race? Have we learned anything about the cars, about you as drivers, or as the team?
KA: Well, I think for everyone it was a massive learning. For the first time we went racing, we did the first proper weekend. Of course, you know, we did a lot of testing, but testing is one thing and a race weekend is completely different. Shanghai is going to be important to be straight on point with deployment, with everything, because obviously we get only one practice and then we go into qualifying. But it should be a much more straightforward race in terms of how you deploy the energy. This race was very probably the hardest race to start the season because it’s just so difficult on energy with so many straights one after the other. So yeah, but I think it was a massive learning for us drivers, for the team, also for the team to understand where to push development of the car because, you know, this year the rate of development is going to be massive and it’s going to be important to not put any wrong step because the situation can flip very quickly.
 
Q: Learnings? 
CL: I mean, many, many learnings, but as Kimi said, I think looking at Shanghai, I think it’s going to be super crucial to be straight on top of everything, which will be extremely difficult. I mean, that’s what we’ve tried to do for this weekend and even coming to the race we were not on top of everything. So, to have a Sprint race so early on in a season like this will be a huge challenge for everybody. It’s going to be very tricky.
GR: I think having experienced the race today and battling, the only thing I would request from the FIA is that with the Straight Mode, the front wing doesn’t drop as aggressively. When we open Straight Mode we will have lots of understeer, and when I was behind Charles and I was trying to duck out of his slipstream it was like my front wing wasn’t working. So I think from a safety aspect that would make the racing safer, better. I don’t see a downside of doing it.
 
Q: (Stewart Bell – AP) This is to Charles. What were your thoughts on Ferrari not pitting you under the Virtual Safety Car?
CL: I mean, I don’t regret it. It was a wanted choice, a wanted and conscious choice. Looking from FP1 to now, there’s been at every session a car that was stopped, at least one car. We knew that there were very high chances that this was not going to be the only VSC of the race, and so we thought that it was better for us to maybe wait for another one. That’s always a gamble, of course. We didn’t know that this would happen. The reality is we’ve had other VSCs after, and one which was particularly well placed, but unfortunately for this one for us the pit entry was closed and we couldn’t take it. So, we were a little bit unlucky on that side, but it was a conscious choice again and I don’t really regret it.
 
ENDS