Q: Sebastian. A fantastic win for you. The car seemed to be tremendous. The best car you have driven yet.
SV: It is the same I had all season. Obviously, as we expected, the corners here, especially the first sector, suit our car. It will produce a lot of downforce but it is still more than just quick corners. You have also got some medium and low speed, so overall our car seemed to work very well. Looking back to Singapore we had the pace. It is a totally different circuit. A street circuit, very, very low sped, so overall it is a very good car.

Q: All the drivers have said this weekend ‘what a great circuit.’ What does it mean for you to win on a circuit that all drivers respect so much?
SV: To be honest I came into the last lap and I was regretting a bit that it was over. I was enjoying the first sector for the last time. Fantastic. Obviously I had clean air the whole race, so I was able to push at my own pace just be aware of the tyres all the time. I didn’t want to run into something funny, so I was listening to the tyres, to the car, but simply fantastic. This circuit is amazing. If you get 53 laps in a row you appreciate it even more. It is made by God’s hands, I would say. It is fantastic, especially when you have a car that works so well especially in all the high speed corners, so fantastic. I am very, very happy. Good points today for the championship. I think it looks a bit better now, so a shame only two races to go. But that’s life. We are here to fight, so let’s see. Anything is still possible as you can see. It can change quickly.

Q: You were on pole position, but after qualifying when you saw the weights did you think ‘I can do this.’
SV: Yes. Obviously, the biggest threat was lap one, the start. We knew that we had good starts in the last couple of races, except Singapore where we were on the dirty side. At the beginning of the season it was a little bit of our weakness but again we made huge progress. We had a very, very good start today. I kind of stayed in the middle observing Jarno on the right and Lewis on the left and I was ready to react. Then when I saw that they are about the same I simply stayed in the middle on the run down to turn one. Lewis came surprisingly in the last bit into turn one. I saw a silver arrow on my left. I had the inside of the corner, so that was very import and after that clean air. The car was fantastic, so I was able to push lap by lap and increase the gap bit by bit. A bit special also was, I think, towards the end of the race. On the soft tyres I had a very good feeling. I was pushing for one lap really hard to make sure I have got the fastest lap and my engineer came on radio and said ‘don’t do anything stupid with the tyres. Don’t destroy your tyres yet in case of a safety car or whatever.’ Two laps later the safety car was out. But it was still fine and I got a very good restart and was able to pull away again. From start to finish a very good race for us.

Q: Jarno, your best ever placing here in twelve races, especially as it follows up on Timo’s second place last weekend as well.
JT: I think that, first of all, it’s a good result for the team, because in two races we’ve got two podiums, two second positions and this just shows how well the team is doing. It’s still pushing hard and still trying to improve the car before the end of the season, so I’m really pleased for them: for the engineers, the mechanics, everyone. The car was purely quick from the beginning here, but obviously I couldn’t feel that we were as quick as Vettel. He was untouchable during qualifying and also during the race. Actually I thought I did an extremely good job in qualifying to put the car on the front row and it was also good not to lose too many positions at the start, because this has always been our weakest point so far this season. I knew that I could keep up a good pace and actually I really enjoyed the fight with Lewis. It was basically a qualifying race, lap after lap, trying to close the gap, trying to stay close, trying to get him at the pit stop. I nearly made it at the first one, and then at the second stop the guys in the pits did a very good job and then I got him. Once I got him, I knew that I was quicker, so I could pull away. I’m happy, even though, to be honest, second is fantastic but I still wanted to win for Toyota.

Q: Was it a surprise to come out ahead of Lewis after the pit stop? Did the engineers predict that?
JT: They kept me aware of the situation and I was closing the gap, trying to close the gap, trying to push harder and harder, and I think Lewis was doing the same, so the lap times were within a tenth of a second. We were both really trying hard but it wasn’t easy. But nevertheless, that was my only chance to try to gain a position and eventually I did it. This was all I had to do. And at the last moment, after the safety car, I was very concerned, because I thought that Lewis could get me at the restart but I managed to get a bit of a gap at the restart, so it was enough to pull one lap and then I was fine.

Q: Was there much difference in the tyres?
JT: Fortunately, we made the right choice, starting with the hard, then continuing with the hard and then putting on soft tyres at the end because the soft tyres changed the balance completely and they were not as quick as the hard ones. I think this time we got it right, so we’re happy, but in general the car has been competitive on both compounds.

Q: Lewis, it didn’t look as if Sebastian left you much room at the start…
LH: I had enough room there. I think it was fair. It wasn’t our best start, but to be honest this year we haven’t really had great starts except for when we get on the KERS button. We probably had our best start of the year at the last race. We tried to repeat it again this weekend but these two guys also got quite a good start. There’s not actually such a long straight to turn one, to actually drag past one of them was not easy. But I tried, but unfortunately the outside was not the place to be, he did a perfect job to get in the middle.

Q: A surprise to be jumped at the second pit stop?
LH: No, not really. Inevitably, we needed every tenth that we could get. I pulled the gap up to three seconds, I think, which was roughly what I needed, and then on the last couple of laps just before my pit stop we had a KERS problem and we were also just generally struggling with the car a little bit, I wasn’t able to pull decent times out of the car with a lighter car on a lighter fuel load. As Jarno was saying, we pretty much had a qualifying battle, a tenth here, a tenth there, we kept shaving tenths off each other. At the exit of my second pit stop also, I had a problem with my gearbox and the thing went into neutral, so instead of switching off the pit speed limiter and pulling away, I was in neutral for a hundred metres or something like that, so I maybe lost a second or so there. Unfortunately the time just slipped away from us, but they both did a great job here. We had a great race. Congratulations to Sebastian and I look forward to the next race; I think we should have a good one.