F1: FIA Thursday press conference – Bahrain

PART ONE – Carlos SAINZ (Williams), Kimi ANTONELLI (Mercedes), Jack DOOHAN (Alpine)

Q: Carlos, why don’t we start with you? Now, it feels like we have yet to see the best of Carlos Sainz in a Williams. Just talk us through these opening three races so far and what the issues have been.

Carlos SAINZ: Well, if you expect to see the best of Carlos Sainz in a Williams in the third race and in a new car, then yeah, you don’t understand the sport very well, or you know at least how long it might take for a driver to actually get fully up to speed with the car and to fully understand where the last tenth and a half or last two tenths of each car lies. Looking back at the first three races, I think I still haven’t yet put a full weekend together. The speed has been there—in Australia and Suzuka. In China, I had a bit of an off weekend through many different reasons. But to be honest, in Australia and Suzuka I think I was pretty quick, especially given that I’m still new to the car. To manage to be close or in the same tenth as Alex all the way through quali, I think it’s a good start to the season. I just need to make sure now we start doing less mistakes when it comes to executing the weekend and keep improving my speed because obviously I believe the speed still—we can improve it a little bit. But yeah, we are not as far as it seems. I feel like we just need to put a full weekend together and it will come.

Q: How useful is it for you to be coming back to a track where you’ve tested this car already?

CS: Very useful, especially because here in testing I felt very comfortable with the car. Actually, it’s a balance and a car that I’ve been looking forward to targeting in the recent races. Given I was not as happy in China, I looked back at the test to a set-up that we were running here and I was keen together with the team to try and put the car somewhere closer to the way it felt in Bahrain test because there I felt like I was up to speed and driving fairly naturally and I didn’t have to think so much while driving. While in China, I remember, and even in Suzuka, I’ve been having to really break my head to understand how to drive the car and to extract all the performance from it. But yeah, you first need to go through these weekends where you have a bit more of a challenging time to understand that and reverse engineer that. That takes time, you know. It’s 24 races. We’ve only done three and obviously everyone expected me to be straight up in the pace, which is a good thing. It means people value me and expect high things of me. But I was the first one that after Bahrain test when I was P1, I was like, I’m nowhere near where I need to be still with this car to perform at the level that I want to perform. So I was the first one coming down expectations and knowing that the first quarter of the year was going to be tough. Especially with a guy like Alex pushing hard and doing such a good job, obviously, it always takes a bit of time to get to that level. So I’m calm. I’m just down to my work doing my things and it will come.

Q: Can we just explore that a little bit deeper? You say you’re happy with the car in the test. What then happened in the races that made you—struggle is not the right word—but made it more difficult for you?

CS: Yeah, you know, sometimes you jump into a Formula 1 car and you’re just naturally quick. Whatever you do to the car, the lap time comes easy. And I felt that was the case in Abu Dhabi test last year and in Bahrain test this year. I didn’t need to think while driving and I felt like as soon as I jumped in the car was quick—actually quicker even than what I thought I would be. I was surprisingly quick in my own expectations. And then we went into Australia, the balance changed a bit. The tarmac changes quite a bit from Bahrain to Australia, China and Japan with all these resurfaces that have been done and the car just feels completely different. The through-corner balance is different and you’re just a bit stuck on “what do I do now to my driving?” or “what do I do now to the car?” to go that one more tenth quicker. As I said, I was not far, I was within a tenth. That’s where you start digging into the data and you start working with your engineers. But you need to go through this whole loop, whole process, to actually get to conclusions and understandings, and that takes time and experience and some races. But as I said, I’m calm, I’m happy, and we’re getting there.

Q: Thank you, Carlos. Kimi, let’s come to you now. Fourth, sixth, sixth, including the fastest ever racing lap around Suzuka on Sunday. Can we get your assessment of how it’s gone so far?

Andrea Kimi ANTONELLI: I mean, so far I think it’s gone pretty well. The thing I was the happiest about is the consistency throughout the three races and, you know, keep trying to improve weekend by weekend. Of course, every weekend is a massive learning for me, especially learning about the tyre. I think it was really helpful and I think it’s going to be really helpful to have the same compound this weekend as well compared to Suzuka just because I’m understanding more and more the tyre. I think in the first couple of races I really struggled with warm-up when it was coming to quali, and I think Suzuka was a big step forward on that side. So obviously massive learning, but so far I’m happy with how it’s going. Of course, you know George is running really well and it’s really helping me to develop and push myself even further. But I’m happy because I’m getting there slowly.

Q: George is having his best ever start to a season in Formula 1. When you look at his data and compare your data, where are the big areas where you feel you can still improve?

AKA: Well, I think now he has quite a bit of experience with the car and in F1 in general. What the main difference is, like you can see the confidence he has. He knows how to place the car and also where the car is going to end up in a corner while pushing. So there’s a lot of knowledge and confidence as well. But I think Suzuka was a really big step for me in terms of confidence and understanding the car. So I’m really looking forward to this weekend because obviously it’s a track that I know and obviously conditions will be much different compared to what we had in testing because it’s going to be much hotter. But I’m looking forward to see what we can do during the weekend.

Q: You’re used to the heat from Formula 2 here, aren’t you? What are your goals for this week?

AKA: Keep the positive trend, keep improving the qualifying pace because I think the speed is there, but it’s more about being able to put all the dots together, starting from the warm-up and then the lap itself. But yeah, keep the positive trend and then obviously keep working hard and we’ll see what the result is going to be on Sunday.

Q: Kimi, thank you very much for that. Jack, let’s come to you now. You’ve shown really good speed this year, but you haven’t had the smoothest run so far. Can we just get your summary of how it’s gone?

Jack DOOHAN: Yeah, I think you summarised it quite well to be honest. I look forward to just having that clean weekend, putting it all together and yeah, this weekend we have a perfect opportunity to have a full race weekend again and I look forward to coming back to Bahrain—as the others have touched on—somewhere we were testing, albeit I think it’s 25°C hotter here today, so it’s going to be much, much different. Car balance, feeling, grip—going to feel terrible. A lot of things that are going to be coming after FP. But I look forward to cracking on. We’re now at, I think, round four. So we’re starting to get into it and this back-to-back-to-back triple header is going to be nice just to keep the flow.

Q: How does the Bahrain test at the end of February help you this weekend? What do you not have to do this weekend that you have to do when you go to a track for the first time?

JD: Yeah, I think to be honest Bahrain test was a good place to learn the car initially. I wasn’t exactly super happy leaving the test in general, but now we know especially the areas that we needed to work on and at least the ballpark window and where we’re going to start. We definitely won’t be setting the car up where we ended up on one of the evening sessions at 10°C, but certainly trying to target maybe a little bit more at the end of one of those AM sessions and plus a few things that we found post in the simulator.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (David Croft – Sky Sports F1) A couple of questions, actually, if that’s all right. First and foremost, Jack, are you OK? Last time we saw you getting out the car in Suzuka, you were holding your left-hand side a little bit. Is everything all right? Are you fully recovered?

JD: Yeah, just winded. Just 100%. All completely perfect, yeah. Thank you.

Q: And Carlos, to get back to you. What are the Ferrari habits you’re having to unlearn in this Williams car?

CS: I think, to be honest, they’re a bit too technical to explain them in a press conference.

Q: (David Croft – Sky Sports F1) Try me and keep it simple.

CS: We can try and sit with a piece of data in front of us and an onboard and I can maybe explain it to you. So yeah, I’d rather not go into that level of detail of the little things that you need to do with your driving style to extract the most out of each car. Obviously, Ferrari had certain car balance, a certain direction that we followed after three or four years of developing that car that required you to brake in a certain manner, turn in a certain manner, release the brake in a certain place—which you fall into a trap of after three years of muscle memory of doing everything that way. And when you jump into a different car, and especially under pressure in quali, you try and find the last two tenths of the car. You fall into your muscle memory because that’s the muscle memory that you have from three years. It’s not that you need to unlearn them, because those traits are actually making me very quick also in other types of corners. But you need to remember, in a certain type of corner, to not do it. That’s why it’s almost impossible to ask anyone to be quick in the first three races with a car, when you are only putting it the first sets of Soft tyres and zero kilos of fuel for the first time in those first three races—completely different tracks, completely different conditions, completely different tarmacs—and you’re having to relearn a lot of these things. And as I said, given how new everything is, for me to be in the same tenth in quali as a guy like Alex in Australia and at a confidence track like Suzuka, I’m not in a bad place. I just need to make sure I put the whole weekend together, with the penalties, with finding the lap time exactly in Q2—because now Q2 for us is the lap of your life, with the field within two tenths in Q2. So if you don’t put the lap in that moment of Q2, your weekend is over because you start 12th instead of P9. You cannot overtake in Suzuka and you cannot overtake in the midfield. So it’s the very small details that need to come together.

Q: (Nelson Valkenburg – Viaplay) For Kimi: Last week in Suzuka, you were closer to George than you’ve been before. Great race pace, tyre management—that’s not going to be easy here on this track with tarmac that’s older than you.

KA: Yeah, that’s funny actually. Yeah, it’s going to be completely different. I mean, Suzuka was cold—new surface in Sector 1, so obviously it was changing a lot the way you had to manage the tyre. I mean, Sector 1 during the race was flat out the whole race and honestly, you didn’t really have to manage that much throughout the rest of the lap just because I think also Pirelli improved the tyre quite a lot from last year, and it seems like it’s much more robust. So you’re able to push and it was nice. I mean, in Suzuka it was nice to have a stint like that where I didn’t really have to worry much about tyre management and I was able to push. So that was really good fun. But yeah, this weekend it’s going to be completely different. I mean, I think it’s the most open tarmac we have during the season as it’s one of the oldest as well. It’s going to be much hotter also compared to the test. So obviously, tyre is going to be a really big topic, especially for the race. So it’s going to be a bit of a different story and also with the mindset, it’s going to be important to change the mindset—especially in order to be able to manage the tyre.

Q: (Panos Seitanidis – Ant1 TV) Carlos, you said you need some time to adapt in this car. But after seeing Alex having three point-scoring races consecutively, how confident do you feel about this Williams and the foundations you are building, even for next year?

CS: Very confident. I think Alex has been able to extract the maximum out of the car these last three races, and all the progress that we’ve made during the winter since we changed the car, since I arrived, all the setup directions that we’ve been taking—it’s also leading into those positive results. And there’s a lot more to come in this team. I can tell you already, it’s amazing the amount of work that is being done back in the factory. The level of performance that we’ve managed to add to the car since last year to this year, I think it’s just in a very positive trend and in a very good direction. It’s something that extremely motivates me to try and help and try to contribute as much as possible. I’m doing it in other ways right now rather than on points. I wish I could do it also in points, but points will come during the season. But I’m very motivated, I’m very impressed with all the steps that the team is doing.

Q: (Albert Fabrega – ESPN) After seeing how difficult it was to overtake in Japan, do you think that the two mandatory stops implemented this year in Monaco could be a good solution for other races? The question is for all three of you.

JD: I think not necessarily for all races—especially in my case in Suzuka, I was very happy that it wasn’t. But yeah, it’s difficult to say. We have circuits that have a higher chance of overtakes and others that are less. That was such a unique circumstance: the conditions, how cold it was. Sector 1, which is usually somewhere that’s so crucial on tyre management—we saw it with the new surface—we could push flat out on. So we didn’t really have so many corners that we were struggling with management. I think it was quite unique. I reckon we’re going to be surprised come Sunday night here, in this heat with, I think, 38kph gusts coming. The topic of tyre management or complaining will be maybe a little bit different.

KA: Yeah, I mean nothing more to add. I think Suzuka—you know it’s an amazing circuit to drive—but obviously the racing is quite difficult because the cars are getting more efficient, you’re able to run less downforce with the rear wing, so the DRS effect is even less. It’s even harder to overtake. Plus, Suzuka’s got only one DRS zone. And especially also to follow is not that easy because you go through the first sector which is super quick, and with the dirty air it’s really hard to keep up. And then you only got one shot on the main straight. But at the same time, Turn 1 is not a corner where you brake much, so it’s really dependent on the circuit. But I think this weekend is going to be a completely different story and especially with the strategy, it’s going to a lot different, and a lot more to play with.

CS: Yeah. I think first of all, fair play to Pirelli. They’ve done a step—we’ve always asked them for the tyres to degrade less and be less sensitive to overheating. They’ve done a step, and this year so far we can push more in the race. Now we’re back into one-stop races and we are complaining that there is not enough deg and we want more deg. So first of all, I think F1 needs to get all together to kind of follow up with the same narrative. Because we asked for one thing, the product improves, and then suddenly we all complain again. It’s a bit of a mess, if you ask me. What creates overtaking in my opinion is to have a delta to the car in front. If you’re only one tenth quicker in F1, you’re never going to pass. You need to be five, six, seven tenths quicker than the car in front around Suzuka to overtake. And the only way to generate that in Suzuka is with degradation. You cannot generate anything else. So I would be happy if they’re going to maybe go a step softer in compounds. Given that the tyre is more robust, going softer in compound will increase degradation and increase a bit the chance of overtaking. But if you go with the three hardest compounds on a track like Suzuka, for example, you’ll have flat-out racing with the three compounds and pit stop laps always more or less the same way. We all stopped on one lap. I think you will not get a tyre delta or an overtaking delta. So for me it’s more about trying to make sure the race is always between a one- and a two-stop, because like that you will have teams trying to do one-stops with high degradation and other teams running faster on a two-stop to try and overtake and make it to the flag. That’s my opinion. But as I said, we need to kind of all organise a bit our thoughts and keep Pirelli more of a clear understanding and target.

Q: (Nelson Valkenburg – Viaplay) Question for Jack. Last week you missed FP1 for a rookie session—even though you’re a rookie yourself—for a driver that’s now no longer part of the same programme. Were you surprised and how was it communicated to you that you weren’t going to take part in that session, even if you needed the track time?

JD: Yeah. It was something that was, to my knowledge, very early on in the year—way before testing, before the start of the year. So, you know, there were reasons around the positioning of that FP1 and, you know, very early on I knew these things were not in my control. So you just suck it up and push on and take it as it comes.

Q: (Velimir Veljko – Avto Focus) We are all very serious, but have one different question for Kimi. You have a very specific name for Formula 1. Did you have a chance to meet Mr Räikkönen here and there? And do you ask him for advice?

KA: Well, I met him when I was quite little—I think it was 2018. He was doing the Monza GP. And, you know, the first time I met him I understood why they call him the Iceman, to be honest, because I remember going to him super excited and he had completely no reaction. So, you know… but I think he’s such a cool dude. I never really got the chance to properly have a chat with him, but definitely something I would like to do. It would be cool also to have some advice about racing for sure because he has done a lot in the sport. So definitely something I would like to do in the future.

Q: (Diletta Colombo – AutoMoto) One question for Carlos. You are using the Mercedes power unit for the first time in your career. How difficult has it been to adapt to it?

CS: The Mercedes PU is probably the biggest change in changing teams that I’ve had to adapt to. One is aerodynamics and suspension, you go through, everything feels different. But when they change you the engine, that’s when you really feel some big differences. I do feel very big differences compared to Ferrari. There are also things in the way the team operates—with upshifts, downshifts, patterns, and the way they make the power unit work—that, as you could see in Australia, caught me out. But at the same time, you need to go through that experience almost to understand that this happens only in the Mercedes PU and not in a Ferrari. It’s interesting, because it’s quite a big change and it’s incredible how different two power units can be, but how close in performance they can be at the same time. So, yeah, I’m trying to give the team—and Mercedes—good feedback from what I believe Ferrari was doing better, and at the same time, giving feedback on what I think they are doing better than Ferrari. We are all trying to improve.

Q: (Ian Parkes – RacingNews365) Jack, a question for you. As Tom mentioned earlier, these first few weekends have been quite tricky for you. How do you reset after each of these weekends? Do you work with someone, for argument’s sake? What’s been the release for you?

JD: Yeah, to be honest, there’s been at least some silver lining in each weekend and some positives to take away, which have been the most important thing. I think as long as you learn from the setbacks or things you can improve on, and digest them—and then you can make sure you know where those positives came from and how to replicate them. I think the biggest goal this weekend is just to put the weekend together, have a smooth run from start to finish, and just keep building and inching closer and closer so that we can start to get that complete package.

Q: (Noah Simon – SID). Tomorrow there should be a meeting of the engine suppliers and the FIA to discuss the comeback of V10 engines. What’s your opinion about it? Would you like to have them back?

CS: I wouldn’t be too vocal supporting the comeback of a V10 engine if I liked what I saw from 2026. But as I don’t really like what I see from 2026 in terms of what the car is going to do, the engine’s going to do, the way everything is going to work, I would say yes—I would like a V10 engine with a few tweaks to make it back sooner rather than later. But at the same time, it’s not fair to not give those regulations a bit of a chance, if everyone believes they are so good. But everyone seems to believe that they are not so good anymore—that’s why everyone’s talking about it again. So a bit of a strange one, no? Let’s see where it goes. It’s not up to me. It’s politics. The big bosses will decide.

KA: Yeah, I mean it’s obviously a really, really big topic. The V10 sounds amazing, so definitely it would be cool. But I think as a driver, what you want is something that gives you good drivability and is consistent and also lasts. So I think, you know, the level that this engine reached now is pretty incredible because they can run at flat-out full speed for the whole Grand Prix—and for many Grands Prix. So I think as a driver, you just want something that is reliable and that has good drivability.

Q: (Adam Cooper – adamcooperF1.com) One question for Jack. You say you feel OK now, but just to go back to Suzuka, we all saw the onboard from parc fermé with you getting out of the car and Esteban helping you. Can you clarify? Were you feeling a little bit sore at the end of 53 laps? And if so, did it make it even harder for you to hold off all those guys at the end?

JD: Yeah, I think I was sore a little bit on Friday, certainly Saturday a bit worse, and Sunday a little bit worse again. So I’d say there was pain from the start of the race, not necessarily towards the end. It helps with the adrenaline a little bit, for sure. And yeah, I think it’s natural with the shunt and just the positioning that I suffered a little bit of soreness. But a couple of days off—Monday, Tuesday and also yesterday—have been very much needed and very good for the body.

Q: (Jon Noble – The Race) To Carlos. You had quite an expensive toilet break before the last race. You got fined for missing the drivers’ parade. Were you surprised that despite the reason you had, you still got a fine?

CS: I think I’m the biggest supporter of punctuality and being—in a way—a gentleman, being punctual to things, and especially a national anthem, with all the authorities there. So I was the first one to put my hand up and say, “I’m late. I’m sorry for that.” At the same time, I was five seconds late. And to be five seconds late and have to pay €10,000 or whatever the fine is, for me, it is out of the question that we are having to pay these fines. But yeah, I don’t know if I’m going to get another fine for saying this, but **** happens. It’s the way it is. It’s the way it goes sometimes. I mean, €10K is—you guys know what €10K is. And for five seconds, it’s disappointing. I hope, as I’ve always said, I hope someone tells me where this €10K goes. And they say, “OK, at least it went to a nice cause,” and I will be looking forward to seeing where they go.