TEAM REPRESENTATIVES: Mattia BINOTTO (Kick Sauber), Zak BROWN (McLaren), Christian HORNER (Red Bull Racing)
Q: Christian, let’s start with you. Let’s throw it back to last weekend and the victory, your first, well, your best dry performance in something like five months. Just how much of a shot in the arm was that performance for the team?
Christian HORNER: Well, it was a great result. And obviously, to get that win in the Grand Prix and having turned things around from the Sprint race, I thought that Max drove a stunning race last weekend, very much in control. And we managed to turn the car around to give him a better car for qualifying and then for him to make use of that in the Grand Prix. And we’ve seen flashes of performance really coming over the last few races, Brazil in the dry Sprint race. We’ve been starting to get more understanding with the car. Austin, again, the Sprint victory that he had there. So it was great to see. It was a tough race, but a great one to win.
Q: And will it translate here in Abu Dhabi?
CH: A different type of circuit, so different challenges here. But hopefully, we’ve got a bit of a direction with the car now. And we’ve got nothing to lose this weekend. The pressure is all on these guys here. But, you know, so we just go for it. We just treat it like a cup final, basically, and try and, again, finish the season on a very positive note.
Q: Christian, you say you’ve got direction with the car. Does that apply for 2025 as well?
CH: Well, the regulations obviously are stable for next year. So I think ‘25 looks to be a fantastic championship. If you look at the convergence that we’ve seen this year and how tight it is between particularly the four teams, it promises to be a thriller next year. Such a long season as well. It’s going to be fascinating to see what steps people make over this winter before we arrive, in a couple of months, in Bahrain.
Q: Now, in terms of championship positions, you have nothing to play for this weekend. But there’s no lack of media scrutiny, thanks to this row that has broken out between Max and George Russell. Neither of them held back yesterday. Are you concerned that the row will spill over onto the racetrack this weekend?
CH: No, not at all. I think that… Look, Max, he’s a very straight shooter. He just tells you exactly how he sees it. He tells the truth exactly, you know, what he feels. And obviously he had a large amount of frustration, you know, last weekend, the way things played out in a scenario that we haven’t seen before and a subsequent grid penalty. And then, you know, he turned that into motivation and made a blinding start, led the race into the first corner and won the Grand Prix, which is the best possible response. Now obviously, a lot’s been made of it yesterday. It’s pantomime season. You know, we’re getting ready for Christmas. So there’s maybe an element of end-of-term blues there. But I don’t think it’ll have any effect on the Grand Prix itself.
Q: And does it bother you when Toto Wolff describes you as a, and I’m quoting him, a “yapping little terrier”?
CH: Well, look, I love terriers. I think they’re great dogs. And I’ve had four of them. I had a couple of Airedales, which are the king of the terriers. I had a couple of West Highland terriers, called Bernie and Flavio. And the good thing about a terrier is they’re tremendously loyal. I mean, Bernie, he was an aggressive little dog. He’d go for anybody. And Flavio, he was a bit more chilled out. He probably ate a bit too much as well. But look, I think to be called a terrier, is that such a bad thing? They’re not afraid of having to go at the bigger dogs? I’d rather be a terrier than a wolf, maybe.
Q: Look, Christian, final one from me. There’s still a lot of speculation about Checo Perez’s future. Yesterday, Liam Lawson said that he’ll know about his future next week. You also have Yuki Tsunoda testing the car next week. Have you already made up your mind or will results this weekend and will Yuki’s performance in the test next week still have an influence?
CH: First of all, the test with Yuki has been planned for some time. So it’s been on the cards for, I think, three months or something like that. So that’s something that’s been scheduled. Now, obviously, Checo is our driver. He remains our driver, contracted to the team. And obviously, this season hasn’t gone to anyone’s plan, particularly with Checo’s performance and since Monaco, it’s been very, very tough for him. And so inevitably, once we get this race out of the way, we’ll sit down and discuss the future. But Checo has been a very important part of our team. He’s done a tremendous job for us. If you think back, you know, only three years to that 2021 final, you know, two Constructors’ Championship that he’s contributed to as well. So there’s huge respect for Checo within the team and nobody likes to see him struggling like the way he has. And, you know, we’ll sit down and discuss things after the season.
Q: Have you made up your mind already?
CH: We’re fortunate that we’ve got a tremendous pool of talent. It was good to see Isack Hadjar getting a run out as well in free practice there. We’ve got two talented drivers in VCARB. But until the situation is clear with Sergio and what he wants to do, everything else is purely speculation.
Q: Alright, Christian, thank you for that. Andrea, let’s now come to you. It’s all come down to the last race? How are the nerves? What’s the mood in the camp?
Andrea STELLA: I was in a meeting with the entire team yesterday evening. And the message I wanted to share with the team is how impressed I am with the maturity that I see when I interact with all the team members. It’s been a fast, steep trajectory for us. We had a lot to learn. It’s almost a change of status. For the team, in terms of our competitiveness and what we are competing for, I see that people have learned very fast, even from our people have learned very fast, even from a mindset point of view. And this had led us to be calm at this final race, focused, and full of energy.
Q: And Charles Leclerc now has a 10-place grid penalty for a change of battery. Does that take the pressure off a little bit?
AS: Not at all. I guess you expected this answer. Not at all. We talk about Charles Leclerc. We talk about Ferrari. It’s a very strong combination. I think even with the penalty, I wouldn’t be surprised if we can see them very rapidly fighting for the front, for the top positions. So nothing changes. We keep remaining calm, focused and full of energy.
Q: Now, Andrea, you’ve had a lot of success in your career, including many championship titles with Ferrari. What would it mean to you to win the Constructors’ Championship as a team principal at McLaren?
AS: Well, I understand that this is a personal question, like you asked about meaning for me. But very genuinely, I can say that my thoughts are in relation to the team, what this means for the team. McLaren is iconic, prestigious, one of the most important teams in Formula 1. We have not won a championship since 1998. So I guess the meaning is making a piece of history. And for me personally, and for the entire team, we will be extremely proud to add to this great legacy.
Q: Can I bring it back to you? Would it be your proudest achievement in Formula 1?
AS: I think all the achievements are so difficult in Formula 1. It’s so competitive. It will be completely different though, completely different position. When I was winning at Ferrari, Mattia was sitting next to me for some of the championships. And now we are sitting next to each other in a completely different role and capacity. Very different, but certainly will be one of the ones that I will be most proud of in my professional career.
Q: Alright. Thank you very much. I’m sure there’ll be more questions for you in a minute. Mattia, welcome back to the FIA Press Conference. Can we start just by getting your thoughts on Zhou’s eighth place in Qatar last weekend and how much of a boost it was for the team to get its first points of the season?
Mattia BINOTTO: It has been an important race for us. It has been an important result. We were at zero points all through the season and when it’s like that it’s somehow very painful for the entire team and you would like to see progress, and more than that trying to score points. I think we had some great updates in the last races, especially from Las Vegas. We know somehow for us to score points we need someone ahead of us making mistakes or something happening, but being just behind, somehow, to take the opportunity. And it’s what happened in Qatar. And then scoring points has been great, four points which are very important, showing that the progress is going in the right direction, showing that whatever we’re delivering is somehow correlating as well with the wind tunnel and the simulator, which for us is very encouraging. So it’s encouraging for the team. It has been emotional as well, I have to say, for the entire team. I saw really people in the garage being emotional. someone crying. It has been emotional as well for myself, finishing P8. I was not used to be emotional to finish in P8, but now it’s happening, because we know where we are, we know where it’s coming from. And again, as I said, I think it’s four points which are very important, looking ahead, looking at the wintertime, looking at the next seasons.
Q: You talk about the wind tunnel, you talk about the simulator. You’ve now been at the team for just over four months. What are your first impressions of Hinwil and the job that the team has ahead of it before 2026?
MB: I think the impressions after four months are very similar to the one after two weeks at the end, because when you join, the first impressions you’ve got often are the right one. Obviously I’ve got the benchmark of my past life, different team, but certainly a top competitor. and the comparison is straightforward in all the areas. I don’t think there is something, it’s about everything at the end. The team in there is a great team. The people are great people. I think we’ve got good people for our foundations for the future, but then you look at the gap and dimensions, it’s 400 people less to a top team. It’s a lot of less manufacturing capacity, engineering capacity, a simulator which is very old. So I think the entire facility, so it’s everything at the end that’s required. But we knew that, we know that, we know it’s a long journey for us. It’s not something that you can turn in a couple of months or a couple of seasons. We always said that our objective is becoming successful by 2030, the end of the decade. But I think it’s exactly what it’s required in terms of time to get there. And even that time, I think, is very challenging, by the way.
Q: Mattia, you talk about the people. Valtteri Bottas said a while back that you need to instil a winning mentality into everyone at Hinwil. Do you agree with him? And how big a job is that if you do?
MB: I fully agree with him. As a matter of fact, I think that team in the last year’s decade has been there surviving, in a survival mode. So at the end, it was about surviving, participating, trying to get the best out of it. But a winning mentality, a winning mindset, it’s a different approach. So there is certainly a lot that needs to be done in terms of culture, in terms of behaviours. Again, I think it’s going together with what we just mentioned before. It’s a long journey, we know about that, and acting on behaviours, maybe it’s even the most difficult. But we have started our journey. I think we’ve got a few projects. You mentioned the last four months. I have to say that since I started already, a lot has happened since then, which is not only the improvement at the racetrack, signing Bortoleto, having a new line-up for next year. It’s about Qatar as well, investment and partnership, which for us it’s a lot of capital injection but showing that overall as a team we are moving in in that direction with I think the right approach, the right thinking, thinking big, which is exactly the mindset we’re discussing about.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Ian Parkes – New York Times) Question for yourself, Christian. Just drawing on additional Toto quotes from yesterday in his impromptu session, He said you crossed the line by calling George hysterical, that you are not intellectual in psychoanalysis, and that how dare you comment on the state of mind of his driver. Whilst I think we all appreciate there has never been any love lost between yourself and Toto, has this reopened old wounds between the pair of you?
CH: Not really. I mean, Toto’s quite dramatic, as we all know. I wasn’t talking about the psychology of his driver. And when I was referring to hysterics, I was more referring to the roasting that he gave his team when they fitted a set of Hards onto the car when he’d asked for a set of Mediums and expressed his displeasure for the tyre choice that they’d put on the car. I’d get fined if I were to repeat the language that was used [then] in this press conference. So look. Obviously, a lot has been said. We know Toto likes to talk a lot, but that’s the way it is. I think for us, we just want to finish the season on a high, have a great race, see these guys battle it out, and hopefully everybody then can have a well-earned rest after this race.
Q: (Jerome Bourret – l’Equipe) A question for Andrea. If you win the championship, your car will be favourite. And if your car starts the season as Lando started this year, you may have to deal with two drivers fighting each other. Do you plan to change the way you have been behaving with them next year?
AS: First of all, I hope you are right. We do want to have that kind of problem. We worked very hard to have a problem of having a car in condition to win races and two drivers in condition to win races. And we know that this one in Formula 1 always comes with some complications. But these are complications that we have already faced this season to some extent. I think we have always approached that in a cohesive way. Both drivers were always fully aware that we need to find solutions that, first of all, put the interests of the team and then the interests of the drivers. And so far, I think this has been a very positive process. It’s a process that we plan to carry over onto next season. But before we think about this problem, we need to think… We call it problem, potentially it’s more of an opportunity. Our focus is to make sure that from a technical point of view, we give Lando and Oscar a car that is in condition to fight for the championship. Because had we done this at the start of this season, without having some underperformance in the early races of the season, then we would have been in condition to fight for the Drivers’ Championship for longer.
Q: (Luke Smith – The Athletic) Christian, another question for you. I know there’s maybe not reopened old wounds with Toto, but is the needle always going to be there between you guys? And does it stretch back to 2021? I think there was a picture of you and Toto smiling with each other, I think it was here either last year or the year before. So, is it just the ups and downs this relationship is always going to have? Or do you think it’ll always be this underlying needle?
CH: I really don’t know. I mean, it needs to be about what you do on the track. I mean, there’s a sort of a love-hate relationship, where I think Toto loves to hate me. It’s one of those things. I would have assumed he sort of got a bit more on his plate with, you know, obviously it’s Lewis’s last race for that team. And, yeah, I think they should be celebrating that rather than focusing on other aspects.
Q: (Daniel Horvath – Paddock Magazine) Christian, can you share us your thoughts regarding the most recent statements by FIA’s president saying that drivers should focus on racing, while FIA is focusing on making the regulations for the sport?
CH: Well, he’s absolutely right. I mean, it’s down to the FIA being the regulator of the sport, to write the regulations and police the regulations. And when you sign up for the championship at the start of the year, you sign on the dotted line to abide by those regs. So, it’s not the teams’ job to write regulations, and nor should it be, because it’d be too much of a conflict of interest in terms of what the intention of those regulations were. So he’s absolutely right that it is the FIA to police and regulate the sport.
Q: (Jon Noble – Motorsport.com) To Andrea and Christian, the fight at the front of Formula 1 now is probably closer than it’s ever been with four teams fighting for the wins. Next year, you’re obviously gunning for the World Championship, but ‘26 is looming. How big a nightmare is it going to be juggling development for ‘25, not to sacrifice that championship, but then not compromising your plans for ‘26?
AS: First of all, I would say I agree with you. This season I think has shown a level of competitiveness that possibly is unprecedented in terms of four teams being in condition to win races and potentially being in condition to fight for championships. So the standards at the moment are very, very high in Formula 1. And to stay competitive, you do have to make a lot of investment in terms of development, in terms of performance, which then sets the challenge that you say where you actually make these investments. I think teams nowadays have capacity to carry two projects together. So, personally, I don’t think we are leaving much performance behind because of having to make a choice as to how we are focusing the development. At some stage, potentially next year, early next year, I would expect, you might have to make a call and this may depend on what realistically are your opportunities to win races and fight for the championship.
CH: Yeah, it’s a tough one because we have the biggest regulation change in probably 50 or 60 years in the history of the sport. So with that in mind, we hate finishing third in the championship, but the additional wind tunnel time that comes with that is, if you like, the only upside in a year where there is such a dramatic regulatory change. It’s a constant balancing act. And if you are in a tight battle, inevitably your development gets dragged into the season longer, which is particularly hard. I mean, we saw that in ‘21 into ‘22, where you have a big conceptual change of regs. Obviously, the earlier start, the bigger advantage you have. But if there is a tight championship and it does go down to the wire, then that’s going to be a tough balancing act for the different teams to choose how they apportion their resource.
Q: (Tony Dodgins – Tony Dodgins Associates) A question for Andrea. You’ve had a lot of success at Ferrari, and now I think you’ve been 10 years at McLaren. How would you compare the cultures of the two different teams? Give us some sort of differences and some similarities.
AS: Interesting question, because when we talk about culture, there’s many angles, many aspects that you can consider to define the culture. But actually, before we talk about the differences, I would say that there are some fundamentals that are very, very similar. The commitment of the people, the passion. Sometimes I hear like the passion in the Italian team and more of a cold approach, which I can definitely say that’s not true. You know, the motivation, the passion that we have in the McLaren team is definitely comparable with what I was used to when I was at Ferrari. Striving for excellence is something that is in common. It’s an easy conversation to have with people saying we need to raise the bar and everyone understands and everyone tries their best. So actually for me, moving from one team to the other, I didn’t have to think in a different way. I think what I’ve definitely found that was very powerful at McLaren was that when we had agreement, when we identified common solutions, when we put in place some kind of, let’s call it, rules, behaviours, or what altogether, principles, that can form the culture, then I think the team members, the people were pretty consistent in sticking with what was agreed. And in this sense, this made progress easy. It was possible to progress based on plans. It was possible to progress based on what we agreed all together that should have been the journey of the team.
CH: How about the food?
AS: From this point of view, some work is still to be left on my table as a team principal!
Q: (Adam Cooper – Adam Cooper F1) A question for Christian. You signed or you announced Checo on June the 4th. And at the time you said it was an important time for the team. You talked about stability, continuity. Obviously, there was a lot going on. Doubts about Max’s future. Can you clarify why you felt the need to sign him so early? Do you have any regrets about making that call? And could you have weathered that storm without signing him and having him tied up?
CH: Well, obviously at the time, Sergio was performing extremely well. I think he had four podiums in the first five races. And in order to settle his mind and extend that run of form for the rest of the season, we elected to go early, which obviously didn’t work. So, that’s just life sometimes. And I think Checo, you have to look beyond this year for the contribution that he’s made to our team. He’s been a great team player. He’s a great person. He’s extremely popular within the team. He’s worked very hard over the four years that he’s been with us. And, yeah, he’s played a vital role in the Constructors’ Championships that we’ve won, the five Grand Prix victories that he had in our car. It’s been the most successful pairing that we’ve ever had finishing first and second in the Drivers’ Championship last year. So I think nobody more is frustrated with the results than Checo, from his own high standards. And that’s obviously been painful for him. for the team and we’ve worked tremendously hard to try and support him and we’ll continue to do so all the way up until the chequered flag on Sunday, where hopefully he can get a good result at the final race of the year.
Q: (Reem Abulleil – Arab News) Christian, Checo yesterday was saying that we can’t underestimate the difficulty of being the teammate of Max Verstappen at Red Bull, and he says he would never want to be in the shoes of a young driver coming in to take on that role. I just wanted, from your opinion, what is the key or ideal kind of mentality you would want in any driver coming in to handle that role?
CH: Well, I think probably being Max’s teammates, the toughest drive in Formula 1, because he sets such a high standard, such a high bar. And his performances are just relentless. So anybody sat in the car alongside him has got to have tremendous strength of character and have the ability obviously to work within a team and be able to focus on themselves and to a degree almost ignore what’s going on in the other car because I think that’s where mentally, it becomes incredibly tough, as we’ve seen with many of the greats. I’m sure when you work with Michael Schumacher or Ayrton Senna previously, teammates had a similarly hard job. And Max now joins that elite group of people. It’s as simple as that.
Q: (Molly Hudson – The Times) Question for Christian. Do you believe that Max said what George alleges and just to finish off on more Toto, he called you weak for not standing up to Max enough. Do you believe that to be the case?
CH: We’re definitely having a go on the Toto theme today, aren’t we? Well, in answer to your question, first of all, Max does nothing but tell the truth. So I believe 100% what he said to be accurate. Of course, there’s other people in those Steward rooms as well. And they also came back and reported that they were quite surprised at the, if you like, the approach that was taken. Regarding Toto’s other comments, I’m not going to rise to the bait of that. Everybody manages themselves and their teams in different ways. We’ve won 122 races. We’ve won 14 world championships. I think we’re doing alright.
ENDS
Source : Fia
