Drivers: Felipe Massa (Ferrari), Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) and Jarno Trulli (Toyota).

Drivers: Felipe Massa (Ferrari), Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) and Jarno Trulli (Toyota).

TV Unilaterals.

Q:

Congratulations Felipe with a win from the front row. Kimi led early on until his problem but you were a conclusive winner by the end.

Felipe Massa:

It was fantastic; I did not expect that. Sometimes you need a little bit of luck, and today I had a little bit of luck with what happened to Kimi and his exhaust. Fortunately he could finish the race but it was, for sure, a good present.

I was already quite comfortable in second position as he had a very quick pace and I am sure it would have been very difficult for me to pass him. It was a great race and we showed our performance here. For sure, we don't know the performance from our competitors because they were a little bit behind, but I think we are in the right direction.

The team did a fantastic job - all the suppliers, Shell especially, because all the time we need to bring good fuel and good lubricants as well, so it was a great job from everybody. I am very happy because now we are a lot more in the championship. We still need to work a lot, but we are [heading] in the right direction.

Q:

It did start to rain towards the end. Tell us about the track conditions.

FM:

It was very difficult over there because sometimes there were some drops and you could feel straightaway that the track was not the same anymore, so I was always slowing even more than I needed because I had a very good gap; I was not risking anything. At the end of the race it was not raining very heavily, so anyway it was a good drive and a fantastic job from the team.

Q:

You said Kimi had fantastic pace but from the outside looking in, it looked like you had a couple of laps in-hand in terms of fuel. How do you think it might have gone?

FM:

I had two laps difference in terms of fuel, but in two laps you cannot be three tenths slower. I was always kind of three tenths slower, so I saw that it was going to be difficult to beat him as you need to be a similar pace or maybe one tenth slower. That was not the case. I saw he had a great pace and a bit better balanced car and I didn't want to risk it. Even second was a great result, but first is even better.

Q:

Kimi, I guess you are delighted to score points in a race where you had a relatively serious mechanical failure on the car..?

Kimi Raikkonen:

Yeah, it is disappointing in the end having a good car all weekend, being on pole, leading it quite easily and then having a problem with the car, but unfortunately, that happens sometimes. In one way we are still lucky to finish the race and get eight points, as in the last couple of laps the car almost stopped a few times. Even though it is disappointing not to win when we should have, I still take the eight points and it looks much better now in the championship. I am in a more confident position and it was a great result for the team, just an unlucky situation.

Q:

We could see problems with the exhaust just from the half distance. What was it like from your point-of-view driving the car in terms of what you felt?

KR:

We just lost massive power. That was the biggest problem. Sometimes you just lost all the power and then it came back. It was slow in a straight line and especially out of low-speed corners it was difficult, but luckily we went fast enough in the beginning to go away from the others and we had enough of a gap in the end; I expect a few more laps and we would not have finished second.

Like I said before, it is disappointing not to win but eight points is good for the championship. It is a good result for the team and everybody did their best; unfortunately things didn't go right, but that happens as we have seen in races before. We still had a one-two which is great.

Q:

How bad was the problem when the rain started towards the end of the race? What was the response from the car?

KR:

It was like bad traction control with no power out of the corners. It got a little bit slippery in some places and it did quite a lot of damage to the car, so it is good that we finished the race.

Q:

Jarno, Toyota's first podium since Australia 2006. You were under pressure right from the first corner to the end and the wheel-banging incident with Heikki Kovalainen in the closing laps.

Jarno Trulli:

It was a difficult race, but it was a great result and a great weekend for the whole team. We were pushing really hard because we wanted to dedicate the podium to Ove Anderson (former Toyota team principal) who did a lot for the Toyota Motorsport team, and it came at the right time to be here with all the Italian flags because tonight Italy is going to play.

It was a great race, hard and tough. We had quite good pace; obviously some other cars were still quicker than us, but we managed to do a very good weekend from Friday and Saturday qualifying. We had a very good start and my pace was obviously reasonable, but I had to fight really hard which is anyway what we expected.

Q:

It looked like you were in difficulty when the rain started and Heikki closed the gap. Talk us through that battle with Heikki…

JT:

It is obviously difficult to judge how bad the rain is when you are in front. It is easier to be behind someone else. I was taking a bit of care as normally our car struggles a bit in the colder conditions, but I managed then to get back into the right condition and after the rain stopped I did my job.

Q:

And that wheel-banging incident with Heikki..?

JT:

I don't think we touched at all. It was wheel-to-wheel like in go-kart, so it was a dream come true as obviously it is many years since I had such a nice fight. I would love to fight every race like that. We know the problem with our car and we need to get more pace, and that is what I am asking of the team. We are doing a great job compared to last year, though, and the car is much more competitive, everybody is much more together and everybody is more motivated. Things are moving on.

Q:

Felipe, you are the first Brazilian to be leading the world championship since the late, great Ayrton Senna, and a great run for you here - third, second and now first in three races - and the fourth leader of the championship in four races. We go to the British Grand Prix now; things could not be tighter…

FM:

We are still in the middle of the championship and we still have a lot of races to go. We cannot think differently than the way we have always thought until now. We need to do our job and we need to think about scoring points race-by-race, even if it is not possible to win.

As I have said, I was happy with second [but] first is even better, so we need to take all the opportunities we can to be at the front all the time if it's possible. It is always nice to lead the championship, though, so hopefully we can stay in that position.

Press conference.

Q:

Felipe, tell us about the start and about the opening laps when you were behind Kimi.

FM:

Well, it was a little bit tough to be honest to follow him, as he was very quick at that moment. I was like two or three tenths slower than him, but I had two more laps of fuel which is understandable. I think I would have liked to have been one tenth slower per lap, and then it would have been possible to fight for the position in the pits.

When I saw that the gap was already six seconds I said 'okay, maybe it is better to concentrate on the driving and finish second' as that already was a great result for the championship. Then I saw that he was slowing down and I heard that he had a problem with the exhaust, but sometimes you need the luck. I am just happy for Kimi to finish the race because usually when you have this kind of problem you cannot finish the race, so I think he was not too unlucky to finish second.

Q:

Now you are leading the championship as well. How important is that?

FM:

It is always nice, for sure, to lead the championship. It is always a great pleasure but at the moment we have won nothing, just some races. The championship is still 100 per cent open and we still have many races to go. We need to do our job race-by-race, thinking about the points, thinking if the win is good, otherwise second place is also good or maybe third. We need to think like that about the championship until the last race and then we are sure if we did the right job or if we had the right luck or did everything right to win the championship or not…but it is always nice to be leading the championship.

Q:

You were suggesting that the track conditions were different with the rain showers…

FM:

You could see the drops, and sometimes they were very small drops and you don't feel the track changing, but sometimes it is coming a little bit stronger and the grip is a little bit lower than you expect. When I saw some big drops I said 'okay, it is better to slow down more and lose time instead of risk [things] and maybe go off in the corner', so sometimes I was even slowing down more than I needed to. I think if was the right decision looking at the gap we had, though, and also looking at the conditions as we were suffering with these small drops.

Q:

Kimi, tell us about the start and those early stages as your car was phenomenal…

KR:

It was good. It has been good all weekend, so it is a bit disappointing not to win, but that's racing. Things go wrong sometimes and luckily enough we still got second place, so it is better than nothing.

Q:

Was there anything you could do with the car? Was there anything you could change with a setting like that?

KR:

Not really, no. The exhaust broke and it changes all the settings and you burn a big hole on the side of the car. In the last few laps it almost stopped a few times, so I think a few more laps and we would not have finished the race. Luckily the car was strong enough and it lasted, so even with the broken exhaust we were still fast enough and we had enough gap to third place, so we were able to keep second place.

Q:

Even after you lost the lead to Felipe you managed to match him on times…

KR:

Yeah, I don't know if he was at full speed or not. For sure we could have gone much, much faster without the problem, but like I said, luckily enough we were fast enough in the first place so that even with the problems we could still match the other people's speed and get a good second place. It is a bit disappointing, but a good result for the team. We were a bit unlucky, but still a good place to finish.

Q:

You needed the points..?

KR:

Yeah, it is not ideal but for the team it is good. It is a long championship and we have been in worse positions, so we will see what we can do.

Q:

Jarno, how important is this podium to you and the team?

JT:

It's important for many reasons. It's important for the team, for the motivation, for the fact that we wanted to pay tribute to Ove Andersson, who did great things for Toyota Motorsport in general. It's a shame that we lost him, that he couldn't see us, cheering us up on the podium, but anyway, it was great for the team [and] for me as well.

I think every year I'm driving better and better and now I'm driving better than ever, thanks to the fact that the team is moving on with the car which seems more balanced, quicker than last year, more competitive. We still have a lot of things to improve, but in general every race we can fight and we can take some chances to score points. This time I can say we had a perfect weekend, from me and from the team, the engineers, my mechanics in the pit-stop - it was just fantastic. This gives everybody a great boost for the rest of the season.

Q:

And a great start too…

JT:

You know, in Formula 1 nowadays unfortunately you have to get everything extremely right, every single detail. It's so important in order to finish as high as possible, especially in our position because we're fighting in the midfield. We know that Ferrari, McLaren, BMW are sometimes… are often quicker than us, but sometimes we can close the gap.

Our main rivals are normally Renault, Red Bull and Williams. This time I think we had nothing to do with them and I was just fighting for the top and it was great to fight, wheel-to-wheel with the car because I've wanted to do that for a long time and I wish I could do it every race. At the moment, I just keep pushing with the team and eventually one day we will get there.