Q: You were clinical dispatching Kimi Antonelli. Just how tough was it to get past Max Verstappen?
OP: I mean, to be honest with you, Kimi was very nice to me and didn’t make life very tough, which is nice when you race against people who identify when someone’s quicker and don’t make the race more difficult for both of us. So that was nice of him. Obviously, for Max, leading the race, a different story. But I knew to expect that. I could tell we had a lot of pace. Like I said, it was a matter of just biding my time, waiting for a moment, or forcing him into a moment. That’s what I was able to do. Once I got past, I knew I had to try and build a gap while Lando was behind him. That got me the win.
Q: Oscar, you were 37 seconds ahead of the first non-McLaren car. That could be described as dominance. When you reflect on the weekend as a whole, where is there still work to do?
OP: Celebrations – that’s definitely top of the list at the moment! I think this weekend was not my best, and a lot of that was yesterday. The race today was pretty solid, but yesterday I was pretty frustrated with my performance. Ultimately, yes, I won the race this weekend, but I think the likelihood of winning many races [after] qualifying fourth is pretty low. I did a lot of things right today, but there was definitely some good fortune there as well, and a very quick car. I don’t want to rely on that every single Sunday. Clearly, this is the exception to the pace we’ve had this year. Yes, we’ve always had a strong car, but the pace we had today from lap one it felt like was unexpected, even for us. I’ll definitely take the performance and we’ll try and work out how to do that every weekend, but there’s still definitely things to work on from a personal side and from a team point of view.
Q: What part of the racetrack was the car particularly strong on here?
OP: Honestly, I don’t know. In qualifying we were not the quickest in the high-speed corners. I think generally in the low-speed corners is where we seemed quite good this weekend. In the race, all the corners become even slower, and looking after the tyres becomes more important. That’s probably been a strength of ours so far this year. This has been the first very hot race we’ve had in terms of track temperature. Saudi was hot, but the track temperature today was the highest we’ve had all year. I think that helped our pace.
Q: Alright, very well done to you, Oscar. Thank you very much. Lando, we’ll come to you now. A great, very determined race by you. How difficult was it to work your way through from P6?
LN: It was good fun. It was enjoyable. I never wanted to let Oscar get too far out of my sights, but I had to put up a good challenge in the first quarter or third of the race trying to get past the Mercedes, trying to get past the Williams, trying to get past Max. So yeah, not an easy start for sure, but I made my way through reasonably quickly I think. And of course, the car was very strong today, so that definitely helps.
Q: And can we get your thoughts on the battle with Verstappen today?
LN: It was fine. He’s fighting hard, but it’s up to him to do that. He’s ruining his own race. He’s not racing very smart. We probably could have finished 1-2 today, and he didn’t because of that. So yeah, he’s fighting, that is always expected, but that’s what it is.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Ticiano Figueiredo – Diário do Rio Claro) Oscar, thinking about this race and the whole season, what do you think is going to be harder: to overtake Max or to keep Lando behind you?
OP: Both very different challenges, I would say. On days like today, our two cars were clearly the best in the field by some margin. I know how strong Lando is as a driver, being his teammate now for a couple of years. It’s never easy. But also, racing Max is never easy, as we saw. Both very different challenges. In the long term this season, it’s clearly going to be a strong fight between Lando and I, but both are challenging.
Q: (Holly Cain – Palm Beach Post) Two years ago, neither of you had a win. This year, you guys are dominating. What’s the change? Is there a change of energy in the team? How does it feel palpably different to a year ago, certainly two years ago?
OP: Compared to two years ago, it’s an incredibly different place to be. The determination and the hard work has always been there. Even two years ago, we knew that things were in the pipeline to help us come back to the front. So while we got lapped twice that day in Miami two years ago, there was optimism and determination, still. Clearly, last year with Lando’s win, that was nice for the whole team in terms of finally having a car capable of winning a race again, on merit. There was obviously the 1-2 in Monza a few years ago, but Miami last season was the turning point in winning races because we could be the quickest on track. That’s an incredible place to be. Now, it’s a continuation of that. The determination and hard work are still identical, just the joy and the celebrations are a bit more frequent, which is nice. But we know we have a lot of competition. Being first now means we have less tunnel time, less development time. That’s something we’ve enjoyed over our competitors for the last few years. So there are going to be challenges with being at the front, but it’s an incredible place to be.
Q: (Graham Harris (Motorsport Monday) Question for both of you: winning a race with a 35-second lead, when should the team stop focusing on this year’s car and shift to next year? Clearly, it will take the others quite some time to catch up.
OP: I don’t know. There are a lot of other smarter people than me who calculate when it’s time to switch to next year. Clearly, we do have a strong advantage at the moment, but not every weekend has looked like this. Saudi last weekend, our competition was very close, and we didn’t have it that comfortably. This weekend, a very different story, but I don’t expect every weekend to look like this. I think we have the advantage everywhere we go. Sometimes it’s a little, sometimes a lot. Clearly, in this position now, we have a lot of focus on next year. We want to make sure we win both championships this year and put ourselves in a good spot for next year.
Q: (David Neal – Miami Herald) For Lando: After you got into second place, did you think you could chase down Oscar, even though the gap was nearly 10 seconds?
LN: No. I gave it a good shot from when I got into second. There was a long way to go, I think 25, 30 laps almost at that point. I probably only stopped pushing the last 4-5 laps. The gap went from almost 10 to four or three, almost. I did all I could. I tried the whole race basically until the very end. I kept belief the whole race, but Oscar’s driving well. He’s quick. To catch from 10 seconds was always pretty much going to be impossible, but I gave it a good shot. I almost got there. Just not enough laps.
Q: (Ticiano Figueiredo – Diário do Rio Claro) For both drivers: it’s always tempting to imagine an internal battle between teammates, especially at McLaren. Could we witness something like Lewis vs Nico this year?
LN: Time will tell.
OP: Yeah, we said that we’re trying to repeat 2007, so… I don’t know. We clearly know that we have our strengths. It’s always been close between us. It’s going to be a good battle. There will be weekends where Lando is stronger, and weekends where I am stronger. We’re very aware of the fact that we want this success for as long as we’re at McLaren, which is a very long time for both of us. We’re aware there’s going to be a fight. We both want to become world champion, obviously. But we don’t just want one opportunity at this success. We want it for the next however many years, and that’s an important and an easy thing to keep in mind for us and the whole team.
Q: (Holly Cain – Palm Beach Post) A follow-up to that. Is it tougher racing for a championship against your teammate?
OP: In some ways, yes. In some ways, no. We know pretty much exactly how one another drives. We know our strong points, maybe some of our weaker points. So from that side you have more information, but it goes both ways. We both know we’ve got the same car, so that removes one factor. But there are other complications with having the same car. You can have the same strengths and weaknesses on track. With how difficult it is to follow cars, 9 times out of 10, whoever’s in front at the start is probably going to be in front at the end. So it’s difficult like that. Then there’s the pit strategies and whatever that become a factor when you’re in the same team. There are positives and negatives.
