FIA Formula 2: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the press conference for today’s sprint race here in Yas Marina: joining us are race winner Charles Leclerc from PREMA Racing, in 2nd place is Alex Albon from ART Grand Prix, and in 3rd place is Nicholas Latifi from DAMS. Charles, a great way to finish your championship season, with a win, but firstly can you discuss your final lap.

Charles Leclerc: It was quite annoying before that, because for 3-4 laps there was a yellow flag that was pointless, there was only a piece of debris there and we could avoid it quite easily, so I didn’t know why there was this yellow flag. It meant that we could not use the DRS, so it was very hard to overtake: obviously I knew my tyres were in good shape so I gave it all on the last lap, and at turn 7 everyone was going very wide so I committed on the last lap, Alex closed but it was already too late for me as I had committed, so we touched a little bit and I passed him on the limit at turn 8. It feels great to win the race and finish the season on a high, and I think it’s been one of the most positive races I’ve had during the year: on tyre management we’ve been very good today, and I feel even happier when I look back to Friday and we were struggling, but we have done a massive step forward and were one of the most competitive today.

FIA Formula 2: Obviously trying to keep your tyres in high temperatures is hard: were you always targeting the win from P7?

Charles: I tried to calm myself on the first 10 laps because the top 4 guys were going away very quickly, and to me it was a bit too quick: I was fine with my tyres, but I knew if I pushed a bit more it would be tough for my tyres at the end of the race. I managed the tyres and towards the end we saw that they had a bigger cliff than us, but probably until about lap 12 I didn’t think the win was possible, but after that we were very quick and I started to realise.

FIA Formula 2: Alex, a great drive by you, but talk us through that final lap from your perspective.

Alexander Albon: It was okay. Pace wise obviously we were not as quick as Charles – he has been very quick all year in the races, and today was no exception – and in the beginning the main threat was Nicholas, but after a while we saw that he wasn’t really catching me, or if he did I could extend the gap pretty comfortably. The whole race I was just on the edge of the tyres, not pushing them but not under-driving them either, and coming into the last lap maybe the yellow flags had helped me to stay ahead for a while. I think that if there was no contact then most likely I would have stayed in front for the last lap, and in the last few laps the DRS was in my favour so I had to just stick with what I was doing and I’d be fine. The place where we were good was on traction, which was where we needed to be, at the hairpin and turn 9, but unfortunately it didn’t work out and Charles got past. We will look back and see what can be changed, and if I did it again there would be some stuff I would maybe do. It’s been a tough year, especially in the middle where we were lacking pace, and we got back to our old set up and straight away found our pace again, so in that sense it’s been strong and I’m happy to be back at the front. It’s been a tough year, and it’s good to end the year with ART on a high, to end strong.

FIA Formula 2: Did you think you had the pace under control all race?

Alexander: Well Charles is fast! I felt comfortable, and I thought he was my teammate initially, so I thought if he can go quick then I can go quick [laughs]: I pushed a bit and I was going quicker than I was doing, but still Charles was catching me! I thought he was going to pass me with 3 laps to go, but with the DRS it halted proceedings, although I knew there was a red car catching me quickly in my mirrors…

FIA Formula 2: Congratulations. Nicholas, third place today and second for a while: did you just not have the pace to stick with the other 2 today?

Nicholas Latifi: Yeah, clearly at the end we were not quick enough. For the first half of the race I was just managing the tyres, not getting too close to Alex, and it was a game of cat and mouse: I pushed twice to see if I could get by him but every time I pushed he had the pace to respond. In those instances maybe I damaged the tyres a bit, and that hurt me in the end, but I think regardless Charles was going to pass me: third was probably the best we could do, as we didn’t have the pace to pass Alex either. I’m a bit disappointed as I really wanted to get the win for the team, especially after what happened yesterday with the win, and it’s a shame that the Teams’ championship really went away yesterday so I wanted to reward the guys with something good today. But I’m really happy to end on the podium – I think it’s 9 podiums this year – but we were hoping for much more today.

FIA Formula 2: I think there have only been 3 circuits where you haven’t stood on the podium this year…

Nicholas: And 2 of them I had failures in the feature race! [laughs]

FIA Formula 2: So how do you reflect on your season?

Nicholas: I always compare to the previous year, and compared to last year it’s night and day: I think the races have been good, although the qualifying put me out of position a bit and I had to come back, but we’ve shown really good pace in the races, scored many podiums, and last year it was kind of the opposite. So the way it flipped this year I’ll take it 10 times out of 10, because the qualifying doesn’t really mean anything if you go back in the race: that’s the point to work on, but compared to last year it’s been a real positive on my performance, and also the work the team has done.