FIA Formula 2: Hello and welcome to the FIA Formula 2 Press Conference following the Feature Race at the Circuit Paul Ricard. Joining me today are: race winner George Russell for ART Grand Prix, in second is Sergio Sette Camara for Carlin, and in third is Roberto Merhi of MP Motorsport. George, coming to you first: it’s your third win of the year, and was lights-to-flag, but the changing conditions can’t have made it as easy as that. Could you talk us through it?

George Russell: Yeah, it was an extremely difficult race, probably one of the most tricky races I’ve ever driven in or been a part of. Being at the front is always extremely difficult because you’ve got no reference to another driver going off or spinning off when the rain is falling. I was always the one approaching the corners first, not knowing how much grip there was going to be, whether it was going to be wet or dry. So, it was really difficult, but I was pushing because I knew it would be an opportunity to build a gap and I think me and Sergio pulled away a lot. Towards the end of the race, I was quite comfortable with the tyres and had everything under control, but I just started losing a lot of speed and was really struggling with tyre deg. Sergio was catching me a lot, and I was very lucky to keep hold of first position. In the end, for myself and Sergio to finish 30 seconds ahead of P3 meant we had a fantastic race.

FIA Formula 2: Of course, and we also saw the patchy surface over the track that has been mentioned over the course of the weekend, and when the track was drying it was noticeably patchy. Did that affect your tyre management?

George: Yeah, it was just trying to find the best bits of track to use. I think there was additional grip, actually, where those new patchy sections were, so in these current conditions it helped us a bit and made it a little bit more easy, but generally it was tricky conditions regardless of the track conditions and surface.

FIA Formula 2: Sergio, coming to you – that was an excellent comeback after your hand injury in Monaco. Did you anticipate your return would be this spectacular?

Sergio Sette Camara: Yeah, the reason I kept calm after the injury in Monaco – I never really got frustrated about it – was because I knew the car was quick. There was nothing really breaking or anything unlucky happening, we were just there. There was no reason to panic, obviously I had to miss out on Monaco which was a shame, a lot of points could be lost, but many other drivers also crashed or spun so it wasn’t that bad. I think I expected it, we’ve always been around the top five, and we had fourth yesterday so I knew we could be among the top today. But I’m really happy with P2, it was a little more than I expected starting from P4.

FIA Formula 2: You had a fantastic stint after your pitstop, and what caught our attention was your outlap. Could you talk me through your closing laps and trying to chase George down?

Sergio: I didn’t actually try to push a lot on the outlap, I was trying to warm up the tyres. If you go out on cold tyres with these compounds and try to push directly, you will grain the front. So what I tried to do is take the outlap and warmed the fronts slowly before then going for a push lap to put pressure on George, and get him to push on his outlap so he grains his tyres. I think that happened a little bit, and it maybe wasn’t me being quick afterwards but because perhaps he damaged his tyres, I can’t tell.

FIA Formula 2: Coming to you, Roberto; that was an amazing drive starting from 14th. Did you expect to finish on the podium today after quali?

Roberto Merhi: No! After quali, I was hoping to finish the weekend as soon as possible because the performance for us was terrible in free practice and qualifying. So I thought there wasn’t much for us to get out of it, and I was not happy for the race. Everybody said it probably wasn’t going to rain for the race, and we started and I said we’d stay out on the supersoft, and if we get a safety car we take a gamble – that was my idea – and when we started the race I was really confident with the car and had more pace compared to the people around. I had managed to do a good first lap, and overtook a few cars, then was fighting with both Charouz drivers – it was hard to overtake them because I overtook Antonio and then went on the inside on the next corner, where you then lose the grip. There’s only one proper line on, and if you go out of that line then you pick up more wear to the tyres. I was then behind Deletraz, and he spun in front of me and I had to go outside of the track to avoid him. And after that, I was driving along, I had good pace and could match the pace of these guys here. We pitted maybe a bit too early and lost four-five seconds with the rear right, and then I left with nobody in front of me but Ghiotto quite close behind me, and I had to push hard to make a gap to him, and maybe damaged my tyres a little bit. After that, it was just trying to survive and not strain the tyres. I knew Nyck (de Vries) could overtake us but I think he also destroyed the supersoft at the end and didn’t have the pace to attack. At the end it was a really good race, especially after qualifying was a disaster, so I think to finish P3 today was nice.

FIA Formula 2: We saw you overtake almost half the paddock – what was your favourite manoeuvre?

Roberto: I don’t know if they filmed it but there was one that was fantastic – at corner 11, I overtook two cars on the inside. I don’t know who the first one was but the second was Gelael – that was in the first couple of laps so yeah, that one was really good.

FIA Formula 2: Coming back to you, George: we’ve got the reverse grid for the sprint race tomorrow – what are your expectations for tomorrow’s race?

George: I’m hoping to move up the grid, but it’s obvious that the tyre deg is a little bit worse than we all expected. It’s going to be tricky for everyone tomorrow, so I don’t know to be honest! If we drop off like we did today, then I’m not expecting much – Sergio and I made our gap at the start and started to struggle towards the end, but listening to Roberto it seemed a lot of people were in a similar boat. So I don’t know, top four seems possible so I’ll just go for it, really.