The second place finish was the third podium of Timo Glock’s career. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q: Lewis, you said you wanted to win this but what a weekend it has been for you.

LH: It has been an incredible weekend in terms of the whole show, the build-up. It has been the busiest weekend probably of my life. I have had more appearances this week than I can remember. Obviously not a perfect Friday but Saturday was great. I have my Dad and my step-mum, Linda, here. I have my girlfriend here and I have got a friend of mine here. I got to meet Beyonce here, so it has been overall an incredible weekend. A great experience. I am very, very happy and I look forward to the celebration tonight.

Q: You never had a huge gap. Was that because you were managing tires?

LH: Yeah, through our practice sessions our tires never really lasted very long. I had to try and do all I could to look after them today. I also knew that the strategy I was on was very strong and I didn’t particularly need a huge gap to the people behind me. I kept a two-to-three second gap over Nico and it was good enough. Then with Vettel he was very competitive but he was again five laps shorter than me, so it had to be accepted that he was going to be on my tail, but it was never really a problem, so I just kept cruising and at the end there was a decent gap to Timo. He was putting in some good times but I was able to answer back, so I was able to keep the gap. I was very happy with it.

Q: There were quite a few drivers with brake problems here. How much attention did you pay to the brakes?

LH: I try to treat my car as good as I can. We don’t have any problems with the brakes. It has never been a problem for us, so fortunately we did a great job with the cooling and everything, so it was never an issue here.

Q: Timo, what made the difference in qualifying, because that’s been important in the races we’ve had so far?

TG: I think that for the first time since, I would say, Australia, Malaysia, Bahrain, I could just set the car up more for my driving. The car has slightly changed a bit over the year, it’s a bit more aggressive and it didn’t suit my driving style a lot for one lap, especially in qualifying. I knew from last year that you can make a difference here as a driver and you can just fight a bit more with the car. We could set the car up much, much better and we did a really good job over the weekend, we just never lost the way. We struggled in first free practice and just made our way up and just went better and better. In Q2 I just got in a really good lap and got through to Q3 and the top ten. When you see the last races when we’ve had to start out of the top ten and we made it into the top ten, I was really looking forward to the race. I just knew that we couldn’t go at the same pace as the top two or three guys, so I just said ‘OK, just find your own way, just push as hard as possible with what you have and just get the best out of it’, and at the end, we pushed at the right moment, we got into P2. The first lap was really important, when I overtook Fernando as well as under the safety car when he came out of the pits and I just stayed in front of him. That was really important for our strategy and at the end, I lost where I was really and then suddenly my engineer said ‘you are safe in P2’ and that was really surprising. I was happy with that. I think it’s been a perfect weekend for me and for the team, really important for us, a really important podium at just the right moment for us.

Q: What is the significance of this podium; why is it just at the right moment?

TG: We had goals from the beginning of the year. We started really well and got two or three podiums into the season and just had the pace at the beginning and then we had a couple of difficult weekends where we struggled and the team came down a bit. We pushed as hard as possible and then recovered over the weekend quite quickly, because we knew we had the chance to be in the top five. When you start a season as we did this year and you fall down and you fight back again, it’s just really important for the team and for us.

Q: And what are your thoughts about next weekend in Japan?

TG: It’s good to go to Japan with a podium and P2. I don’t know how our car will be in Suzuka but I think the high-speed corners suit our car, so I’m looking forward to it and hopefully we can be on the podium again in Suzuka. That would be great.

Q: Fernando, I’m sure it’s also important timing for you and your team.

FA: Yeah, no doubt. It was a very important podium for Renault and they deserve this podium after all the difficulties the team had over the last two weeks, plus they have had some unlucky moments in some races when we’ve lost the possibility of podiums. I think this weekend everything came to us and we took the benefit of some circumstances like yesterday in qualifying when I think the lap was good and fifth position was better than expected. Today, running fifth, with the two penalties for Rosberg and Vettel we recovered these two positions. We made no mistakes, we kept the concentration to one hundred per cent all through the race and we knew that we were not super fast here in Singapore this weekend but if we didn’t make any mistakes we could be on the podium and we did it.

Q: All three of you were in the top four last year here; how important is it to have that experience here?

FA: It’s very important. I think it’s one of those circuits which you either like or don’t like. There’s no halfway. The people who don’t like it never find the right way, they lack confidence in some corners, it’s difficult to attack in qualifying and we know how important qualifying is on a street circuit where it’s difficult to overtake. I didn’t know that all of us were in the top four last year but I’m happy to repeat those positions.