Dopo la straordinaria vittoria a Le Mans con la Porsche, Nico Hulkenberg è pronto a scendere in pista con la Force India al Red Bull Ring e ieri è stato tra i protagonisti della conferenza stampa dei piloti. Invidiosi del suo “vado, vinco e torno”? No, affatto… guardate le espressioni dei colleghi. Persino il sorriso a 36 denti di Ricciardo sembrava meno smagliante. In compenso al tedesco ridevano (giustamente) anche le orecchie!
Barbara Premoli
Nico, if we can start with you. First of all, congratulations on winning Le Mans, a great achievement, especially at your first attempt. How was it?
Nico HULKENBERG: Yeah, it was quite amazing obviously. A very intense and long week. I flew from Montreal to Paris and then straight to Le Mans. But yeah, to come there, first attempt, and to win it with my team and my team-mates has just been incredible. You know, very emotional moments and a great experience that I don’t want to miss obviously, so very proud about what we’ve achieved there.
In Canada we saw a performance lift for Force India, scoring points again and also for yourself. There’s a B-spec car coming relatively soon. So how optimistic are you, looking at the future?
NH: Yeah, quite, to be honest. I think, like you say, recently we’ve made good progress, we had a car in the points four of the last five grands prix, so we see signs that it is getting better. In Silverstone we’ll get some new parts and major upgrades, so I really look forward to those. I’m quite we can have a really strong second half of the season, which hopefully then will make up for the first bit, which wasn’t quite to plan.
Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Question to you Nico. You’re the only driver here Nico – in fact the only driver in Formula One – who’s been able to drive with two completely different tyre brands over consecutive weekends, different in terms of philosophy, construction etcetera. Can you, from a driver perspective, give us the difference between the Pirellis you use here and the Michelins you use in Le Mans please?
NH: Yeah, it’s obviously a different tyre but it’s also a completely different car – so it’s a bit like comparing apples and pears. I think here we have more tyre degradation, which makes racing exciting and stuff, and in Le Mans the tyres obviously have to last a lot longer. The race is 24 hours and not just 300km, so it’s a completely different game – but otherwise it’s difficult to just take the tyre, isolate it from the rest of the car and the differences and compare that.
