Interview with Damon Hill

Damon: Tarek, that was an exciting race. Lots of fights. Talk us through it

Tarek: Yea. An amazing and hard race. Congrats to Marcos. I had a lot of wheel spin at the start which toasted a bit my rears. Marcos had the advantage in the first stint gaining like 0.5-0.8 a second per lap. Roberto & Jamie were in my mirrors the first 4 laps. Seems they had a fight which gave me a cushion for 6-7 laps. Jamie then pushed like hell trying to catch then overtake me. I had to aggressively defend which affected my fuel strategy. My engineer kept screaming "Fuel is marginal, lower mix, else we won't be able to finish the racel!!!". Only when Walter caught us up Jamie had another busy fight which eased things up on me

Damon: Then rain mixed things up as we saw

Tarek: We expected light rain and worked out a setup for those conditions. It is a matter on when to go in to change your tyres, and what compound to take. We extended our first stint 2 laps to avoid an additional pit stop. Walter overtook me right before the pit stop as my softs got heavily worn and track turned slippery. I let go knowing I could catch him in couple of laps, and I did after he had a moment of track at turn 6. And that hit with Williams backmarker not sure who

Damon: Mad at him?

Tarek: Though it meant losing 17-18 seconds spinning into gravel, yet no. Things like that happen in wet conditions. This is racing. Yet it meant a change in strategy with rain stopping around lap 31. I took the risk of changing to mediums and take them to the end of the race. It paid off. Nice fight with Roberto. I knew he will have to do an additional pitstop thus I tried not to do anything stupid, yet try to overtake and I did as well. Had to manage my fuel and tyres till the end. As you saw, I finished with Walter in my mirrors

Damon: A podium finish for the season opener. Could it been better?

Tarek: Our target was top 6. We finished podium. An excellent outcome. Though losing a lot to Marcos as a result of that incident, yet it does not mean I could have overtook Marcos. I had to look over Walter also who was strong and did not make it easy. Congrats to him also!!

Damon: Next weekend in Malaysia

Tarek: I do not personally favor that track. Balance there is tricky. Yet we'll see what happens. Looking forward to it

Damon: Any words for your eternal rival Jamie?

Tarek: Not sure why he retired. Yet no. I only wished for more fights with him today. Not that I did not have fun fighting Roberto and Walter !!

Congratulations Tarek! :-D

Well done tarek good battle for a bit, good to be on the grid again with someone who knows how to fight wheel to wheel.

wheel to weelo!

Thanks Jamie, Thanks Julian
Looking forward to more fights regardless of results.
I feel terrible for Tim though. The guy is real fast and consistent

one more lap and i overtake you good strategy,I thought you had soft tyres like to me. nice drive

Yea Walter ... I was praying for the chequered flag
1-2 laps more you might had a chance on me