Valsecchi, Razia and Gutierrez discuss their race

GP2 Series: Davide, congratulations. Fantastic job today! How was it from the car?Davide Valsecchi: It was a really good race because you need to remember that I lost the win in Sepang because of the start. I was one of the fastest with Razia then. This weekend I was one of the fastest with Gutierrez. I had a good start and we could stay in front of everyone at the first corner. It was a good way to start the race. We were really fast. My car was perfect. I drove really well. Yesterday we deserved the pole. Today we deserved the win. I’m really happy about the start because it’s always a bit of an issue for me and we managed to stay in front today at the first corner. It was not a fantastic one because Gutierrez was next to me, but it was enough to keep the lead.GP2 Series: What did you think when the safety car came out?Valsecchi: Not much. It happens. It was okay because I had already pitted. I was confident that I had good tyres for the second part of the race. And the restart does not really move me. It’s important to maintain the pace until the end. The restart is the same for everyone and usually the man who has the advantage is the first one. So, I tried to do my best to keep the lead. For the rest, my pace was good. When you are in the lead, you are much stronger mentally than when you are second or third...GP2 Series: Let’s talk about the tyres. Yesterday, you said you were not really worried about the degradation. How did it go today?Valsecchi: I was right. From my point of view there was not so much degradation. But, I told you that maybe I told it may not be a great advantage to have new tyres for the race and it looks that we had a bit of degradation during the first stint and when we put the second set for the second stint it was fine. At the end, there was normal degradation but it was enough to stay on pace.GP2 Series: As soon as Razia went P2, you set the fastest laptime. Did your team tell you on the radio?Valsecchi: They told me that P2 had changed but they did not tell me that it was Razia specifically. I thought that maybe it was Cecotto because he was one of the fastest at the beginning. I saw that he was really aggressive. I was a bit confused. The team told me what the fastest laptime was and I was lucky to have fresh tyres to beat it and get the bonus points. Anyway, I’m really happy that I drove well today and deserved to win.GP2 Series: Yes, you’ve had a perfect weekend so far. What about tomorrow?Valsecchi: You know, I was lucky today because using the tyres when you are leading helps you do what you want. And so you can preserve them better and they last longer. When you are behind, it is much more difficult. I know I finished the race 6 seconds ahead of Razia, but maybe because he starts ahead of me tomorrow, he will be able to preserve his tyres better. Tomorrow is another day and another story. I don’t think I will start with a big advantage, but I am confident that we can score some points if we finish the race and we try to avoid incidents at the start. I hope I can make a good one and we will see. But I hear that today, the race was fantastic behind me! So it should be fun tomorrow!--GP2 Series: Luiz, P2 today. Happy?Luiz Razia: Yes. I think that yesterday we had a bit of traffic in qualifying and it cost us two tenths. We should have been around P4-3 today on the grid. I knew my car was good. We spent a lot of time yesterday to analyse the data and looking for the optimum car for today and we got it right so I am really happy. The boys did a great job on the pitstop as well. The two teams that came in with me which were Barwa and Lotus, they struggled and I overtook then on the pistop. My engineer gave me a good car. My start was good. We had a good clutch map also. Everything went right.GP2 Series: You had an amazing start. How was it from the car?Razia: It was great! We spent a lot of time on the clutch map to get the optimum for the soft tyres. And then the reaction was fine. I have been practicing a lot in the workshop. I went on the right and everything went right today.GP2 Series: By the time you got P2 it was too late to catch Valsecchi...Razia: We saw that when you start P1 you can control the race. I thing Valsecchi did that very well. I did that in Malaysia and could save my tyres and push whenever I needed to. Valsecchi did the same today. When I was P2 he did the fastest lap. I tried and I could not and I saved my tyres to finish P2 which is a great result.GP2 Series: We saw a lot of drivers struggle on their tyres. Was it difficult to save them?Razia: Yes. It was really hard. The teams were aware of this situation after qualifying: the degradation here is quite high and you need to change your driving style a bit from qualifying. We managed to do that and this is great.GP2 Series: What about tomorrow?Razia: Well I am not thinking staying ahead of Valsecchi. My goal is to race the best I can. Last time we did a good race. We finished P5. We had a great car today so I hope that it will be the same situation tomorrow. I will be starting from P7 which is already one position better than in Race 2 in Malaysia. So if we do a good start which we did today, maybe we can be P5 again... I don’t know. Let’s see tomorrow.--GP2 Series: Esteban, P3 today. Good job but you said yesterday that you did not want to finish lower than P2... What happened?Esteban Gutierrez: It was a difficult race, It was really challenging especially with the tyre management. We lost a lot of time in the pitstop. I think without this problem for sure we could have been second at least. Of course we need to work a lot because P1 seems to be quite challenging especially on the track and on this event. But it’s a good experience. In the end we have to be happy because we recovered really well and we scored important points. The season is still long. We will be focusing on improving different aspects and try to see the best way to go forward.GP2 Series: You had a good start, but not good enough to pass Valsecchi and then you could not match his pace. How can you explain that?Gutierrez: Yes, the strategy was to make a good start and overtake Valsecchi. Which was a really good strategy don’t you think? (Laughs) But it was a good competition on the first stint. We had too much pressure on the tyres and running behind Davide was really difficult. I was a bit too close and it was hard to preserve the tyres and I had to pit very early. Then we had a problem at the pitstop and we lost six seconds and by the time I came out I was P10 or 9. So I focused on saving the tyres. I was analysing the guys in front, their driving and predict which lap their tyres would degrade to have a balance between taking risks but not too much. In the end, the predictions were quite good. Maybe I should have pushed a bit more to take Razia but my focus in the end of the race was Chilton.GP2 Series: You fought back hard to take P3, especially on the last lap. How was it from the car?Gutierrez: It was very exciting because it was a fair fight, a clean fight. This is what we love. I love competition. It makes life interesting! It was a great feeling. It was important to control my emotions. You need to be cold headed and in the end we achieved it and it was really good in the last few corners. I’m really happy and so is the team. We never stop pushing and we need to work in the right direction. We need to fine tune everything to have the perfect package.GP2 Series: What about tomorrow?Gutierrez: Our race today will help us gain information and tomorrow we need to finish in the points and this will happen if we make a good start and a clean race. In the end we want to score as many points as possible. That’s the most important


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