Q. Mark, a great drive for you and the ultimate reward with a win. How was post race and the reaction worldwide?
Mark WEBBER: Post race was very good. The team had a bit of a party that night and enjoyed (themselves after) their hard work from the whole week. It is an extended week in Monaco with the running on Thursday and then back to back with Barcelona, so a pretty tight turn-around and we managed to have a clean weekend and got a good result. The guys and girls enjoyed their result. I did as well. It was a very rewarding weekend, no question about it. It is a special race to win. It is a pretty challenging circuit and now looking forward to this one.
Q. How has the reaction been worldwide as winning Monaco, as you say, is the one to win?
MW: I suppose quite a few more people might watch Monte Carlo as a sporting event, so the general interest is probably a little bit higher than maybe some other races. What helped I suppose were the celebrations after the race. Red Bull always does things pretty cool and it made for a nice wrap-up of the weekend I suppose. That was a nice way for the media to tell the story.
Q. You basically getting wet?
MW: We had some fun.
Q. Jarno, a quick word about how Lotus are improving. They seem to be getting closer and closer to the established teams. How close can they get? Can they overtake them?
JT: I think Lotus is looking better than people can see from the race results. I am really happy about that. The team is growing up really well inside. In terms of results we started the season pretty much too far away from where we wanted to be, so I think people start to understand that we need now to focus on the 2011 season as it will be hard to catch up with the top teams this year. It is probably easier to get ready for 2011. But it is good to see that the team is improving and growing inside in the way they operate and in the way now the team is structured in order to get ready for the big challenge. This year the biggest challenge was to get on the grid and get the team ready for the season and next year will be the other challenge to try and close our gap and be mid-field. I am pretty happy. I think the combination of Mike Gascoyne and Tony Fernandes is looking good in my opinion.
Q. Rubens, I think Williams have been giving Cosworth quite a bit of feedback recently. What has been your impression of the Cosworth engine? How do you feel that that engine is? Where can it be improved? Can it be improved?
RB: As a first year I think they are doing quite well. We were expecting for the whole package to be better but all in all whenever we go to Q3 I think we are doing quite well as we don't have the whole package as good as Force India or Renault. Cosworth is trying very hard on their own, trying to sort the problems out. There are some issues with the fact that the engine starts quite well but through its life loses power, maybe a little bit more than the other engines. We are trying to work with that and see where we can get.
Q. Karun, looking at the HRT team that has now split from Dallara, what positives are there to be taken from that? Can you do your own thing with, maybe, Geoff Willis involved?
KC: They have just made the announcement yesterday and it is not really my place to comment on the way forward. I think that is something that Colin (Kolles) and the team need to talk about. There were limitations. I have driven Dallara cars in the past and I have a lot of respect for them but being a commercial car manufacturer or if you like race car manufacturer there are limitations to what a specialist Formula 1 team can do and can operate and develop. As it's been announced it is split now and I think that is a question for the team really on what is being developed. I just rock up and drive what they give me.
Q. Michael, since Barcelona I think you have been happier in the car. Tell us what we can expect, what you expect from yourself, in the upcoming races?
MS: If you see the position we are in, it is that Red Bull is driving a little bit in their own world and delivering a good driver's job on top, so it is not just the car that you have to see there. After that it is Ferrari, McLaren, Renault and ourselves and I hope we have another little step of development here that moves us closer to this group and to be in a reasonable position to fight with them and hopefully be in front of them. It is to be seen here exactly where we are. Monaco, I don't think, is a guideline or a reference. It is a very specific track, so it is interesting from our point of view what is going to happen this weekend.
Q. Do you think this should be a continuation of Barcelona, given that Monaco is a very specific track?
MS: Yeah, if you look, we have been in a reasonable position basically right from the beginning of the season and it has continuously gone upward. I have had two races in Australia and Malaysia I couldn't really prove from my side but from the team's side that was proven. If you take Shanghai away it just continues, Barcelona and Monaco onwards and I think it does it here and therefore it will be interesting how our car can perform physically here with the latest upgrades we have given to it.
Q. Mark, tell us a little bit about the Red Bull as the car itself seems to be quite a complicated car. How complicated is it for a driver to set it up and get the car performing to its limit?
MW: I don't think it is that complicated. A lot of Formula 1 cars are complicated, the McLaren and there are a few cars out there with some pretty good ideas on them. I wouldn't say it is a great deal more complicated than last year's car. We have good data from last year in terms of the tires. There have been a few changes, obviously the fuel load and things like that but there has been some stuff we can carry over in terms of set-up and stuff which is good for us to have the knowledge going forward in terms of setting the car up for this year as well. No real big surprises for us. We understand the car well and it is down to a lot of years of hard work and guys interpreting how to get the most out of it. It is going well at the moment but we know from last year that cars that are flying at the start of the year can be exposed at the end of the year. We are very conscious of the fact that we are going pretty good at the moment but we know it is a long season.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q. (Dan Knutson - National Speed Sport News) To all of you: Bernie Ecclestone has announced that there will be a U.S. Grand Prix in Austin, Texas. I'm looking at your T-shirts and caps and I see names like Mercedes Benz, Red Bull, AT&T. How important is it for your teams' sponsors to have a race in the U.S.?
MW: It's a huge market, we know that. A lot of people live in North America and they're very passionate about their sport. There's naturally a lot of people involved in our business who do business in North America. If it's of benefit for all of us to go there and hold a Grand Prix under their noses and for them to embrace Formula 1 racing as best they can – because obviously it's a different kind of sport for them, let's say – so we've seen in the past that it has worked OK at Indy, and it can be exciting in Texas, so let's see how it goes. For Red Bull, we sell a lot of cans over there and it will be good if we can sell some more.
MS: Certainly, it's one of the beautiful places around the world to go to and enjoy some good times, lots of great opportunities. For me, naturally, I love to go and race there as it allows me to spend some days before the race to hang out there and enjoy it. But more important for most of the manufacturers that are involved in Formula 1, America is a very important market. If you think of how many countries like Brazil, Argentina, all those countries in South America, how many we had of those guys at Indy, then we should have even more, because logistically it's easier to go to Texas than all the way up to Indy. Hopefully, that's the case because one of the points that we have been missing is the sort of excitement that Formula 1 can create and can give to the fans that are in America. Yeah, it has not fully arrived, but quite honestly you cannot expect those things to happen overnight. You have to give it continuation, and this continuation hasn't happened for a long enough time, plus maybe we haven't yet got a known or successful American driver in our group that would be quite helpful for this. But certainly from our point of view we are very happy to go there.
KC: It's more of the same, really. I think America is a more developed market than say India. It's a similar thing, they are huge markets with untapped potential as far as Formula 1 and its partners are concerned. I think that to have a dedicated venue is a new thing. I guess Watkins Glen, so Bernie was saying, was the last time we had one. Maybe that's what it needs, a dedicated Formula 1 site. I'm very excited to go there. My mum's from San Antonio and my grandparents still live in Texas, so I'd love to go there and have a race.
RB: On a personal side I love America as a whole. I've also spent a lot of time there with the family, so it's really good to be going to that side. From the manufacturers' point of view, it's just a great opportunity that's back again and we should never have stopped racing there. Even though the fans don't know Formula 1, they are aware and they obviously know more of NASCAR and IndyCar but it's a great opportunity for us to show our show and get together.
JT: I like going to the U.S., I think it's a good market and I also think that the Formula 1 circus is a worldwide business, so why not? We would be more than welcome to go there.