#the gpda is as close as he can get in this life i think

[meightyone]

george russell forced to be an f1 driver born to be a member of the student council in a high school-based anime where the student council inexplicably holds all-encompassing power

[maxielxy]

Max’s highlights at 2019 press conferences

Australia Thursday

Q：Max, you said some things could have been better. What could have been better?

MV: Some things. I cannot go into detail, can I? No, I can’t.

Q：What was the nicest, funniest or weirdest thing you’ve done in the winter of 2018/2019?

MV：Some more exciting things happened, some less exciting things happened but should I share them? I don’t think so.

Spain Sunday

Q：What are the strengths of your car? What are the good characteristics?

MV: I think at the moment we’re not really better in any corner than Mercedes.

Monaco Wednesday

Q: Now, with many people saying you are in the best moment as a driver, does it disturb you, to think to enjoy your moment, to change your history in this grand prix?

MV: I’ve done four, hopefully I’ll do another 20, so I have a lot of chances to do a good result.

Q:  They always say ‘after that, he became more mature.’ How do you see that yourself?

MV：Well, I think not only after that, I think in general, it’s life. I’m getting older, general life experience but yes, sometimes you have to make mistakes to become a better driver and so this was one of them.

Monaco Saturday

Q: What was the target, what was realistic and are you satisfied with third place?

MV：I think this is my first qualifying here but I’ve only done three now.

Austria Thursday

Q: Just tell us a little bit about the performance of the car？

MV: Great!

Q：How would you like a race on London streets – or would you rather stay at Silverstone if it was one or the other?

MV: Silverstone is a great track, so, if they want a street circuit it needs to be an extra grand prix then.

Q: How do you like the idea to have only ex-Formula One drivers as stewards?

MV: For me, I think it’s not good to have the same stewards all the time – because it’s the same in football: if you have a referee who doesn’t like you, and you always have to play with that same referee, I don’t think it’s a lot of fun.

Q：As drivers, do you feel the sport’s in crisis?

CL: As Checo said, already from having a closer field would help, cars that can follow closer to each other will help also for overtaking and these are done by a few things and these other points agreed inside the… FDA!? No?!

MV: Ferrari driver academy?

CL: … the GPDA

MV： At the end of the day, even with the new rules coming at the moment, everybody is just speaking for their own advantage. Maybe it’s just better to leave out all the teams from the discussions and just say these are the rules and you deal with it.

Q:   Is it more skewed to qualifying than the race and is it still that balance of car and engine that’s holding you back?

MV: I think I explained that in the beginning of the press conference where I see I’m losing, compared to Mercedes and Ferrari. Probably somebody recorded it so you can look back at it.

Austria Saturday

Q: Yesterday Helmut Marko confirmed there is an escape clause in your contract. Can you tell the details about it?

MV: What do you think, my friend? Of course not! Why would I? I know, but I don’t care.

Austria Sunday

Q:Juan Pablo Montoya said yesterday that he wanted to be a race steward,  are you happy with that? 

MV: I think he was quite a hard racer himself so I would definitely support him being a steward. I think he would be my mate.

Germany Sunday

Q: How does it compare to the other six wins?

MV: Are you going to keep asking me that question: ‘how does it feel compared to the other ones’? I don’t know. It’s always different.  I mean now, after the race, I can say I did that 360 for the crowd, but at the time it was a bit tricky out there with the medium tyre, very low grip.

Q: Seb, do you consider this second place almost as a victory from what happened yesterday, from what happened today?

SV：For us it’s dull, as drivers so I think we rather enjoy here, close to the Netherlands with a lot of Dutch people coming…

MV: It was a bit tricky today because it was orange against red, you know those colours don’t really match.

SV: Well, they’re similar. I was taking the orange as well on my side.

MV: When they were going up, right?

Hungary Saturday

Q: Lewis, seven years ago you were here the winner but 2012 we had six champions in the peloton and you were only a one-time champion. Today we have only three champions in the peloton and you are a five-time champion.

MV: I didn’t know we had a peloton…

Q：Max is the top scorer in the last four races?

MV: You need to be the top scorer over the whole season, that’s what counts.

Q:  Max, throughout your career so far you’ve held the majority of records for being the youngest driver to hit certain achievements. This is one of the few things you’ve missed out on. Do you care much for those kind of accolades and records – or not really?

MV: No. I don't’ know, I can make it a long story but it’s not so. It’s nice but it doesn’t make me sleep better, or anything.

Q: Renault claims that the engine is now at 1000bhp. What about Honda and Mercedes engines in this case? And an engineer said it’s impossible right now in this state to break this, also for Ferrari.

MV: Well, if they claim to have a thousand horsepower they have a really bad car! I think it’s better to do the talking on the track than in the media anyway.

Hungary Sunday

Q: How do you feel close with nine championship titles.

MV: I don’t know what to say! I have none! I don’t know what to comment on this! I still have a few years, hopefully in F1, so hopefully one day I can add one. Yeah. That’s it, I think.

Belgium Thursday

Q:We know you for five seasons already and every time we are writing ‘Max is a very good young driver’. What do you think? How long can you be a young driver?

MV: Until I’m old. Is it 30 that you get old? Thirty. OK. Well, I guess there’s eight and a half more years.

Japan Thursday

Q: Do you want to be consulted when it comes to deciding whether it goes ahead on Saturday?

MV: I’ve got my speedboat on standby so I’m ready to go for Saturday.

United States Thursday

Q:Lewis had some comments to say about you after the last race. Said he affords you more space than other drivers in fear of being torpedoed. And I think Seb also said that he copy-and-pasted what Lewis had to say. I was wondering what your feeling is about those two comments?

MV: From my side, yeah, it was a bit of a silly comment to make. I think I’m always a hard racer but fair. I think it’s just not correct – but of course it’s easy to have a dig at someone. From my side, it’s fine. It’s always positive when the talk about you. That means you’re in their head, So, for my side, I just focus on my driving and I think that’s enough said.

Q: Do you think that you’re getting dug out by Lewis, by Sebastian? They don’t seem to dig anyone else out, it just seems to be you; you seem to be the centre of attention a lot of time.

MV: I think from my side it only shows that I’m in their heads and I guess that’s a good thing but from my side I don’t need to dig in to other people in the press conferences because first of all I think it’s a bit disrespectful as well and I prefer to fight on track which I love to do and of course I like to fight hard but on the edge. Otherwise, if they want me to stay behind, it’s also better to stay at home. I really want to take the fight to them because that’s what we are here for. We are racers, we in Formula One, I think we are the best out there and we do fight for victories because that’s what I live for.

Abu Dhabi Thursday

Q: Max, you’d like to offer your worst of the season?

MV: Er, no – save the time.

Q:  If you were the director of the Drive to Survive documentary on Netflix, what moment of the season would you definitely put in?

MV: Hockenheim.

Q: Do you every focus yourself like looking at Lewis, maybe winning six?

MV: I was thinking about ten.

Abu Dhabi Sunday

Q: Were you surprised by your dominance today, because you were 13 seconds ahead of Max after 20 laps?

LH: Yeah, I definitely wasn’t expecting to haver the pace advantage to that extent.

MV: You could have slowed down!