You mentioned opening doors for next year, has this opened your mind to racing outside the Red Bull family? For a lot of young drivers it’s always all about getting to Red Bull, but while I’m sure it’s still a target for you but are you also thinking there could be options elsewhere?
I think why not? Honestly, I think everything is possible now. Once again I don’t want to talk too much before it becomes a nice series of races with Toro Rosso. After that we will see, but I’m quite open-minded now to be honest. Sometimes your career might need a change, it might need a bit of fresh air and who knows what is laying there for me in the future? You never know but first things first we need strong pace, strong remaining races with Toro Rosso. I’m very motivated, the team is very motivated, they have been mega supportive. So at the moment to be honest for the support Toro Rosso gave to me I want to give my 101% to them until the very end, regardless of what happens in the future. I’m now with Toro Rosso and I will just be pushing really hard for them and then after that if it will all pay off then we will see.
You have a new team-mate alongside you in Carlos who you have raced with in lower categories, how long do you think it will take for you to really have a fair comparison against him here?
I think to be honest it shouldn’t be any time. Now at this kind of level in Formula 1 you should be able to get here and be OK straight away. Of course he had a very strong weekend in Barcelona, I think he was a very hard one to beat there, but from now on it starts to be quite an open thing for me. Carlos is a very, very strong driver, a great reference, especially on Saturdays, and let’s see. Let’s see where the turning point will be, of course I’ll be giving my best straight away. We just need to have clean Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and obviously we are already on our way to that.
If I could ask you what your dream scenario would be sat here this time next year, what would it be? Would it be to be back in a Red Bull or to be somewhere else in F1?
I will have to see… Regardless of what’s going to happen I really don’t know the answer to this question, to be honest. For sure I want to be in a position to win races. I want to be in a position to have a very successful year next year and of course it’s all up to me to use these opportunities now and to put myself in that kind of position. So my only motivation now is to put myself in this kind of position with good race results.
Hopefully for you this season goes well with Toro Rosso and you can prove yourself again, but even if you can earn a Red Bull seat again do you think you could earn that support that you said was maybe missing from the team members?
I think in any case I would have to think. Let’s see. First things first results would work, now I am a lot more grown up person in terms of what to do outside the race track and I think I would be able to deal with it. If I have the right cards in my pocket I know what to do.
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