What are your main memories of Sepang as a circuit? Malaysia has been good and bad for me in the past; I’ve had a few bad races there but I’ve also won three times at the circuit including my first Grand Prix victory so it’s nice to go back to where it all began with my first win. For sure I will always remember that my first win came in Malaysian Grand Prix in 2003. As it’s the location of your first win, does that mean it’s a special place for you? I would not say that circuit is more important for me – it’s not that special for me - but it's quite a nice place to race at. I like it and the challenge is always at the highest level in the beginning of the year in the heat. It's also one of those circuits where it usually rains sometime during the weekend. So you have to plan the programme with that possibility, too. Winning the first race of the season automatically means you’re leading the Drivers’ Championship; it must be a pretty good start to your year? It feels good but it’s only after one race. It doesn’t really change our aim and how we approach this year. Definitely, we are happy with the win but there is an awful lot to still to do to win the championship. We seemed to have a good car in Albert Park, so hopefully it works well in the next races also. Is a win so early in the season more important? A win’s a win, it doesn’t really matter when in the season you get it. Of course I’m happy that we didn’t really have to go full speed all the time so it’s kind of a good sign, a good race for us, but as I said, it might be a completely different story in Malaysia, so there’s nothing to jump up and be so extra happy about. It’s a long season and in the end we want to be on the top for all the races and it’s going to be a hard season for that. Everything worked well in Australia, we had no issues with the car all weekend, the car’s been good and the team has been working well. It’s good to come back from winter testing where I probably did the least laps of everybody, in that respect we didn’t have a very special winter. What are your thoughts looking ahead to Malaysia? It’s a difference place, it’s going to be much hotter there so it’s very difficult to say how the cars will feel, who will be fastest after having just one race. I think we have to do two or three races before we really know who is where and what’s going to happen. It’s probably going to rain again in Malaysia at some point but it will be a different circuit, different conditions. Our car worked well in Australia and usually – at least last year – in hot conditions it’s been good for us so hopefully it will turn out to be a good weekend. Do you think the team can maintain the initial momentum? There was a big question mark last year over whether our team could keep up with the development of the bigger teams and I don’t think we did a bad job. Of course it’s not going to be easy for us. I’m sure we have the people and all the tools to make it happen. Budget is always a factor and it’s no secret that we don’t have the same money as Ferrari, Red Bull or Mercedes. If we did have more sponsors I’m sure we’d have a better chance in the battle against those teams. It’s a long season. If you do things right it will go nicely but one thing can change the whole year. You do a few things a little bit wrong it can turn around and go downhill after that. So we just have to do our normal things, like we did last year and put the good effort into new parts and if we’re happy we keep them and if not we have to look more closely. But like I said, so far it has been good, so there is no reason why we can’t keep it up.

Sepang International is a circuit you like a lot, why? Sepang is probably my favourite track of the whole season. I first raced there in 2008 as part of the GP2 Asia Series and I really loved the circuit. It’s nice and wide, with fast flowing corners and a lot of undulation which makes it great fun to drive. The last corner is a tricky one, but I enjoy everything about racing there. Well, maybe not the heat and humidity, but at the end of the day it’s just another challenge for the drivers! I’m really looking forward to it. Talk us through your race in Melbourne, it wasn’t quite what you wanted? Yes, it’s a shame as everything looked positive after qualifying in the morning, but in the race something felt wrong with my car. I sat down with my engineers to analyse where the problem came from and we hopefully will be able to perform better in the future. The car felt so good at times over the weekend, but then at other times it wasn’t where I wanted it to be. It meant that the race felt long and pretty difficult for me. We know that Albert Park can be a tricky circuit to understand and the weather certainly didn’t help us. It was very frustrating and I’m disappointed for the team and for myself as I wanted to start the season with a strong result. But I’ll sit with the engineers and work out how best to improve for the race ahead, and we’ll work hard to achieve the maximum, as always. If the car is capable of being on the podium then I want to be there. After a frustrating race do you simply press the reset button for the next event? Pretty much. Of course, you want to be able to use everything you’ve learnt, but you always approach a race wanting to do your best and you don’t let a result which wasn’t as good as you wanted get in the way of that. I’m having a very short break between Australia and Malaysia to let me recharge my batteries so that I’ll arrive in Sepang fresh and ready to deliver my best on track. The good news is that the car looks strong in terms of performance. Does this give you confidence going to Malaysia? Clearly Kimi’s car worked very well in Australia and the fact that mine felt good at times over the weekend gives us a clear target for where we want to get the setup and a guide of what the car is capable of. I want to be scoring 25 points in a Grand Prix for the team. I’m working closely with my engineers to understand exactly what is required to ensure the E21 is at its best for me. Knowing that we’re very close to getting the car where I want it is certainly promising. How difficult is Sepang in the wet? Last year it was difficult for sure, but we’ve made some good improvements in our wet performance which we were able to show in the difficult conditions in Australia. This means I’m confident we can put on a good show no matter what the weather. Back to back races always put an extra strain on the team, especially when heading to a climate like that of Malaysia. How do you plan to recover and prepare for the next race? There are a few things that help in these situations. Firstly, it’s important to continue your training regime as normal, no matter how much you may want to just sleep! Then the key is to adjust your body to the time difference and climate, particularly the latter in Malaysia where the heat and humidity make it one of the most difficult races of the year physically.

Let’s start with Melbourne – first race, first win. Did you think the team could do it? After Kimi’s start I was secretly hoping that we could be on a podium, but then during the second stint - where we saw the other teams pitting for the second time -  showing that they were on a three stop strategy, then I thought ‘yes we can do it’. We had decided on a two-stop strategy before the race, even for Romain. Unfortunately, when he got stuck in traffic he changed strategy otherwise we could have had a strong result from both cars. How confident were you in the team’s approach? You never know what the other teams are planning, but we knew we could make a two stop work - I would not say comfortably - but we knew we could do it. What we were expecting was our pace, our relative pace in the race as well, and it was very good. What steps has Kimi made over the winter? Well he’s smiling more! Kimi is Kimi, he builds himself up –he had a strong season last year, and he ended it even more strongly than he started. He’s starting this season as he finished last year, so he will keep building. I don’t think there is anyone on earth who can tell Kimi what to do, so I’m not going to start! It’s true that the environment we have in Enstone is different and we encourage everyone to be creative and to be themselves – and that seems much better for everyone. For Kimi we do this as much as possible by limiting what he hates. Do you feel the win in Melbourne makes Lotus F1 Team title contenders for the 2013 season? We’re just one race in. We clearly stated that we wanted to be one of the top teams this year, and starting the season like this means that we should be able to fight to reach our target, which is finishing third in the Constructors' Championship. I think Lotus F1 Team is truly a top team now. If we can be in the position where we can compete for wins, then that is where we wanted to be. From what we’ve achieved in the first race we can build on that nice momentum to one day become World Champions again. Do you think we’re facing a season where having the quickest car over a single lap doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll win the race? We saw it last year already. In the season a couple of times we caught the leaders in the race because we had a different strategy, or our cars were better on tyres. We worked very hard to make sure that we kept the strengths of last year’s E20, and it’s true that with the 2013 tyres and the fact that they degrade a little more, has put us in a better position. This said, Melbourne is such a special track that we should wait a bit more before knowing our potential better.  Do you expect the other teams to respond to this? First of all, we didn’t have a normal weekend and I’m not sure that everyone got the chance to put the right set up on their cars – especially for the race. So let’s see in Malaysia if we have a normal weekend. That will be the test. I’m sure it’s going to be a little bit tougher for us, but I’m sure we’ll put in another very strong performance. What’s the plan for Sepang? We have some new developments, which is good news, and the hot temperature should help us to do an even better job.

You must be rather pleased to see such an imperious performance from the E21 in Melbourne? It was a splendid thing we witnessed at Albert Park. It’s days like these, which fill you with complete satisfaction, that makes everything about this job worthwhile and that will be true for everyone involved with the team. We were a little deflated after qualifying as we knew the car had better pace than our grid positions suggested, but every element of the race performance – from Kimi’s driving to the strategy and pit stops – came together to create a fantastic team result. Were you surprised at how well the tyres lasted? We were confident from the long run pace we’d seen on Friday that we could make a two-stop strategy work, but even so it was hugely satisfying to see the lap times ticking off metronomically without any real fear that the tyres weren’t going to go the distance. Despite coming to the end of a long stint, the final moments saw Kimi pulling out fastest laps of the race and it didn’t look as though his tyres were dropping off. He wasn’t struggling or showboating at the end, he was just running at the pace the car was comfortable with, which is hugely encouraging. A few niggles in testing coupled with the unpredictability of this year’s field made it hard to gauge where we stood heading to Australia; would you now consider the E21 a certified front runner? I think mechanically we have a strong car. As said repeatedly since the beginning of the season, the annoyances we had in the garages were just that – annoyances – rather than worries. We’ve clearly shown that by running both drivers – problem free – to the flag. Kimi was full of praise for his car on Sunday night and both drivers showed decent pace at various points in the weekend, but I think if you look at Romain’s post-race comments it shows how marginal these things can be. Getting the set up just so and having both driver and car working in harmony is far from a given, so there’s no room for complacency at all. How different is the challenge in Malaysia? Albert Park is not an average F1 track. It has a lot of similar, medium speed corners, but not very much from the high and low speed ends of the spectrum. Also, the race was conducted in cooler than expected conditions. When it is cool, tyre wear is dominated by graining. We were able to make the car work in these conditions, but it remains to be seen whether we can do the same when the wear mechanism shifts to traditional high temperature degradation. One thing we can be sure of is that Malaysia will deliver high temperature degradation in spades. We haven't seen anything other than good long run pace from the E21 so far, but we will have a much clearer idea of where things stand after second Free Practice on Friday. We feel optimistic but it's still very early and anything can happen. Any changes to the car for the second round? We have an experimental exhaust and bodywork combination, and a new front wing to try out. However, with tyre performance likely to play a critical part in the weekend, we will need to be careful not to get overly distracted trying out new parts at the expense of finding a good setup to make sure that we are using the tyres well. We will be aiming to keep the momentum up and hoping that we can repeat Kimi’s fantastic performance again this weekend with both cars.