2019 Round 6 post-Feature Race press conference

__FIA Formula 2: Hello and welcome to the press conference with the top three finishers in today's FIA Formula 2 Feature Race here in Austria. We are joined by race winner Nobuharu Matsushita for Carlin, in second place is Luca Ghiotto for UNI-Virtuosi Racing and in third place is Nyck de Vries for ART Grand Prix. Nobu, your first win since returning to Formula 2 this year. Just how sweet does this one feel?

Nobuharu Matsushita__: Absolutely amazing. This is my first win in a Feature Race so I'm also happy about that. My start wasn't great, it wasn't the best, but after that I think it was the best driving in my career so far in F2. I'm really happy about that. It was an amazing car, so thank you for that Carlin.

__FIA Formula 2: Just how difficult was it to judge pace in this race today? We've seen a lot of people struggling with tyres, how was it for you?

Nobuharu__: For me I just tried to follow Nyck, and his pace was also good. I heard from the engineer that my pace wasn't too bad so I just had to keep like this and manage my tyres. I did that and in the end I had more pace than these guys so I'm happy about that.

__FIA Formula 2: If I could just ask you about the closing laps when we had all three of you fighting together. How did you approach that and how aggressive did you have to be?

Nobuharu__: Behind me I thought Luca was quicker than me, so that's why I wanted to pass Nyck as soon as possible to not fight too much. Then I managed to overtake him in Turn 1, and I only had to do it once, so that was really good.

__FIA Formula 2: Well done today. Luca moving on to you. We'll start with that battle towards the end there. As you were closing in and could see the top two ahead of you, were your thoughts on the victory at that time?

Luca Ghiotto__: Yeah, you always try to go for that. I hoped for it because I saw that Matsu Nobuharu Matsushita was catching up on Nyck and I was catching up on both of them, but that's probably where I really finished my tyres because after I overtook Nyck I really had no more pace left to try and stay with Nobu. He was just quicker than me. Overall it's always exciting when you see all the top three coming together and I was the fastest, but with these tyres you always need to wait until the last corner to see if they're going to last or not. With five laps to go I was the fastest of the top three, and then two laps to go I was slower than Nobu.

FIA Formula 2: You've not had the smoothest run of results recently, so how much of a relief is it to get this second place today?

Luca: It's probably the most tasteful champagne I've drank in the last few years really! Laughs I just wanted it so much. It's really a good result. The only fact is that every time I finish second in the Feature Race it always feels worse because in four years of F2, for me to win the Feature Race is becoming more and more of a taboo because I don't know how to do it laughs. Every time I get close I can never win it! It feels good to be in second place but at the same time it feels really bad, so I will try to fix this as soon as possible.

FIA Formula 2: Well done today, good drive. Nyck, moving on to you. You said in the press conference yesterday that today would be a challenging race. You were prepared for that but did you expect it to be this challenging?

Nyck de Vries: I expected it to be that challenging, but I thought for at least the majority of my prime stint after the pit stop that everything was under control. Personally I don't think I should be here today because Sérgio Sette Câmara finished third on track but obviously he got a penalty so we got promoted to P3. We'll take that for the points. Apparently I was too eager in the first phase of the prime stint and asked too much from my tyres, and when you've done that there is no way back and no way to recover. When Nobu and Luca came close to me towards the end of the race there was no way I could defend or do anything. The grip differences at that stage are so big that you're just a passenger and you're just praying for the end of the race, but we'll take P3 and the points.

FIA Formula 2: As you say, there was one stage where you'd opened up a gap of about six seconds I think over Nobu. Did you feel comfortable at that stage? When did you start to feel like you might have been in a bit of trouble?

Nyck: I started to feel it would be tough like eight laps to go. It was also a bit annoying because obviously we were reaching quite a lot of people who started on the prime tyre and Mick Schumacher came from the pit lane and he was lapping me, then unlapping me, and he was pushing. In the beginning I thought I'd rather stay in front so I pushed a bit harder and then I was like 'this is too quick so I need to release him'. In terms of management that wasn't ideal but there's no excuses. I mean I'm in the car and it's my job to do that. Clearly these guys were stronger than us today so well done to them.

FIA Formula 2: Thank you very much. Nobu just returning to you. It's been a bit of an up and down season for you so far, so what's going to be the key to use this result to find some more consistency?

Nobuharu: Obviously I've had a lot of bad luck and my own mistakes as well too sometimes. I'd like it if I changed my luck today, and then could stay on the positive side for the rest of the season. I will try my best in qualifying and try to make sure that I'm in the top five for the whole race and then hopefully be on the podium in the first race, or in both races! I'd like to keep this momentum.