Today's team representatives press conference with Christian Horner, Alessandro Alunni Bravi and Ayao Komatsu.

Q: Christian, can we start with you? So, we now know it's official, Adrian Newey is going to Aston Martin. Can we start by just getting your reaction to that news?
Christian Horner: Well, it wasn't a great surprise. I think it was becoming clearer and clearer that was the route that he was going to go rather than, you know, into retirement or any other team. And so, you know, obviously it'll be a new challenge for him. And, you know, we'll be sad to see it when he leaves next year. But, you know, wish him all the best for the future. You know, obviously I look back, you know, with great fondness, the time that, the 20 years almost that we spent together. And, you know, obviously the highs and lows during that period. But we look forward to the future. And I think we're well positioned for that.

Q: You know the impact that Adrian had on your team when he joined. What have Aston Martin got to look forward to?
CH: Adrian is obviously a very creative guy and he's not your average designer. I think he's the only person still in Formula 1 working on a drawing board. So inevitably there will be a process of having to get to know each other, how each other work and so on. But yeah, he's unique in many respects and I think that Aston will obviously look to draw upon his huge experience.

Q: OK, what about the here and now? The competition have caught up. What is the mood in the camp at Red Bull Racing now compared to three months ago?
CH: I think it's pretty positive. I mean definitely coming out of Monza was a tough weekend for us. But I think out of every negative comes a positive. And I think the negativity of that weekend exposed some key areas of the car that we've been grappling with for some time. And I think it's given a clear direction. And so, you know, the whole team, from the drivers putting in large amounts of time on the simulator, all the way through every single department are really determined and pushing as hard as possible. Some long hours going in in Milton Keynes at the moment from all the men and women back there. And hopefully, we can turn things around.

Q: I mean, FP1 here in Baku looked promising. But how quickly can you turn things around? How quickly do you need to turn things around?
CH: Well, things can change pretty quickly. I mean, we've won seven Grands Prix this year. The most, or Max has certainly won seven, the most that any other driver has is two wins. So, things can change quickly. And, you know, we've had some imbalances in the car that we've been looking to understand and I think we've got a clear direction on that now. But, of course, it takes a period of time. It's one thing understanding the issue, it's another thing addressing it and getting the parts on the car that enable that to happen.

Q: If you took this car back to a circuit where you dominated earlier in the season, Bahrain let's say, would it be slower than you were at the race?
CH: No, no, no. I think that there's several aspects. One thing you're talking about is in terms of absolute load that you're putting on the car through upgrades, but then you have balance as well. And I think we had a better balanced car at the beginning of the year. I think as we've put load on the car, it hasn't correlated with what we've seen in our tools. And I think a couple of other teams have had that as well. So as we're starting to push the extremities of these regulations, Sometimes you find that correlation drops out between track and your simulation tools, which are primarily the wind tunnel and CFD. And so there's been obviously a big push to understand that and address it.

Q: And how do you see the two championships now?
CH: Look, there's everything to play for. I mean, obviously Max in the Drivers' Championship has a solid lead, but it's nothing you can take for granted with eight races to go. So we're super conscious of that with races and Sprint races. It only takes a couple of bad weekends and big weekends from Lando, and suddenly it's an awful lot closer. The Constructors', it's a three-horse race. I mean, obviously we're eight points ahead of McLaren, but you can't discount Ferrari either that have quietly snuck their way back into this. So it's a flat-out fight over the last remaining eight races.

Q: Are you enjoying it?
CH: Am I enjoying it? You never enjoy when your cars aren't performing. Are we up for it? Absolutely. And I've never seen a team more motivated and working as hard as it currently is.

Q: OK, Christian, thank you. I'm sure there'll be more questions for you in a minute. Alessandro, let's come to you. The car hasn't been easy over the past couple of races. What are the drivers saying about it here after FP1?
Alessandro Alunni Bravi: I think that FP1 confirmed our weaknesses in terms of high-speed instability. Of course, with this low level of grip, we struggle more than others. We have seen during the season that our car has a huge sensitivity, and especially in these kind of conditions, it's difficult to find the balance between high-speed and low-speed corners. As mentioned by Christian, we have identified our weaknesses and the area to work. Then it's a different aspect to find a good solution and to enable the drivers to exploit the package.

Q: Red Bull have a load of new parts here. When are we going to see some upgrades on the Sauber?
AAB: But we have, as you know, introduced a big package for us in Silverstone and Hungary that then was available to both drivers as of Zandvoort race. And now we need to optimise this package. We struggled to get out most of the performance, especially in Zandvoort. We made a step in Monza, but there is still a lot of work to be done to find the right balance. We will have other upgrades during the season. We are targeting Austin, but of course, for us, this year has been more marginal gains than a big step. So we continue to develop the car. This is also important, not just for this season, but also for 2025. It doesn't mean that we are giving up this season, but we are working hard first to identify our weaknesses. And of course, nobody has a silver bullet in Formula 1. We know that we need to do steps and, you know, the upgrades that will be introduced later in the season should allow us to do another step. If this will be sufficient to catch up, our direct competitors will be just a track to assess this.

Q: What about drivers? Can we talk about the second driver for next year? Valtteri Bottas talked in quite positive terms yesterday about his chances of being retained. First up, what kind of a driver are you looking to place alongside Nico Hülkenberg? Do you want an experienced guy like Valtteri or are you still thinking about an inexperience, someone new?
AAB: I think this is the current assessment that Mattia is doing. He just started two weeks ago, so we have said already in Monza that he's taking charge of all the dossiers and the drivers is of course one of the most important ones. We are evaluating all the options to see which is the best balance between a short-term experience and medium, long-term, maybe young talent. There are potential candidates on both sides. Valtteri is a strong driver for our team. We know him very well. He has been with the team already for three years, and of course he's one on top of our list. But there are other opportunities. We are just looking at all the pros and cons, and Mattia will take a decision based not only on 2025, but also the medium-long-term strategy for the Audi F1 project.

Q: Have you got a deadline by when you need to have taken the decision?
AAB: It's not about the deadline because, of course, we are not opportunistic. Now that there is only one seat available, we want to take time. It's more to assess everything, every aspect, and to take a right decision. I think there is no rush, but we want to tick this box also soon. So, I think it will be a matter of the next weeks.

Q: Now, I asked Christian earlier what Adrian Newey is going to bring to Aston Martin. And of course, since you were last in the press conference, Alessandro, Jonathan Wheatley has been announced as a future Sauber Audi team principal. What kind of an impact are you expecting him to have?
AAB: I can just judge Jonathan from outside because I don't know him personally, but of course we can see that they have a strong impact and contribution to the last 18 years of success in Red Bull. Red Bull has been at least still the benchmark in Formula 1 as a team in terms of organisation, in terms of talents. And so I think that a person that has been in one of the key roles in this team can just bring a positive contribution and I expect that Jonathan will be leading our team together with Mattia. So for me, it's a positive addition and we are looking forward to him next year.

Q: Thanks, Alessandro. Christian, can I just bring you in on Jonathan Wheatley? How instrumental was he in the success that you've had at Red Bull?
CH: Jonathan's done a great job as initially team manager and then sporting director for us. He's been part of the journey over the last 19 years or in our 20th season. We're very grateful for what he's done and the effort that he's put in during that time. an opportunity like this to become a team principal has come along. So we certainly didn't look to hold him back in any way and we wish him the very best of luck for the future. But that, in turn, allows there to be progression within our own organisation. And we'll be announcing very shortly the structure that is a succession to Jonathan's moving to Audi.

Q: Thank you. Ayao, coming to you now. Can we start by talking about Ollie Bearman making his race debut for Haas this weekend? So far, so good in FP1. What do you want to see from him here in Baku?
Ayao Komatsu: Yeah, again, what we talked about quite a lot is just building up to the whole weekend. Obviously, it's a completely different mindset, whether you're doing just FP1 or got a target on Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon. But again, this is a street track and the FP1, we all know the grip level is going to be really poor. So really important to set certain objectives along the way and then just build up to it. And then as you saw in FP1, he's done that perfectly. So it's great.

Check out our Friday gallery from Baku here.