Team Representatives: Oliver Oakes, Zak Brown and Christian Horner.

Can we start by paying tribute to former F1 team owner Eddie Jordan who sadly passed away yesterday. Christian, can we start with you? Your memories of EJ?
Christian Horner: Yeah, incredibly sad. I mean he was such a big character, an inspirational character to have taken his team from, effectively, Formula Ford to Formula 1. And he'll be sadly missed. You know, my personal memories of him go back to 1991 as an aspiring young racing driver and meeting him for the first time. He had just moved into a factory that he built at Silverstone. He took the time with me late in the evening to talk about next steps in your career, and his advice was: "The thing about motorsport is you need a good sponsor, and welcome to the Piranha Club." He was just a larger-than-life character. He was always fun to have around. He was the heart and soul of any party. His love of music was legendary. He and his band would want to play anywhere. He'll be very sadly missed. The sport is a poorer place for not having Eddie around anymore. The amount of drivers he gave an opportunity to - he was a great champion of young talent, and not just drivers but engineers, technicians, and designers. So many people in this paddock owe him a debt of gratitude for the opportunities he provided. A very sad day to learn of his passing yesterday.
Zak Brown: Yeah, Eddie was a big personality, a proper racer. Responsible for a lot of people's great careers in motor racing, a lot of racing drivers. I remember being at Spa '91 when Michael Schumacher debuted in his car and qualified, I think it was, 7th. An iconic looking racing car. Punched above his weight. I think in the late '90s he had a proper run at the Championship. He was a great personality and will be sorely missed. We need more individuals like Eddie Jordan in Formula 1, they're kind of the life of the party.
Oliver Oakes: Yeah, I mean, I think he's just an inspiration, isn't he, as a character. Listening to Flav this morning on a few stories - obviously he's had a few run-ins with him. Even on my side, my Hitech started out of a unit at Silverstone that's on his little park there next to the old Jordan factory. So yeah, I think he was an incredible guy and obviously leaves a big legacy behind.

Ollie, a sample of one race, but has the performance of the car met expectations so far?
OO: Yes, I think we had a pretty good Saturday there with Pierre into Q3. I think Jack did a good job as well. Was a bit unlucky not to scrape through or be close to Pierre there with a yellow. But I think Sunday, in those conditions, we were a bit frustrated to walk away empty-handed. But yeah, we're feeling pretty confident for the season.

Let's talk about the drivers. Pierre, first of all - his third season with the team, he is now the senior driver. Have you sensed a change in his approach this season?
OO: No. It's a little bit more harmonious between the two of them, but I think he's just been a good figurehead in the team. Having him there with Jack definitely gives us a good line-up.

You said last week in Melbourne that Jack's had a lot of pressure put on him, and part of that has come from the team. Can you explain what you meant by that?
OO: Yeah, I mean, look, there's a balance, isn't there? There's the aspect of we want to have a good line-up, also want to have some good drivers in the pipeline. And I think by doing that, we obviously created a little bit of noise around him. But credit to him that he's got down to business as soon as the season started, and the job he did in Australia was brilliant. Obviously, we saw a couple of people getting caught out on Sunday with the conditions, but that's to be expected when you're a rookie. He just needs to dust himself off and go again, which this morning he did a good job straight away. A little bit of a frustration there with a failure at the end, but he was doing a good start to the weekend again.

Zak, first time since 2012 that McLaren has won the opening race. How does that change things for you and for the team in terms of pressure?
ZB: I think pressure is always on in Formula 1 - every weekend, every session. It's a great start to the season. Clearly the car is very fast. The team's done a great job, drivers did a great job. Felt terrible for Oscar there towards the end. He made a strong recovery, but conditions were tricky. Was a pretty stressful race with all the restarts. You had Max in the game - which, every time he's in the mix, he's a difficult guy to beat - did a great job. And I think it's going to continue to be very close.

Does it require a change in mentality to be the hunted rather than the hunter?
ZB: I don't think so. You can definitely tell our drivers have great confidence coming off of a very strong season. They're in great shape, they're in a great frame of mind, as is the team. I would say, the pit wall was outstanding given all the pressures, whether it was the drivers, or the weather, or the rain, or the tyres, or the restart. I was very happy to see how they reacted to the constant pressure of a Grand Prix and the changing conditions.

What about the car? Lando said yesterday that it's difficult to drive - quoting him: "It's difficult to drive and it doesn't suit his driving style." Is that a cause for concern?
ZB: I think you're always trying to make the car a little bit easier for the drivers. Someone said to me yesterday it didn't look like we put a lap time down in Bahrain testing - we tried, we just didn't put one down. So I think we need to make the car a little bit more compliant. It's clearly very quick, but when you get it up on its nose, so to speak, and you're flinging it around at ten-tenths, yeah, the drivers want to make it a little bit more compliant. So they put it together in Q3 in Australia. I think we have the benefit of both drivers pushing each other because we were pleasantly surprised by the gap in Q3. You didn't see that in Q1 and Q2, and I think maybe some others underperformed on their lap. It's one race in tricky conditions, so let's see how things play out over the next few races. I don't think we've seen the final line-up yet.

Christian, what did you make of the pace of McLaren last weekend in Melbourne? Are they on another planet or are they catchable?
CH: It was certainly very quick - both in qualifying and particularly the first half of the race. On the Inter tyre, the degradation was very low. They've obviously done a very good job. They have a good car, they've got two good drivers that are pushing each other hard. The race came back to us, I think, as the conditions became a bit more variable. Others made mistakes and we were able to capitalise on that. Max got pretty close at the end - 0.8 of a second - who knows, another lap or two what would have happened? But it was a very strong finish to the Grand Prix for us. McLaren looked very strong - and again here, I think they'll probably be the car to beat.

How much better is this year's RB21 to the one you ended last season with?
CH: We can see by the lap times - everybody's going significantly quicker. I think we've significantly changed certain characteristics of the car. It gives us a broader base from which to work with now. It's a development race between now and Abu Dhabi in December, so it's going to be a nine-month marathon. From what we saw in Melbourne, if the racing's like that all the way through, it could be a bumper year.

To win the championship, do you think you need to develop your car until the end?
CH: Inevitably, depending on how the championship plays out. But you've got to keep developing. In this business, if you're standing still, you're going backwards. And of course, there's that dilemma with next year's regulations - where you apply resource, where you don't. But inevitably, you've got to keep chasing performance, keep getting performance on the car.

Final one from me - tough start for Liam last weekend. What advice have you given him coming into race two here in China?
CH: I think Liam's got a pretty sensible head on his shoulders. It was a tough baptism for him. He still came away with the second fastest race lap. And I just told him: "Ignore the naysayers, ignore social media, put your head down and you'll be fine." He just needs a bit of time.

Questions From The Floor

(Jon Noble - Motorsport.com) The idea of the V10 coming back to F1 has moved from something that could be considered in the future to parties now actively pushing for it. There's talk about scrapping the 2026 regulations, potentially rolling these engines on for two years, and moving in 2028. In this debate, what do you think should happen now as we move forward into 2026 and the new rule cycle?
CH: I mean, obviously there's a lot of debate about the future. We've got a set of regulations for next year, for 2026. I think there's some limitations to those regulations as far as the show and the racing is concerned. I think there's some aspects that... We've ended up in a situation where the chassis is having to compensate a huge amount for perhaps some of the shortcomings of the split in electrification and combustion. But, you know, it's sort of ten past midnight and Cinderella's left the building. So, the romantic in you - a screaming V10 - so long as it's done responsibly, with fully sustainable fuels, is hugely attractive. I think the big question is: when would that be for? And what would be the game plan between where we sit today and then? Because it would be a massive departure obviously to move away from what is currently being worked on very hard for 2026. But I think, from the fan in me, the concept of a screaming V10 engine would be very exciting for the sport - at whatever point it's chosen for the future.

ZB: You know, Formula 1's always been a very technical challenge when you have new regulations. I think this is no different for 2026. We're happy to race and ready to race in whatever the rules may be. I think a V10, definitely - as Christian said - would be pretty cool with sustainable fuels. I don't really see how you can unwind what's in place, really because of all the different power unit changes that are happening right now. Audi's coming in, Alpine's going to Merc for an engine. Logistically, I'm not sure how you put the genie back in the bottle. But from our standpoint, we're with HPP, very happy. They're ready to go - or will be ready to go. And so that wouldn't impact us. But it is a bit of a head-scratcher of how you would put that in place if you did want to make a change. And I think every time there's a rule change, I remember when hybrids came in last time there was some concern, and that's worked out just fine. So I'm sure the engineers will get on the technical challenge and remain very excited, as Formula 1's always been.

OO: I think they've both summarised it pretty well there. I think it's quite a romantic idea, but obviously the train has left the station now for 2026. I think it's probably something beyond that that will be looked at because it does sound quite good for Formula 1 to go that way a little bit. But as Zak said, we are quite far along already.