Jean
Todt:
It was a very strange race and not really because of the
new rules. The weather at the start and in the early stages, which
saw some drivers running wet tyres and others on dry ones, the Safety
Car appearing twice and the different strategies, were all factors
which made the race hard to read and different to usual. Five points
is not exactly a great tally, given that we started with an all-red
front row. The result shows that the slightest mistake results in
a heavy penalty. It was a shame for Rubens, who lost control of
the car when the track was still slippery and ended up in the barriers.
As usual, Michael never gave up. But when he had a clear track ahead
of him, he was unable to push to the maximum as his car was damaged.
Today's result brings to an end a run of 53 consecutive races featuring
a Ferrari on the podium. Now we must attack once more. We know this
will be a very tough season, but we also know we have all the right
elements in place to be able to fight for success at the end.
Michael Schumacher:
The changing weather made for a chaotic race today. We
could not have predicted there would be two Safety Car periods and
in this situation it is just a gamble whether or not it works in
your favour at the right time. At one point I hit the kerbs, damaged
the car quite badly and lost a lot of time because of it. Apparently,
on the lap before my last pit stop, some parts started hanging off
the car and that was badly affecting its handling. It felt as though
the car was damaged and I even thought I might have a puncture.
So, all things considered I think we can be happy with fourth place
today. It was an interesting day with plenty of action and these
5 points will be important later in the year. The F2002 is still
very competitive.
Rubens
Barrichello:
A disappointing day, but it's not a case of Australia being
unlucky for me. It was just one of those things. There is no need
to panic about this result. We just have to dig in and concentrate
on Malaysia. The F2002 is still a very good car, as could be seen
by Michael's lap times, even when he had lost some bodywork. As
for my start, we will have to investigate what happened, as I was
holding the car on the brake as much as I could, but it just wanted
to start early today. We felt intermediate tyres were the best choice,
but the track dried very quickly. Just before the accident, we were
talking on the radio about my penalty. I went into Turn 5 too fast,
had understeer and could not hold it. The car was going well, but
the front tyres were already in trouble, because the track dried
quicker than expected and I was still having to push hard. We must
now put this race behind us, look to the next one and get used to
the new rules.
Ross
Brawn:
“The
race did not work out for us, especially as the safety car did not
fit in with what we were trying to do,” said the Englishman.
“I think we made the wrong call in terms of the tyres we started
on. We were on intermediates and the track dried up much faster
than we expected.” The Scuderia’s race was further affected
by problems on Schumacher’s car. “We had a problem during
his first pit stop and then Michael went off the track at Turn 12
and damaged the car,” explained Brawn. “After that,
Michael drove really well, because the car was no longer handling
properly.” Although neither Ferrari driver got to the podium,
Brawn did not think this had anything to do with the performance
level of the F2002. “I don’t think performance was causing
our problems today and the new car would not have solved any of
these problems,” he said. “We just had a bad day and
McLaren and Williams had a good one.”
Brawn
also stressed that the difficulty with the tyres was down to the
choice of intermediate and nothing to do with performance. “We
made the wrong choice,” he continued. “But once we had
fitted the dry weather tyres they were fine, but we did not get
a good opportunity to use them properly.”
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