"Thanks to the bravery and efficiency of the
team, he was able to rejoin the race in third place. Michael went
on the attack, got back the lead and brought home a third consecutive
win of the season. Rubens had an extraordinary drive: but for the
problem at his first pit stop, he could have won or at least come
second. With this win, Michael has closed the gap still further
to the top of the Drivers' classification and the 16 points picked
up today allowed us to take the lead in the Constructors' Championship."
"I must congratulate the team on doing a fantastic
job and also Bridgestone, who provided us with very good tyres.
Obviously, it is a great pleasure to have secured this result in
the presence of Fiat Group President, Umberto Agnelli, who is with
us today. The result makes us even more proud to be part of such
an important industrial group."
Michael
Schumacher:
"Three wins in a row is good for us. Today, it was
going our way until the pit stops. I could see the fire -- maybe
the mechanics thought I was cold and wanted to warm me up! But the
team did a good job to control the situation, reacting quickly with
the fire extinguishers. I did wonder how serious the problem was.
I had a couple of tricky moments, the first when Montoya blew up
in front of me. I had already passed Kimi at that point, but I was
not sure if Juan Pablo would continue racing or get off the line."
"Then, I saw the waved yellow when Alonso went
off, but no oil flag, so I ended up going very wide at the first
corner, at a crucial stage of the race when I did not want to give
away time to Kimi. When it was raining, I was able to be a bit cautious
as I was leading. In fact, this situation is difficult when you
are leading, as you do not have a car in front of you to judge how
the cars are reacting to the conditions. The car's consistency and
performance was good, allowing us to build a big enough advantage
for our strategy to work."
Rubens
Barrichello:
"I am happy to be on the podium and to score points,
especially as I have been feeling under the weather all weekend
with a cold, which meant I was sweating a lot in the car. It was
a great race, except for my first pit stop, which cost me time.
Without that, maybe I could have finished higher, but these things
happen in racing. I think today I paid the penalty for my tyre choice,
even if the car felt good in terms of consistency throughout the
race."
"At the start, I nearly passed Kimi down the
outside. I got slightly ahead, but I was unable to turn in to take
the position as the track was dirty on that side. In the closing
stages, I pulled alongside him again. I could see him understeering,
so I tried to push him to the inside of the corner. The move did
not work and then he increased his pace a bit and I could not get
too close to him because of the turbulence."
Ross
Brawn:
"It was a great day for us and an encouraging performance.
As for the pit stops, we had a problem with Rubens' fuel rig so
we switched to the other one. Then we had another problem with Michael,
this time with the refuelling nozzle. It is never pleasant to have
a fire, but there was not actually much fuel around and it looked
worse than it was. The guys reacted very well to deal with the situation,
however, we do not usually have problems with the rigs and now we
will have a proper investigation to find out what happened. Our
tyres worked perfectly and the car was very strong."