Q: It’s amazing how Spa keeps coming back into your career as a place for momentous occasions.
MS: Yeah, that’s true. If you think what I have achieved here, how things started here and finally I can say I won a very important and a very prestigious number, a seventh championship here at Spa. It’s the seven hundredth Grand Prix for Ferrari, it’s my seventh win in the championship and it’s just 700 the other way around! And it’s the right number for us.

Q: Rubens, what a day for you as well. Contact right at the start at La Source.
Rubens BARRICHELLO: Well, to be honest, I have to go and see what happened on the video. I had a good start and I think I had Fisichella covered quite well. Then, as I turned into the corner, there was a contact. I was able to keep on going but soon I saw there was damage to my rear tyre. Then, on that lap, they told me to come back because there was damage to the wing and at Spa it’s too difficult to drive with wing damage. So I came in, they did a superb job to keep me going and I think I was more than five seconds behind the last car so I had a day when I kept on pushing the whole time, so I have to be happy.

Q: How did the car feel in the later stages of the race? You looked very quick right at the end there.
RB: Yeah, the car was very good. We had a small problem with the warming up situation but I had a Jordan right in the middle, so I couldn’t have done any better, I had to go through the whole of Eau Rouge behind the Jordan car so I lost time to Michael anyway.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q: Michael. Seven-times world champion, is it an emotional moment?
MS: The good thing is that it is always different. I mean whatever you achieve I’ve found you always have different emotions and certainly what I feel today is difficult to put into words, but it doesn’t feel anywhere what I have felt at the sixth or the fifth time. It’s very special, we are here in Spa, which does mean a lot to me, the circuit, the place, and to clinch the seventh title at the 700th Grand Prix for Ferrari is something very special. I’m just very proud to have achieved this together with the team, which I think is extraordinary, who proved today with Rubens to do a superb job to get him going again after changing wing, and so on, and stay within the same lap. Obviously the safety car helped, but nevertheless it was a good job and they are so great. It is what makes us strong and it is just a fantastic moment to celebrate and to feel…it doesn’t need a lot of emotional outbreaks, its important what I think and what I feel and that is good feelings.

Q: Looking at the race itself, after the safety car period Kimi and Montoya overtook you I think…in fact there was a very interesting overtaking manoeuvre by Juan Pablo up here at the chicane. Tell us about that…
MS: Obviously he was all over me because it took a long time before my tyres got going and got temperatures. The safety car was out for a long time and in that moment we struggled a little bit to get pressures back on and temperatures back on and the opposite with the Michelin runners. We have seen this very often so it is not a surprise, especially if conditions are rather cruel, like they have been here, and I’ve been on the hard tyres today as well which didn’t help. It was great for the race consistency-wise, but not so good for the safety car, and we didn’t expect three or four safety car moments. But anyway, if you consider where I have been at some stage of the race and where I ended up in the race, what happened to Rubens – he did a great race to come back from that position, and Kimi won the race, so all three have good reasons to be happy today and celebrate today and certainly I am.

Q: There was one pit-stop, lap 30, which was just at the second safety car period. Where you coming in then or did they call you in?
MS: No, no. We were in anyway. But we got the information earlier enough, we could have reacted early enough because I think when I came through 17 I got information that the safety car would have been out so I could have adopted. But it was planned anyway.

Q: Rubens, when you had that first pit-stop did you ever think you could come back onto the podium?
RB: Well, I mean, it is difficult to think of anything at that time because you stop there and people are talking to you. There is a magic feeling because Ross was talking to me as if we were talking face-to-face in a living room and saying ‘keep it going, we are just changing your wing, we think we can do it before the safety car comes by and then you go again and try’. I was five or more seconds behind the last car and I kept on doing…it was difficult to follow the cars, my car by itself was really good, but following Panis for example I lost a lot of time. But I was unlucky at the beginning of the race, I was lucky that the safety car came on and I had no pit-stop any more, I could go towards the end, so it was really good.

Q: Where do you think the damage was done on that first lap? Was it at La Source or at the top of Eau Rouge?
RB: No it was done at La Source. I didn’t have anyone on me at Eau Rouge I don’t think. I felt a very big bang and I don’t know from who. I thought it was Webber but they told me it was Massa. I went into the corner and I think everything was pretty well covered and all of a sudden there was a boom and I went forward. It looked to me as if everything was okay and I was flat out going downhill when all of sudden the car was weaving a little a bit so thank God I lifted off. There was a tyre puncture and also there was some damage to the rear wing, which in a way was good that we didn’t do the first time because I don’t think we would have done it in time, so we did the tyre and went out then did the wing afterwards, which was a good thing from the team.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Ottavio Daviddi- Tuttosport) Michael is there a person you want to dedicate this championship to?
MS: I don’t think it is necessary to dedicate things because there are so many people who are responsible for this success. It would be unfair to dedicate it simply to one person. Obviously I know that our president has his birthday on Tuesday but he obviously has a great proportion of that success. I think it is just appropriate to give him that proportion of the title as he deserves and he deserves a big proportion of it obviously. Just to clarify that because there was some statement that I would dedicate the title to the president because of his birthday. I never made that statement, just to be clear on this, so it was found from somebody. I don’t know who.

Q: (Dan Knutson – National Speed Sport News) To all three of you. We have seen a great race today. Meanwhile in Athens another great competition, the Olympics, is coming to a close. What particular events and athletes have you guys been following at the Olympics?
RB: Did Brazil win? I was following very closely and I enjoy very much (laughter).
MS: Yeah I was very impressed with what our hockey girls have done. I have seen the semi-final and I saw afterwards the result, plus our handballers did a great job to come to the final. Actually I don’t know if the final has happened yet or not. So there were quite a lot of emotional things. Plus last evening I saw the 400 metres were America was pretty clearly the favourite and still the English managed to beat them. So there was quite a lot of emotional things going on, quite a lot of surprises and what comes out to me that a lot of little nations which you didn’t expect anything of in terms of team sport, like soccer, like basketball, managed to do much better than anyone expected. I say that because in Germany we have a lot of criticism of our soccer team and the simply the fact is that everyone has become so good and the level is so much higher that you get a lot of surprises because sport became so international and there are so many good people around now.

Q: As drivers would you say the track was clean. Obviously there were some incidents and it is difficult to clean it all up, but would you say it was pretty good?
RB: It was a bit hard on tyres as well. It didn’t have a lot of rubber because of the rain. It is actually something to think for next year. I don’t know if the rules are going to change.

Q: (Livio Oricchio) Michael, we have been following your career and in the beginning you used to celebrate your titles and the last few ones you look sad, this time happy. Can you explain this?
MS: Thoughtful but not sad at all.

Q: (Juha Päätalo) Michael, this was obviously a moment that you knew would come one day. Now that it has come is it a kind of relief? How do you feel?
MS: As I said before none of the championships feel the same. I mean I accept being happy and knowing what I have achieved I’m just thinking, I’m just quiet and trying not to talk too much and enjoy that moment.