| Question : Michael,
very, very frightening
first corner accident. What did
you see? You were right in the middle
of it. |
| M.Schumacher :
Obviously I didn't see everything, only what happened
in front of me, and that was
Ralf had a collision with Rubens. I
don't actually know what was
going on, whether he had a problem
or whatever, but I guess he would have told
you in the meantime and
then it was just cars flying everywhere,
I was afraid to turn into the first corner because
I saw suddenly cars flying next to me so I decided,
same as Kimi, to go straight on and have
a nice ride through the grass, which
probably was a good decision otherwise
I would have been hit, I guess. |
| Question : We
lost David Coulthard at the second restart, he
went for a ride over the grass, a longer
one than yours, and then a big fight with Juan Pablo? |
| M.Schumacher :
It was quite an interesting
one, especially with Juan, because we had a straight
fight with Raikkonen's car, Juan was closing
the doors basically everywhere and not giving
any chance, which in a slower car
I don't know whether that was
sort of fair but it didn't
seem to be appropriate at
the situation, but I enjoyed
the fight obviously with him, it was a bit
back and forward. I think as well that the
tyres played a little
bit of a role in that; initially
I struggled to get the temperature
in where these guys seemed to get faster on top of temperatures
but then it went the other way around, their tyres
went off and my one came in so I
had a nice chance to battle
a little bit and finally got first
position for us, which was ideal. It wasn't really thought
to be before we came
here, but we're obviously nicely
surprised that we have been able to do this job
this weekend. |
| Question : Thank
you very much. Back to
you, Michael. Malaysia next
time out. Is that going
to suit you because I presume it's
going to be rather hotter than it is here and
people always seem to say: Bridgestone
better in the cooler temperatures and Michelin
in the warmer ones. What do you reckon? |
| M.Schumacher :
Certainly there was a stage
last year that was the case but I
would say that we can resolve this kind of situation
on our side and improve
quite a bit. I reckon anyway - and we have
seen it last year, we have been very competitive
here last year, and suddenly we started to battle in
qualifying with Ralf so I would
assume that it's going to be a
much tighter battle from now
on. Actually, if you remember in Brazil,
he was giving me a very hard time and driving
away so things can change very quickly around and I
wouldn't see what we have seen today as a real measurement
for what happens in the future.
I like to say a word about my team mate. Obviously
I am sorry for him because it could have been
a nice race for him but unfortunately that's part
of racing and I'm sure
he is going to have better luck in future.
|
| Question : Here
they are, ladies and gentlemen. Well
done, gentlemen. What are the conclusions
really from this race, Michael, it's the first
race of the year, couldn't be a better start? |
| M.Schumacher :
Yes, it could have
been a better start, honestly. |
| Question : For
you in terms of points. |
| M.Schumacher :
I know, but just to make it clear.
Obviously it's ideal from my point of view
but Rubens' point of view it didn't go so well and would
have been better to be one and two, to be
honest, than just have one in the finish. |
| Question : Early
on you were
fourth and you had
a tremendous battle with Juan
Pablo, particularly at the end of each
of the safety car periods and then a little later
on. Perhaps you could just
talk us through those overtaking manoeuvres. |
| M.Schumacher :
Basically in the first
safety car, nothing really happened,
I didn't make up anything, actually
when I was behind Juan at the time I lost
out quite a bit because the traction initially
wasn't there for me and then he gave me
a favour of braking a bit on the oil,
in turn three, which allowed me to pass and then I was
battling with Trulli, which he was basically
closing everywhere the door and
didn't allow any overtaking, which
then made it tricky because
I saw Juan coming again so
I thought I have to watch out. Next safety car,
Trulli obviously was gone by then,
David gave us a favour in
going wide - it almost happened to me as well,
I went wide too - and I think
this was one of the reasons he had a
good ride at me because I
didn't have the right exit of
the last corner, couldn't take the
speed because the line was wrong in the corner
before so it meant that the last corner
was wrong, and he easily passed me. I couldn't do
anything about that, honestly, I tried
to go to the inside and I gave him
the outside and he, well, overtook me easily there,
but then it was a
nice battle. Initially, obviously,
he was going away a little bit and I was
thinking hopefully he is on two stops, but
then it seemed to be a tyre situation where
initially our ones didn't work so well and
theirs did work very well
and then it turned around
to our favour afterwards
and I was all over him but it
was difficult to find the space. |
| Question : That
was interesting, the overtaking
manoeuvre, did it just happen? |
| M.Schumacher :
No, he obviously saw me
being very close and he didn't like me to pass him inside
in the first corner so naturally you close
the door, so what you do is then you go to the
outside to take the better exit and
him being so far inside it means that the corner gets
very tight and he doesn't have the speed out of the
corner so things worked out for me. |
|
Question : And
then after that, you seemed to pull away very easily.
|
| M.Schumacher :
Yeah. We have been very quick all weekend, surprisingly
quick, but in all honesty it seemed to be stronger in
the race in a certain period
than either qualifying or the last
laps - I think Kimi actually did the fastest lap time
- which shows that in certain areas they
are very fast, mostly competitive, but then overall
we are better off. |
| Question : Is
this going to encourage to you keep this car for Malaysia
or rush the other one? |
| M.Schumacher :
Obviously we would like to take the car, the new car,
as soon as possible, as
soon as we find out it is better and as
soon as we find out it is reliable and both of the situations
yet we cannot judge when that's going to
be the case, honestly. Further tests
next week, all next week we will be testing, and
from there on we can judge what is
happening in future. |
| Question : Michael,
a lot of cars went out of the race at the first
corner. At a time when Formula
1 is trying to control costs, that was quite an expensive
corner there. Do you think there are any
controls that can be brought to bear on
the drivers to ensure that that
kind of thing is less likely to happen? |
| M.Schumacher :
I don't think so. You
remember we talked about this at the Thursday press
conference. It needs really everybody just to be a
little bit more calm at the first race to
avoid that, but then you can't
control it. That's part of racing, that's part
of emotions, and part of the reason you write for
it, I guess, because it's so interesting. It's
costly and not really nice that
things like that happen but it has always
been part of it. |
| Question : Michael,
it's the inevitable Australian
question: Mark Webber has come
home fifth today, can you say some words for us, for
the kind Australian fans? |
| M.Schumacher :
Honestly, I was thinking
in the car, I was actually very delighted
for them. You see Minardi they are so long around
and it's not happening very often for them
to have the occasion to get
points, and I was told by my team that he drove a very
good race and he scored really the fifth place, he
really earned it, he had a good battle with Salo so
I'm more than happy for them. I guess it's
going to be a big, big party happening tonight
for them. Maybe we are going to join them and have some
fun together, but it's really pleasant to see
these guys, I really - how you say - I feel just
happy for them that they achieved that. |
| Question : To
all drivers: we had in the first corner eight
or nine drivers out of the
race. Don't you think it could be
better even to the show to
have a red flag and all of them again in the race? |
| M.Schumacher :
From my point of view
you would say yes, especially if we
would have been involved in this situation, we
would have preferred to have
a red flag and start the race again but
obviously we are not the persons to decide
this and probably we are not the right persons to be
asked. |
| Question : Your
personal opinion? |
| M.Schumacher :
Yes, my personal opinion is this but then the
question should really go to some
other people why it is like this, why it
has to be like this because, as I
said, from my point of view I would have preferred to
see a red flag. |
| Question : Michael,
on the same sort of question, we saw last season, noticeably
Hockenheim when something like
this happened and there was a safety issue because of
the shards of carbon fibre left on the track. In this
case there wasn't a restart.
Do you think there should have been,
for safety reasons, leaving aside anything else? |
| M.Schumacher :
I think there was far
less debris on the circuit than
there was in Hockenheim.
In Hockenheim I remember the
whole straight was covered in pieces, if I'm right,
and that was the reason. Here there was room to avoid
the pieces. There is a certain rule
and they follow the rule. We maybe could
argue whether we can improve
that for everybody, or whether it
is an improvement, but obviously somebody has
made that decision, to the best knowledge and to the
best of Formula 1, and maybe
you should ask them whether it would
be nicer and better to improve or change that.
|
| Question : Michael,
how did you feel when
you saw your brother on the collision with Rubens? |
| M.Schumacher :
Very frightened, obviously,
because when you touch a rear wheel and the car
is launched into the air, if you go into
the wrong area you hurt yourself
badly so I was very concerned and I was going on the
radio immediately to check out what is going on
with him but I was told he was fine and
I saw him running down
the straight so he was obviously lucky but
it's not something you wish to happen. |
| Question : Michael,
what did you see from
the accident actually? Both Rubens
and Ralf seemed to change the line more
than once? |
| M.Schumacher :
Obviously the car behind
is allowed to change more than
once, the car in front is not supposed
to but I haven't really
seen whether he did or he didn't. So simply
that's the answer to changing lane: one car is, one
car is not but I don't know who has done
what precisely; I just had a quick
look and I don't want to comment too much on that
before I have properly seen everything. |
| Question : You
just said you had a quick look. I would have thought
in your position you'd
have a grandstand view of what went on, so what
are you looking at? |
| M.Schumacher :
No, what you see in the car, you are so busy with
yourself and you look around in the
mirrors what come next, it is not really fair
to ask what we see from in board. You guys
have much better vision with
10 times repetition, you see much better than what we
can see. |
| Question :I'm
just asking you because I'm not sitting there, I wanted
to know want you are looking at, so you are basically
looking ahead through what's
happening, if you know what I mean? |
| M.Schumacher :
You don't see everything in detail, you see a
certain amount of it but not everything in detail. |
