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Question :
Michael,
this could be
a historic weekend. How do
you approach it, how do
you feel about it?
|
| M.Schumacher
: First
of all, we know
under which circumstances if and
what can maybe happen, but it's not
really too much of a focus honestly, because I
don't expect anything like that to
happen. I will race as
normal and obviously try to win the
race, that's the target and
then we will see what
will be the result in
the end. Whether it happens here or another time, I
don't think that is really important to
me. What matters for me is that it does
happen in the end.
|
| Question :
Who
do you think is going to stop you, is it going to be
Michelin or the teams?
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| M.Schumacher
: Good
question, we will find out,
I don't know. So far, I think we have certainly
had the better car than the rest and
it has been in the tyres, whether
we had the right tyres or not,
whether we were beaten or not and I hope we have the
right tyres. We did a very good test with Bridgestone
who brought along some
more new tyres for that race which should
make the situation a little bit
more comfortable. |
| Question :
Now
before the Hockenheim race, I think you're involved
in RTL's charity football
match, I hear you're looking
forward to it partially
due to the standard of players.
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| M.Schumacher: I
have always enjoyed that one, specifically, yes, because
there are professional players around
and to play with professionals is
great fun because it's more serious, it's
good fun, but the level of playing is much higher and
you get the ball in such a nice way, my
standard comes up too so I quite like these sort of
games.
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|
Question :
Another
charity thing which has been suggested comes
from Colin McRae who recently broke the
record for the number of wins
in the World Rally Championship and someone
asked him if he would challenge
you in some form of driving contest. Would you be
up for that?
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| M.Schumacher
:
I
think for him it's easier for him to check out with
Ford and Jaguar because they are all in one family
and he would maybe get a touch what Formula
One means. I have been interested in running a rally
car in the past. I have to say that I'm less interested
now because I'm not so much into it any more, but maybe
one day when I have time enough I would like
to do it in a safe place
because I'm not interested in going
through the forest and risking my life.
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|
Question :
Michael,
your name has been associated
with Valentino Rossi, is it an association that you
enjoy in a way?
|
| M.Schumacher
:
Personally,
I don't feel pretty happy with that because
when I started I was
associated to other persons and
I always said I don't feel
like that because I feel independent as
a human being, so there is no point to compare people
in this sort of way.
|
| Question :
Michael,
you praise the Bridgestone tyres and
how they work well with Ferrari. Is it an advantage
that they have only one top team or would you
like to have another top team?
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| M.Schumacher
: As
usual, life is never perfect and it is the same
situation here. Being one top team
means there is a lot of workload only on us,
which sometimes means you
miss out on certain things because you can't do
all of it, whereas when you have
two top teams you have a better
chance, because sometimes you don't spot things.
In the past we did have an advantage
of having two top teams, on
the other side we can do other things more specific
to our car, which maybe equalises the situation. |
| Question :
The
fact is it is more exclusive
for Ferrari, where as with the other manufacturer they
have to share the information with two top teams...
|
| M.Schumacher
: Sharing
the information can help because you get
a lot of experience and therefore you
can continue to improve faster. It
is not only a disadvantage,
but it does currently look like that.
But I think the reason is that
currently Bridgestone as a company is so
good, producing such good products
even with the other teams, they use their tyre
very well and therefore perform very well.
It is not really coming from the reason
that we specifically work with Bridgestone and therefore
have the product that well.
|
|
Question :
For
the two world champions, there is a lot more to Formula
One than just the championship.
What would you say to fans
who lose interest once the
championship is settled?
|
| M.Schumacher
:
It's pretty easy. First of all,
the racing doesn't stop whether
the championship is decided
or not. We have seen this every so often, it did
happen that races continued and
still showed good fun. A championship is
not only for the first position,
there are other positions to
be settled as well and the races still continue,
fights still continue and good action is going
on.
|
| J. Villeneuve
:
Well,
the one thing is the championship, but it
has been clear for a few races what team and what
driver would be winning so I don't think people
were coming to see that, it has been
quite clear, so that's just people enjoying watching
a good race, even when a
championship is not at stake. |
|
Question :
Michael,
the time you set at Fiorano in the
test was impressive. Is there an element of
the last few races qualifying
hasn't been as good for
you as it was earlier in the season
so you have been
working on qualifying performance?
|
| M.Schumacher
:
No,
not necessarily because in Fiorano we always run
the same fuel load, we are not trying to just work for
qualifying. We do as well, but the test in Fiorano
wasn't done specifically for it, actually it was
long running that we did.
|
| Question :
Are
you conscious yourself that qualifying
has not been quite as good for you in the recent races?
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| M.Schumacher
: I
keep telling you, every so often you ask
me, that we have seen last year the situation
the other way around, we worked on our weak side, we
didn't really give away anything for qualifying,
so it is probably the
others who have raised their game
in qualifying but are suddenly suffering in racing
and probably we both went in the other direction and
that is the final result. |
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