Nelson Piquet Q & A

The ING Renault F1 Team prepares for the penultimate round of the 2008 Formula 1 World Championship: the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai. Nelson Piquet: “A great result that I hope to repeat soon!”

Nelson, you had a great fight through the field in Fuji to finish the race in fourth place. Were you happy with your race?
Yes, absolutely. I am happy with my performance as I didn’t make any mistakes, I was quick and consistent, and the car was handling really well…everything was going perfectly. I’m also happy to see that we are now fighting at the front. The team has worked very hard and that has really started to pay off and I just hope that things will continue like this until the end of the season and that we can aim for some more big points in the final two races.

We’re now heading into the Chinese Grand Prix – another new track for you. How are you approaching it?
I am confident and looking forward to driving there. The circuit seems impressive and if we can get the car working as well as it did in Fuji then we have a good chance of a strong weekend. For me it’s important to learn the circuit quickly on Friday so that I can make the most of the three hours of track time available to me. It’s quite a typical circuit so I’m not especially worried about it and I’ve already done some good preparation with my engineers based on the information and data from previous years.

What do you need in terms of set-up at Shanghai?
Once again I think that we need to concentrate on getting a well balanced car that has good change of direction and that is stable under braking so that I can feel confident and able to attack the circuit. From the start of the weekend in Fuji I felt comfortable in the car and I hope that will be the case again this weekend in Shanghai.

After your fourth place in Fuji, what objective have you set yourself for the Chinese Grand Prix?
I think that we are hoping to build on the progress we have made recently and to have a strong race in China. I know that to have a good race I must improve my performance in qualifying to be able to reach Q3 so that I can aim for big things in normal race conditions. So I will start with this objective and we will then see what happens in the race, but I’m determined to score points as I know how important that is for the team’s fight for fourth place in the championship.