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1. Michael
SCHUMACHER (Ferrari), 1m22.795s
2. Jenson BUTTON (Honda), 1m22.988s
3. Rubens BARRICHELLO (Honda), 1m23.242s
TV UNILATERALS
Q: I guess you know the statistic, you’ve just broken Ayrton Senna’s record
for career pole positions.
Michael SCHUMACHER: Yeah. With the car we had, getting a pole position in
Bahrain, it was sort of obvious at one stage that we should be in a position
to do so. We worked very hard, naturally - because of our misfortune and the
mistakes we made in the last weeks – to make up ground and here we are, and
we’ve made up significant ground. Obviously the race is important – this is
one step towards it – but seeing where Fernando, in particular, is it’s
great for us in terms of first strategy and hopefully result as well by the
end of the race.
Q: Can you just describe your feelings, right now, here at Imola on this
beautiful day, to achieve that record and to be back in front of your home
crowd on the pole, what it means to you?
MS: Well, the record is less important in a way. You look at it once you
finish your racing and you may think about it, but not now. It was a little
bit mixed feelings because I came in and I didn’t know (whether I was on
pole), because I saw one Renault still out on the circuit and I wasn’t sure
whether there could have been a change in position or not, so it was a
little bit of mixed feelings. But being here as an ambassador of San Marino,
and getting pole position for all our tifosi after all the pain they’ve had
to go through in the last weeks, I’m obviously very glad and very excited.
Q: It looks to have been a very trouble free weekend so far; a little bit of
incident there with your team-mate at the top chicane, he went off just in
front of you, but otherwise a great qualifying.
MS: Yeah, it wasn’t really an incident, he was just trying to find his way
and nevertheless, we performed very well. We kept mentioning and talking
about it. This weekend I sort of stopped talking about it and rather thought
I should show (our performance) and here we are.
Q: Jenson, a great performance. Not particularly happy with the car
yesterday but a great recovery today.
Jenson BUTTON: Yeah, you know we’ve done a lot of work overnight and also
during the day and we’ve really improved it. We needed to because we were
quite a long way off yesterday, not just on one lap but also the long run
pace. I’m much happier with the car now. We did a reasonably good run in
practice also so not a bad position to be in.
Q: And a strong position relative to the Renaults and the McLarens.
JB: Yeah, it’s quite interesting. We’ll have to see how the race pans out
but yeah, they must be stopping very very late or they made mistakes, I
don’t know. I’m happy with my qualifying and it’s great to have Rubens up
here as well, for us both to be up here so it’s a good start for tomorrow
and hopefully we can make good use of it.
Q: Rubens, great to see you up here next to your old team-mate Michael
Schumacher.
Rubens BARRICHELLO: It’s nice, very nice and I want to thank the whole team.
The team has done a great job and in testing they were able to improve the
car to my liking and the braking seems to be a lot better so I want to thank
the whole team, the mechanics, the engineers, everyone for their effort.
They know that I’m pushing very hard. I don’t want to be playing second
fiddle. There were some problems for me adapting to the car. Obviously I’m a
little bit happier. Imola is quite a good place for an improvement and I
think most of it, after the problems that we had in Australia, we had to
improve the car on race pace, so tomorrow is a good test and we’re going
into it with a lot more optimism, so I’m really looking forward to it.
Q: Michael, your final thoughts on the race tomorrow?
MS: Yeah, it’s interesting to study this weekend. Up to a point, Renault
were miles ahead of every other Michelin runner and then suddenly it seems
to have turned around a bit but nevertheless the race pace seemed very
competitive from them. So is ours, honestly. We don’t have anything that is
only good for one lap. We have worked very hard together with Bridgestone to
have the optimum first lap but also have a very strong race pace and here, I
think, we can certainly show this and at the end of the day we hope it’s
good enough to beat the rest. That’s what it comes to and what counts.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Michael, you’ve been quick all weekend, so I don’t suppose this was too
much of a surprise.
MS: No, it’s not too much of a surprise. Not only have we been quick here,
we have been quick in testing in Barcelona. We were quick in Australia as
well but we couldn’t really do it all the time and now we worked very hard
with Bridgestone to have a tyre which, quite frankly, we already had
available in Australia but due to testing, bad weather conditions, we
couldn’t test it and we didn’t want to risk it. Now, nevertheless, we know
what we have to use and obviously it works very well.
Q: How much of a gamble is the tyre choice this weekend?
MS: No big gamble. We’re probably clear on what we brought here, what we
wanted to have and Bridgestone is very well in this respect, in particular
this year where we have made huge progress.
Q: It looked pretty fraught with the two of you coming in for your tyre
stops at the same time.
MS: We planned to be out very early which meant that we were together and as
you go together, we have the same strategy in terms of trying to achieve the
number of laps and in this respect, it was normal that we would stay
together for almost all the time.
Q: So it wasn’t too fraught.
MS: No, no, no. Not at all, not at all. My first stop took a bit longer
because of the front tyre but then there is always some margin in time, it’s
not a race pit stop, so it worked out well.
Q: Jenson, you have been on pole here before, so it must be becoming your
favourite circuit.
JB: It’s a circuit I enjoy very much. It’s a beautiful setting, it’s very
narrow and you have to bounce the car off the kerbs quite a bit. I enjoy it
– it’s a circuit I’ve always gone very well at. Yeah, it’s always gone well
for me here.
Q: Rubens was talking about race pace. We’ve seen you qualifying very well
but not being so good on race pace. How confident are you for tomorrow?
JB: It just shows what we’ve been doing in testing. We had some good runs
today and we just have to see tomorrow, but we’re reasonably happy that
we’ve solved some of our issues and whether we have completely solved them –
we’ll just have to wait and see.
Q: Are we going to see a vast improvement for the rest of the season?
JB: I’m hoping, yeah. I know I’m smiling, but it is only qualifying.
Tomorrow’s the important day and hopefully we have quite a good car for the
race and I’m sure we’ve made enough improvements.
Q: People were complaining about a lack of grip yesterday. How much better
was it today?
JB: It was a bit better today with the grip level – maybe it was because of
higher temperatures. I’ve struggled to get a set-up with the car, I
struggled especially yesterday, and today also it’s been tough, but we found
a set-up that works and I’m positive for tomorrow, but it hasn’t been an
easy day for myself.
Q: High hopes then?
JB: Today’s been going well, so hopefully we’ll continue tomorrow.
Q: Rubens, well done. Are you surprised to be up here?
RB: Not really. Obviously it looks like chaos from the outside with the car,
but it’s been hard to drive going to circuits with a new team and a new car.
Still, our pace has been good. In Australia I should have been in the top
ten but I got traffic on my quick lap and was knocked out. With these new
rules, that can happen to the top guys as well. But like I said, I’ve been
working very hard with the team. The team has been listening to my requests
and this is the proof of it, that’s why I want to thank them so much,
because they put a lot of effort last week into improving the car. Jock
(Clear) has been quite good engineering and putting the car right for me.
It’s still not 100 percent but I’m enjoying it much more. Imola is not
actually a place where I go that well and so I’m quite happy.
Q: But how marginal is race strategy here?
RB: We’re only going to learn that tomorrow, but the most important thing is
that we have to rely on ourselves. We understood a lot of the problems that
we had in the races, since the beginning, not just in Melbourne. We made the
car faster, there’s no doubt that the car is faster on race pace. Ferrari,
with Michael, seems to be on another level in a way, but we’re here to win
the race and we’re going to give it everything and see if our work from last
week paid off and I think it will.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Livio Oricchio - O Estado do Sao Paolo) Michael, you are now first in
the ranking of pole positions. Is there any special meaning for you?
MS: Yeah, obviously it has a special meaning for me but then, as I mentioned
before, those sorts of statistics and records and so on, they will mean much
more when you’re over it and look back to it. Right now, you’re so much
focused on what comes next that it’s a nice achievement but you don’t pay
too much attention to it.
Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Michael, can you explain
your voice. Do you have flu?
MS: I just have an allergy.
Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) To the Honda drivers, the
key question seems to be tyre temperatures. Do you think that you found the
solutions in the long runs that you did yesterday and this morning?
JB: The issues we had in Melbourne with the tyre temperatures and the tyre
grip, I think we’ve solved a lot of the issues and I don’t think we’re going
to have a problem here. The temperatures seem to be very good all weekend so
I don’t think we’ll have an issue but you never know. We’ve got to wait and
see. It’s difficult. We hadn’t driven in such cold conditions like Melbourne
so it’s difficult to see if we have solved the problems completely.
Q: Is it a problem that there seems to be a very narrow temperature range
with the tyres this year, and this is perhaps hotter than you thought it was
going to be?
JB: No, I think this is good for us. The hotter temperatures seem to work
for us as a team and also for Michelin so I’m happy that the temperature has
been good here, it’s been the best for quite a few years here in Imola, I
think, so it’s positive for us and also for Michelin, so we’re very happy.
Q: Michael, is that a problem for you, the fact that it’s warmer?
MS: No.
Q: (Marco Evangelisti – Corriere dello Sport) Rubens, with Alonso having
such a bad position in the order, do you think the World Championship is
still open for Honda and you in particular?
RB: No, listen, I was much more optimistic when I went to the first race and
obviously what happened put us down a little bit, even though Jenson has
being doing a superb job to be qualifying up there. In the first two races,
he showed the pace of the car and he was on the podium once. We’re going to
have to work really hard to get the car to where we want. It is a good car,
there’s no doubt of that. We need to improve small areas to make it a real
contender for race wins but the championship is still too open. You can see
that from Ferrari’s pace. It’s a kind of a McLaren situation from last year;
they start late… they start here in Imola actually, where they were faster
than the Renaults. If that’s a bluff, just because of the track, we don’t
know but the championship will be very open until very late, I guess. |
