Podium for Alonso at Sepang!

By role
March 23 2003

Great race today at Malaysia that saw the first win of Raikkonen and the first podium for Alonso. A great race took place this afternoon at Sepang that saw Kimi Raikkonen taking his first win and the young Alonso getting the first pole for the French team.

Alonso, who started from the pole, leaded the race for the first 14 laps before he entered the pits. From there on was Raikkonen on top followed by a competitive Barrichello that suffered from the incident on the second corner of the first lap.

The incident was caused by his teammate Michael Shumacher that outbraked himself in turn 2 hitting Trulli along the way. Michael was obliged to stop to change the front win and was later penalised by the FIA with a drive-through penalty because of the incident.

Alonso, that started the race with fever run a very strong race that was some how hampered by some gearbox problems.

Flavio Briatore, team boss, explained at Italian RAI TV station: "We have a driver who got us a pole and a third position," Briatore said "Fernando had a problem with the gearbox since the first pitstop, after which he had to change gears manually.
"He didn't have fifth gear, I think fourth nor first. He did something incredible. With three gears he maintained his laptimes, I can't really add anything to it."

Fernando was obviously quite satisfied of his effort: Today is the best day of my life. It's a great feeling to finish on the podium, especially since halfway through the race I started to have problems with my gearbox and I was forced to shift manually until the end. Frankly, I thought I wasn't going to finish and instead I got this great result! I am sorry for Jarno because he could have had a podium finish as well but we both scored points and that.s very good. A big thank you to everyone in the team to whom I dedicate this first podium."

Trulli was hampered by the incident with Michael Schumacher on the first lap but was able to do a strong race that saw him finish 5th just in front of the German Champpion: "Honestly I think we missed a good opportunity today. Everything was going smoothly but then Michael pushed me out. He eventually apologised but at that point, my race had been spoiled. I incurred in other problems, such as a long pitstop and I had to fight till the end to keep my position. Certainly my fifth place brings some more points to myself and the team, however, I am disappointed because I feel I could have done better."

Mike Gascoyne, Technical Director was quite satisfied: "It's a fantastic result for the team. Jarno's first lap was spoiled by Michael Schumacher. He had also some problems in the pit-stop. Without this, I'm sure he would have finished fourth. Fernando drove a fantastic race considering that he had an electronic problem just before his last stop which meant that he had to shift manually. We had a very strong, competitive weekend and I hope we will achieve with the same good result again this season ."

Worthwhile to note the excellent relationship between both drivers as they hugged after yesterday 1 & 2 in qual and Trulli was the second to congratulate Alonso for the podium position.