A rewarding race for Jarno!

By role
August 4 2003

Jarno Trulli was exhausted yesterday after finishing the German GP in third place scoring his first podium position in his two years at Renault.

The Italian driver had to fight a fever plus Michael Schumacher, David Coulthard and his teammate Fernando Alonso in the latest stages. He ran a great race in which he had to overcome a bad last set of tyres that meant he was loosing pace to the front runners.

Jarno, on the press conference was happy but tremendously tired for the big effort:
“Let's say it wasn't very easy yesterday and today because I have had a fever so everything made my life a little bit more difficult. But despite that we did a very good job developing the car and we had a good qualifying so we built up a good starting position for the race and everything was working very well until 15 laps to go when I started really struggling with the rear tyres - that was my problem today. “ He said

It was in the end where Trulli was clearly loosing pace and was overtaken by Michael Schumcaher and David Coulthard:

“I must say that Michelin were really over Bridgestone on this circuit, they were much quicker, much more competitive but probably I didn't really get a right balance for the end of the race. It was strange because suddenly I started having a problem with the rear, I had to push more to keep Michael behind me, so I was pushing a bit more under traction and braking, so I was basically wearing off the tyres more and more and I ended up being very, very slow at the end and I had to fight the car and you see the result. “

“…..at one stage I was pulling away from them (Schumacher and Coulthard), I was comfortably second and I was also taking care of the rear tyres because I knew they could have gone off. Then suddenly I had this problem, so it is really a shame and we knew that once they get behind us they are going to overtake us because they are much quicker on the straight. Plus, if you are struggling with the rear tyres normally we have also bad traction out of the corner, struggling going out of the corner so the straight speed is even lower. There was a couple of things that worked out not perfectly well for me but I must say today I have been lucky because otherwise I couldn't get the third position.”

Jarno ruled out his long last stint of 29 laps as a possible reason for the blistering of the tyres:

“No, I don't think so, because with the first set I didn't really have this kind of problem and everything worked out pretty well. It just suddenly happened with the second set while I was pulling away comfortably from the McLaren, I don't know if David was there but definitely I was really looking good and then I was surprised and we have to investigate. Maybe the track rubbed in eventually towards the end and the set-up was not quite right for the last 15 laps but I don't know, we have to investigate because everything worked out pretty well until the last 15 laps. I cannot really blame the tyres because they have been really, really strong this weekend and in general we did a lot of tests on the set-up over the weekend with the engineers and we came out with quite a good set-up even on the long race and I was looking pretty consistent and quick and then suddenly the last 15 laps it was given away.”

Jarno was not happy with Michael Schumacher’s manoeuvre to overtake him:
“We were fighting, just fighting. It was a normal race and I was really trying hard to keep him behind but once he got in the tow it was really hard to keep him behind me, especially on the straight, and I was struggling with the rear tyres. And as you probably saw under braking I was losing such a lot of time – and on traction. So I knew the last 10 or 15 laps would be really hard for me and when I saw Michael I said ‘well, now I don't know if I can keep him behind' because his straight line speed was much higher than mine. I think the manoeuvre was pretty much on the limit because he put all four wheels on the green side of the circuit but basically got an advantage running wide and outside of the circuit so I think this manoeuvre wasn't probably right.”