Following Michael Schumacher's tenth win of the season, and his sixty-first for Ferrari, a delighted Jean Todt sat down to answer a few questions regarding the race.
Today's win was made a little more difficult, not merely by Kimi Raikkonen's efforts in the McLaren, but also the intervention of the safety car. "Well, it followed an extremely spectacular accident which was fortunately without consequence for Jarno Trulli," says Todt.
"I think that it's perhaps important to dwell on that incident and of course, the extraordinary progress that has been made by the FIA, by Max Mosley, and obviously with the assistance of the teams who are participating in the world championship.
"We often see extremely spectacular accidents in Formula One," he continues, "and thanks to all their progress, fortunately they are often without serious consequences, which is something remarkable. I repeat that one has to underline that fact and congratulate them.
"As for the race, we chose a two-stop strategy for Michael and a three-stop for Rubens, and 15 laps before the end of the race, Michael had already refuelled which was not the case with those cars which were on three stops. The appearance of the safety car meant that Michael's advantage was cancelled out. This, of course, meant that the race virtually restarted from zero and became a second Grand Prix which was run over 15 laps. It was important that Michael wasn't overtaken by Raikkonen, who had newer tyres, so there were one or two lively laps before Michael could pull away, thanks to the better durability of his Bridgestone tyres."
What seems amazing is that once in the lead, Michael can reel off five or six laps which are absolutely perfect and within a tenth of a second of one another and much quicker than his rivals. "We have often spoken of Michael's extraordinary talent who today won his 80th Grand Prix, so it's something that is historic," the Frenchman replies, smiling.
"We know very well that while Formula One is a mechanical sport, and we know that if there aren't the many parameters that allow even the best driver in the world to take advantage of his mechanical assets, these kind of things wouldn't be possible. So today it was Michael's tenth win out of 11 races in 2004 but benefiting from an extraordinary ensemble of equipment, fitted with Bridgestone tyres."
But how do you explain, in the most simple terms, how in eight days he stops one more time than his rivals, and wins, and a week later, he stops one time less and he still wins? "Quite simply, it's a demonstration that the team knows how to imagine different scenarios from one circuit to another," he replies, "because here we are in England with a 60 lap race with a particular grid, special weather conditions in comparison to the race at Magny Cours which was 70 laps, with much higher temperatures, and so one has to adapt to different circumstances, but it's the same for our rivals."
Going back to Trulli's accident, undoubtedly progress has been made with regards safety, and one is still apt to call it a miracle. It's not a miracle, surely, but something that was thought through. "One talks occasionally of fortunate or unfortunate circumstances," he replies, "but having said that, it's a result of progress that has been made, it's the result of hard work, new technology, new materials so one has to appreciate that."
But the fact is that we've had three high-speed accidents in four races, has something got to be done? "We've had other accidents in private testing," he says, "that's part of motor racing. But saying that, the tendency is to over-react. If something has to be done, it will probably be done, we have to be very careful of what we do and how to do it."
Bernie has called Saturday's qualifying session, "mad" and "stupid", do we need to change the format soon? "If we all want to change, we will change," he says. "The way we discussed, and we agreed, we feel that it is not a matter of emergency and you are talking about the first lap of qualifying, which is in no way the final qualifying time, because the starting grid, which is the thing that matters, is the second qualifying time and speculation is that it was good. I think we would have been crazy guessing that there could be some water, trying to do the quickest time and then qualifying in wet conditions. So it's very childish."
It's extraordinary, the many different strategies that you come up with; how does all that happen? "I think we just have very good people," he responds, again smiling, "thinking very carefully with the elements to be able to chose, we know what is the strength of our car, the tyres and from that it allows us to decide our strategy and fortunately, very often it works well but sometimes it might not work well. It has happened already. We are not geniuses, we just try to do a good job."
Giancarlo Fisichella, with Ferrari engine and Bridgestone tyres and two stops, did a fine job; does that confirm that the package works well? "Again, it's a logical result; good tyres, consistent tyres, he could drive 23 laps before his first pit stop so it was probably the best strategy.
"He didn't have to bother about the starting order because he knew he was starting at the back and it's already happened like that before, for many competitors who started at the back of the grid. We have to invent specific strategies because we do qualifying with fuel to start the race so we have to compromise and of course, it's not the best strategy but it's done in order to have a good position on the grid. If you don't have this parameter, of course it's different."
