20/03/2005
NEWS STORY
Sauber driver Felipe Massa finished 10th in today's PETRONAS Malaysian Grand Prix in Sepang, but unfortunately Jacques Villeneuve spun and retired on the 27th lap.
Jacques Villeneuve: "From the start of the race I was aiming to be as consistent as possible. I was able to build on the progress that we started to make with the car in qualifying yesterday afternoon and again this morning. In particular I am gaining more and more confidence with the brakes and was locking the fronts momentarily going into Turn One, the way I like to. Then on lap 27 I locked the rears braking hard into the corner and spun, and couldn't get restarted."
Felipe Massa: "I think our race pace was reasonable compared to qualifying yesterday and this morning, and I was able to follow Michael for many laps. After my second stop I started having a problem with oversteer in Turn 12. On one lap I had to take a lot of the kerb because of that, and after that the car seemed to lose a lot of rear downforce and was almost undriveable at competitive speed."
Peter Sauber (Team Principal): "This was a difficult weekend for us, especially here in PETRONAS' homeland where we had so hoped to perform strongly. But what we saw today were the facts, and I'm sure that everyone in the team understands that we have to redouble our efforts in order to improve quickly."