03/04/2005
NEWS STORY
Bridgestone Motorsport's engineers are taking encouragement from the progress that has clearly been made since Malaysia, but will be leaving Bahrain's Sakhir circuit with a clear picture of the work needed over the coming weeks. Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro's Michael Schumacher looked strong all weekend and having started from the front row of the grid it was a bitter blow to see the World Champion retire from the 57-lap race with a hydraulic problem. Teammate Rubens Barrichello's hopes of coming away from Bahrain with points were also dashed despite fighting from the back of the grid to fifth. The Brazilian had had a luckless weekend from start to finish with car reliability problems in the practice and qualifying sessions then followed by tyre wear issues in the race. No points for the Scuderia's new F2005 challenger on its debut but signs of huge potential for future races mean the team and Bridgestone will keep pushing hard over the next three weeks before the first of the European races in Imola.
Hisao Suganuma – Technical Manager – Bridgestone Motorsport: It looked like a potentially successful weekend but unfortunately it did not finish as we had hoped. We have clearly made steps forward in the past two weeks and with the support of our teams we shall no doubt make further steps forward. Ferrari worked hard to bring forward the introduction of their new car and together we set about improving the performance of the Bridgestone tyres for this weekend. In this respect we feel we have made progress. Rubens had a tough time here getting very little track time prior to the race but Michael was able to run strongly this weekend in the practice sessions and he went on to confirm his pace with two good qualifying sessions, setting the third and second fastest times respectively, giving him an aggregated front row position on the grid. Both he and Rubens were also fighting strongly at the beginning of the race: Michael maintained his second place until retiring and Rubens clawed his way up from last on the grid to fifth before he began to lose his tyre's competitiveness. This is obviously an area on which we need to work over the next three weeks and we shall do our best for the race in San Marino.
Ross Brawn – Technical Director – Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro: A mixed weekend of highs and lows and although it is disappointing not to win with the F2005 on its debut and there are clearly areas in which the car package has to improve, there were also some positive aspects of our performance this weekend on which we can build. Our car-tyre performance has improved since Malaysia and now we need to concentrate on working together with our partners to improve the package further.