25/09/2005
NEWS STORY
Jean Todt: Today, we did the best we could, getting the most out of the package at our disposal. This result means we can consolidate our third place in the Constructors' classification. Today, Fernando Alonso took over the Drivers' title that Michael had won with Ferrari for the last five years. Fernando has put together a perfect season, supported by Renault, led by Patrick Faure and Flavio Briatore and Michelin. Congratulations to all of them. There are still two races to go. Along with Bridgestone, we face a lot of work to develop the tyres. We must do our utmost in these next two rounds, because they can produce precious data that can even be useful for next year. Today, our cars proved reliable, the team worked very well and the drivers gave their all.
Michael Schumacher: First of all I want to congratulate Fernando and his team on winning the title. They have done a great job and from a personal point of view it is nice for me to see some of the guys I worked with at Benetton looking so happy. I look forward to fighting them again next season. We had a reasonable race today, certainly better than the last few. The Constructors' championship is important to us and from that perspective this was a good result. Maybe this afternoon's positive tendency can continue in the final two races.
Rubens Barrichello: I had a good race, but I was blocked by the people ahead of me and I had nowhere to go really and could never really push to the maximum. It was a shame. I had a particularly exciting battle with Jenson which was a bit crazy because it was a bit wet on the inside line. I just tried hard not to create any problems for myself. If it hadn't been for the difficulty in qualifying yesterday, I could have had a much better race as the car returned to normal today. The only problem I had this afternoon was with twenty laps to go, when the power steering started pushing me to the left. Sixth was the best I could do. Congratulations to Fernando. He deserves this title.
Ross Brawn: Our race went pretty well. I am pleased that we beat Fisichella and it showed we had a good strategy with Michael. The team carried out the pit stops very well. Of course, we would like to win races, but we are not in a position to do so at the moment. However, I think that all weekend here, we performed to our maximum doing the best that we could at this point in the season. It is a shame that Rubens was unable to start a bit higher up the grid, as he could have been up there as well. The cars worked well as did the tyres. We just need to find some more performance.