25/09/2005
NEWS STORY
On a day which saw Fernando Alonso unofficially crowned World Champion after five years of dominance by Bridgestone equipped Michael Schumacher, the former World Champion and his teammate Rubens Barrichello took points for fourth and sixth place finishes this afternoon in the 71-lap Brazilian Grand Prix. Their points haul enables the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro team to not only maintain their third place in the Constructors' Championship but widen the gap from 10 to 17 points ahead of the Toyota Racing Team. Schumacher now ties for third place in the Drivers' Championship with Juan Pablo Montoya. Despite the looming rain clouds and the occasional wet patches on track from overnight rain, the race took place in generally dry conditions, resulting in a straight battle as various qualifying and fuel strategies played out. Fellow Bridgestone runners, Minardi's Christijan Albers and Jordan's Narain Karthikeyan took the chequered flag but their respective teammates Robert Doornbos and Tiago Monteiro failed to finish. It was a particularly disappointing end to a promising weekend for Monteiro who had qualified 13th the previous day. It also brought an end to his flawless finishing record in his debut year. The Formula One paddock now moves on to the final races of the year, the Japanese and Chinese Grands Prix.
Hisao Suganuma – Technical Manager – Bridgestone Motorsport: Both the Ferrari drivers had good strong performances today, especially Michael who was able to run quite a good pace up with the front runners. We are pleased that our tyres showed speed and consistency today and even towards the end of the race, Michael was able to push and keep the rest of the field behind him. Even though there were some wet patches on the track and it was slightly damp in places, our tyre performance did not seem to be affected, which was good to see. It was a good fourth place for Michael and a good sixth place for Rubens at his home grand prix. We have been encouraged by this weekend's performance and shall be incorporating these results into our future developments. I'm sorry to see Tiago's record stop here but we expect him to bounce back in the final two races. And finally, our congratulations to Fernando Alonso who has proved himself a worthy successor to Michael Schumacher this year.
Ross Brawn – Technical Director – Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro: The race went pretty well and we are pleased that Michael was able to take Fisichella. We had a good strategy and good pitstops. We shall take some pleasure from today and although we want to win races of course, we are currently not in a position to and we did everything we could have done this weekend to have a good race. There is some reward from today. It was a shame Rubens couldn't start higher on the grid as he could have been a real contender. However, both cars were good, the Bridgestone tyres were good and we just need to find more performance and get back to the old days.