Q: Michael, if I can come to you first, we all know you had a big crash here last week in testing. Can you tell us what the cause of it was and what the consequences were?
Michael Schumacher: The cause was leaking air from the tyre and the consequence was that the tyre blew up and the crash was a result of this.
Q: And I think we are all interested in the consequences as far as you’re concerned. I know you spoke to the German press on Sunday. Would you like to repeat what you told them?
MS: There is no consequence. I felt a bit stiff the next day but nothing of a drama. Actually it was quite alright because we have invested a lot of time in the seat, in the headrest area, in all the surroundings in the cockpit area in terms of safety and it paid out, so I felt pretty good afterwards.
Q: Of all the crashes you have had – and there have not been a huge number of them - how would you place it in terms of seriousness?
MS: I don’t think it is important. Any crash is too much and you don’t want it but it’s part of the game.
Q: This leads us onto a bigger question of the tyres, because we saw several instances, particularly in Spa and again in the testing here last week, as a member of the GPDA you are presumably quite concerned about this. Is it a matter for worry, is some action required?
MS: I am not worried for what happened here at Monza but naturally I am worried about what happened in Spa. I believe, from a GPDA point of view, it is pretty clear what we would like to ask but it is nothing we would want to discuss publicly, but in the end it is up to the FIA to sort of take consequences and we will find out what they think about this.
Q: Maybe I can nudge you along a bit in this direction because we have seen a lot of tyre incidents this year that have followed crashes that have left carbon fibre debris on the circuit. Do you feel that maybe the time has come to reconsider the question of the safety car and perhaps re-introduce the stopping of races so tracks can be cleaned up?
MS: The problem is if you take one decision in that direction it might have other consequences and we have learned very often to make quick change and immediate change is not wise unless you have studied correctly so I would never want to enter into suggestions which are not carefully thought through.
Q: So, presumably you are continuing dialogue with the FIA on this?
MS: Certainly. We have regular meetings happening after the drivers’ briefing where we drivers discuss what we think are the topics and the issues and we have a very good dialogue with the FIA in that sense because we have a lot of trust and belief in each other and that is what moves things forward, not what you try to distribute around with maybe unnecessary comments.
Q: If we can move forward to the four races left to go this season. You have got the championship safely under your belt. I think you went into the Spa race fairly conservative. You didn’t look as unhappy about finishing second after that race as you have done on previous occasions. Was your objective there just to protect your championship from Rubens and what will the policy be at Ferrari for the remaining four races as far as Rubens is concerned?
MS: I think in a small degree it is true that there was some attention to what Rubens was doing because he was the person who may cause me problems for the championship, although the problems weren’t very big in a way, but I was looking for what he was doing. But nevertheless, in particular after what happened straight at the beginning, I was much less concentrated on what he was doing, I was trying to drive my race. I was in the position not to be able to be very aggressive, due to various circumstances such as safety cars and the way we worked with our whole environment of car, tyres and so on. It may appear to be conservative but I think I just did what I could do and did nothing wrong, in a way, that I can say in the end I should have done something different. There were limits to myself and I prefer to drive within my limits.
Q: So you were obviously very satisfied with your Spa race?
MS: I was satisfied but I wasn’t particularly satisfied with the result because I would have rather won the race together with the championship but sometimes you can’t have everything and then you have to think back and it took a little moment and that’s why there wasn’t an instantaneous happiness there because I wasn’t sure what I should think about that race. It took a while to analyse everything and see whether there were things that I should have done different and better or not but in the end the conclusion was I had very low possibilities to do something different or better.
Q: Giancarlo, Sauber is looking quite strong towards the end of the season. What are your hopes for these last four races and particularly this weekend?
Giancarlo Fisichella: Honestly, the team, Sauber, did a fantastic job in the last few months, especially with the new wind tunnel. They are working well and from Silverstone, with the new bodywork, we made a big step forward, so we can easily score points everywhere. Now I am very concentrated for the rest of the season to do my best to keep the sixth place in the championship for Sauber and we are quite optimistic to do well on Sunday.
