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Spanish GP: Thursday Press Conference

NEWS STORY
24/04/2008

Pedro, how much has your role changed this year? Are you still doing pretty much what you have always been doing?
Pedro de la Rosa: My role is pretty much unchanged. Obviously, we are very limited on mileage during the testing season and we have to maximise every mile we do and every set of tyres. From that point of view it hasn't changed at all.

So perhaps you can describe what that is.
PdlR: It is the normal work that a test driver needs to do. First of all you have to be at every grand prix as a reserve driver and that's why I am here. Secondly at the test sessions I am testing anything that is required by the team, backing all that work up in the simulation facilities at Woking and being of any help for the team. It is very similar to before but basically doing less kilometres at the track and spending more time in the simulator, so it is great fun.

You are not frustrated at not racing?
PdlR: Yes, of course it is frustrating not racing. I have to be realistic as I am at that point of my career where I don't have many more years left. Not because of me but because of the other people's perception unfortunately. Every year that goes by it is just getting closer to a point where I won't be able to race again. I am aware of that. I am a realistic person and I am just hoping that something happens for me.

Lewis had a little blip at the last race. How were you able to help him during that weekend and how have you been able to help him since?
PdlR: A blip? What do you mean? A blip could mean also to go up. We hope that the blip comes here. Yes, he had a bad weekend but all we can do from the team's point of view is to make sure that we make it as simple as possible for him not to make any mistakes. That's what we have been focussing on for the past few weeks, to make sure that this won't happen again. Not that he has to change anything, but from our point of view we make sure that is simpler for him to activate everything he has to from the cockpit.

Does your role include driver coach, giving advice to drivers or anything like that?
PdlR: That's not a part which is included in my contract but obviously I am just trying to be helpful for everyone. I am just trying to listen as much as I can and know what the biggest problems are. For example this afternoon I will walk around the track and see if there is anything I can see. During test sessions I am driving around the corners on the side-road just to see with my eyes if I can help. If I see anything I don't like I go to the guys and I just tell them. I am very open and they can rely on me fully. They know I will always help, that's my role.

Rubens, I think in Turkey it will be 257 times you have turned up to a race. Looking back at the last race you didn't look like a driver about to retire, giving Fernando quite a hard time. What was that like?
Rubens Barrichello: It was bad. We were fighting for 10th place. I wish it were first and second. That would have been a lot better. He was having plenty of problems with his rear wing and I was having a lot of understeer on the car. Unfortunately in Formula One nowadays it is still very impossible to overtake. Hopefully in the future, if slicks really come into play, that will be the way to go. To play with a lot less aerodynamic devices and with a lot more grip from the ground and from the tyre that will give us the chance to follow other cars. As soon as I caught him I turned the revs down because there was nothing I could do. I was five kph slower on the straight. I feel very motivated. You talk to the young guys and they are all sort of fed up with F1, too much to do, PR. My life has kept on getting better and better. The first year with Honda I really did a lot of PR. But they put things in place and I am focussing and putting my energy on the car. I have been working quite hard. Last week I did 140 laps around Barcelona which I thought was phenomenal. I still feel young on that side. I am just going to prove Pedro wrong. I think I have many more years left.

Going back to the car. Do you think you are close to scoring points?
RB: We had a god improvement last week and obviously the first race was what it was and we would have finished in the points already with the car. But the first race is always a bit crazy anyway. In Malaysia we were far out and in Bahrain we had the pace but we did not have the straight line speed to overtake. But I think we are very close to the points. I think Barcelona is open on that. The car is a good time better. I don't know how much improvement the others made because last week was very difficult to read. It was slicks on the car, people with less fuel and more fuel, so it was really difficult to see. But the car is better – definitely better. We have made an improvement and hopefully that is going to put us on Q3 all the time and that will lead us to points and more.

It would be a nice way to celebrate your record. Apparently the celebrations are going to last several races?
RB: There is a little bit of confusion. You ask everyone and the numbers seem to go up and down, so we decided to take Turkey because that is the races I have taken part in. The ones that are not happy with that, because it seems too early, then we have three races to celebrate – the Brazilian way.

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