05/08/2007
NEWS STORY
Raikkonen is third with 20 points behind Felipe 21, six races to go, looks like the situation is getting complicated.
Jean Todt: Yes, it's complicated. I'm always worried and of course, I would prefer to have both drivers with 20 points ahead. Saying that, you know that makes a very intense and interesting challenge, if we are able to be on the podium with both drivers, both cars, for the six remaining Grands Prix of the season, which is possible, I still think that we have a chance to achieve what we want.
Now is the period where there is no testing. Is it a problem for you in trying to catch McLaren?
JT: It's the same for everybody. There is now testing for this August period. Still, we can work in the wind tunnel, we can work with the simulation facilities and as I said, each team is in the same condition.
Do you think that Ron Dennis's reputation for telling the truth has suffered a loss of credibility this weekend?
JT: You have to ask… I'm not going to answer about this. I am sorry because it's not very new kind of answer, but I don't think it's appropriate to me to judge what the others are doing. Very often I'm unhappy because they allow themselves to judge us, but I don't think it's appropriate. I have a very strong feeling, myself, which I keep for me and I would say, from people with whom I spend my life, but it's not something I would speak outside.
Each person has enough to be able to analyse the situation and sooner or later, things always come out, whatever you do. That's why I think sometimes… I mean not sometimes but always you must think before you do something rather than starting a diversion.
You know it's like when you're in the desert. I've been in my past experience, involved with the rallies in the desert and sometimes you get lost. So as soon as you understand that you are lost, you must come back where you think you got lost and go back on the straight line. If you move in the wrong direction then you may be lost for ever.
Jean, what was the feeling about the general pace of the cars today, not necessarily the performance but the general pace, particularly given the pace on similar circuits earlier in the season?
JT: I don't want to say it was a good feeling, because I'm not very happy about the result today. You cannot always pretend that you're not happy if you don't win, even if what you always aim for is trying to win a race. But it was very disappointing to see Felipe behind cars which… again, I respect the cars, I respect the drivers, but they are not in the same league at the moment and he could not pass them. Due to his starting position, we put the car full of fuel, having to guess, but it's never good in this business if you start to guess. It didn't work properly for him. For Kimi it was much better. We had a competitive car but we did not do the best job for reasons we need to understand in qualifying and we paid the price. It's not pleasing but you have to accept it.
Don't you feel that for a team like Ferrari which is trying to fight for both championships the mistake that you did yesterday is pretty heavy.
JT: Not good but I'm not happy about that but the same people have been winning a lot of races, a lot of championships and mistakes remain human, so that's it. We have to try to understand why we did not have a good procedure to avoid that and hopefully make sure that it won't happen again.
In the past when Michael was in the team, it was always very clear that Michael was the team pace-setter and he was always the fastest guy ahead of his teammate, which meant that your championship battles were fairly straightforward because Michael was always leading the way. Now we are in a different situation where both the drivers seem very evenly matched and you're going against an opposition which has more than more points than you. What kind of a different challenge does that present to you and how will you manage it in a different way?
JT: With Michael it was always agreed that if his team was in a stronger position for the championship, then Michael would have accepted that and we would have put… no more effort because it was the same effort, but if we would have to do some specific choice for strategy or whatever, that would have been in favour of the teammate, so at the moment, between both drivers, there's one point different and I'm just happy that both are competitive, both are fitting very well in the team and there is no way at the moment, we will make any kind of strategy with them.
How do you judge the decision that was taken yesterday regarding Alonso and Hamilton and also the fact that McLaren was not getting any championship points today?
JT: You just arrived at the press conference? I already answered five minutes ago for that.
After the World Council hearing you expressed your frustrations that Ferrari couldn't put across its points of view against the spy case. Going into the appeal court, do you feel that you have a stronger case, that you have new evidence that you can present, an argument that hasn't been seen before to make people's opinions different?
JT: We were not happy… we said… we have been writing about that officially, about what Ferrari does feel after the decision of the World Council, because for us, if you are guilty, you must be penalised and very important thing is that our competitor was judged guilty and that's why the national automobile club of Italy asked the president of the FIA to reconsider which the president accepted. We will have the opportunity of presenting the case, hopefully properly, clearly and it's up to the international court of appeal to make the decision and of course we will accept the decisions, but we feel that what happened was simply unacceptable so we don't accept it.
Jean, could you talk us through the error with Felipe's refuelling yesterday, what actually went wrong, what processes actually broke down?
JT: In Q2, at least we at Ferrari we are always with low fuel and in Felipe's attempt to qualify for Q3, he made a little mistake understeering in the last sector and we realised that he would not be qualified for Q3. It's not something we have been much used to this year. So we changed his tyres and once the tyres were changed, we realised that no fuel had been put in the car so it was simply a mistake in the procedure and the time to bring the car back to the garage, the tyres got cold, probably pressure for Felipe as well. It's easy now to see what we should have done because we didn't do it, we should have put him new tyres which would have been hot in the blankets, but we did not do the best job and we paid the cost of it.
Can you comment on the rumour that Ferrari is interested in Lewis Hamilton, that they have made an offer of 35 millions?
JT: It's free and untrue speculation.
Jean, even if you are not happy with the result, the last stint of the race with super soft tyres showed that Kimi was as fast as Lewis, maybe faster. Does that give you some good perspective for the Brazilian Grand Prix when we use the same tyres?
JT: You know, for me, I'm very focused about the Grand Prix of Turkey, after Turkey we will have Monza, Spa, Shanghai, Japan and then Brazil, so it's a lot of things which will happen before going to Brazil.
Is it the general thought of Ferrari that the upcoming circuits those ones that you've just mentioned, are going to suit the car better than this one, for instance?
JT: We think so, we think so but we cannot be sure.
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