FA:
Hopefully, it’s the direction that will go from now on. Maybe the first row is, again, a bit optimistic, to think that we will go to Turkey and be between the two Ferraris. That’s a little bit difficult, we know that, but the first step is to be in Q3 with a little bit more of a gap and more relaxed and today we managed it with both cars and not being so close to eleventh, so we made the first step. The next one is to be in the top five and the next one on the podium; this is the programme for the whole season. It seems that we managed to make the first step. The other two steps will be even harder but the team is making a great effort to achieve that and I have full confidence in them.
Q: (Marco Evangelisti –
Corriere dello Sport)
Fernando, does this unexpected step forward make you more optimistic even for next year if you stay with Renault?
FA:
Yeah, more optimistic now for sure. When I finished the Bahrain race I was not very happy with tenth place and fighting with a difficult car and not being competitive all weekend, not only in the race. What I want is the result tomorrow. We saw another performance from the
Renault cars this weekend, so I will arrive at the next Grand Prix with much more confidence. Being in the first row for Renault is… it’s a year and a half or nearly two years that they were not on the front row, so hopefully we are coming back.
Q: (Livio Oricchio –
O Estado de Sao Paulo)
Question to Alonso and Massa: Felipe is on the clean side of the track, Alonso is on the dirty side. What happens if you have a similar start to last year?
FA:
We will see. It’s only Saturday afternoon, we will see tomorrow. It all depends on how the first fifty or a hundred meters are. You feel straight away if you have had a good start or you had a bad start. It depends on your position after these two hundred meters. You have different targets for the first corner. I’ll be on the wrong side, as you said, so maybe I arrive in the first corner and I’m fighting for fifth. It’s difficult to know today how it will be at the start tomorrow.
Q: (Heikki Kulta –
Turun Sanomat)
Kimi, is pole position here as important as it is in Monaco?
KR:
I think so. Even if you’re not on pole position it doesn’t change much. If you stay there at the start, any target if you’re on the front row is hard. It should give you a better chance at least, so you cannot get better than first place in qualifying, so I’m very happy with that.
Q: (Paolo Ianieri –
La Gazzetta dello Sport)
Fernando, you said before that seventh place is your target, but looking how well you did in Q2 and your position, can we say that a podium is something that is completely unrealistic or do you still think there could be a chance?
FA:
No, we will see. When you say what is your target for the race, for us it has always been in the points. We didn’t manage it in the last race. We just managed eighth in Sepang, so we are going to change our approach. Certainly we’ve got this one result and we will think about over-optimistic results. We need to be on target which is being in the points, knowing that we cannot be confused, knowing that there are three teams ahead of us at the moment. Maybe we have reduced the gap but they are still there, so we will see. I’m extremely happy about today, for sure one of the happiest days of 2008 so far, but we cannot think that we have the same pace as
Ferrari. Being second, between them, is a little bit unrealistic.
