“It was going really well in the race. I had a good start, chose the right way to go off the line and went from 15th to eleventh on the first lap, so I knew we had a good chance to do well and overtake Jarno for sixth place. Even if I hadn’t passed Jarno [Trulli], I still would have finished seventh which would have been good too, so the end result is a shame.”
Fernando Alonso:
“This weekend has been both sweet and sour. The car was very competitive and we were up there with the Ferraris and the BMWs, which is a good first step.
“I think now we should hopefully start enjoying races again and racing closer to the front. Although I am disappointed not to finish, it was a nice surprise to see that we are more competitive than we thought we would be.”
Rubens Barrichello:
“The car was performing well today, so it was especially disappointing that the incident in the pit-lane with Fisichella brought my race to an end. From what we can see, it was just one of those unfortunate incidents.
“The team released me and advised me of traffic, so I stayed out of the fast lane. Fisichella overtook me and cut into his box clipping my front wing at the same time. I managed to get round the lap with the wing caught under the front of the car, but unfortunately the damage caused to the bodywork was too great to continue and I was forced to retire. It’s a shame as I could have scored some good points today.
“We have certainly made a step forward in performance this weekend. The new aero package has performed well, and although it took some tuning this week to ensure that we achieved the optimum set-up, the car was well-balanced and performing well in the race.
“There is still a long way to go, but it is encouraging to know that we are improving step-by-step. I look forward to the next few races and hope we can continue to make progress.”
Anthony Davidson:
“It was a disappointing end to the weekend for me. After Piquet ran wide at the beginning of the race he dragged a lot of gravel onto the track, and a stone from that then damaged my water radiator, putting me out of the race.
