NH:
The biggest moment I actually had was when Bourdais and Barrichello passed me. I also didn’t try to fight them too hard because they were just so much quicker but as Lewis said earlier, you could not see them. You heard them, I saw a little bit in the spray and I just hoped that we would not crash because the difference in speed was so big but you can also not pull off line because there was so much standing water. Once before Abbey, they both got by and I just backed off because I saw nothing and I knew there were some puddles somewhere and then I nearly spun because I didn’t see and there was a lot of standing water, so that was the biggest moment for me and I nearly lost it there.
Q:
Rubens Barrichello and a wet
Silverstone seem to go well together!
RB:
Well, 2003 was actually dry but I think the wet and myself… there’s no specific reason. To be honest, I wasn’t good in the wet in my very first race. I wasn’t at all good in go-kart and I remember the strategy was that the next time it was wet at Interlagos with a go-kart, to take slicks and go learn in the wet. That’s what I did for half a day and then when I put on the wets, I was a master, it was unbelievable.
LH:
What year was that?
RB:
Oh man, don’t ask me the year because you were definitely not born. It was ’82! You see, I’m still young. I love the wet and I think it’s just the spirit. When some people look at situations where they don’t like it - it doesn’t matter what – it’s already bad, it’s already a negative influence. You have to take it as it comes. Today it was obviously very difficult at the beginning with the visibility, coming from behind. There was a moment I touched the white line and I spun. My team-mate went by at Club. But then from there on, there was a minor problem at the pit stop and I still don’t know what happened, because I was there for more than twenty seconds. And that obviously cost me one position on the podium. That was minor. I still have to understand what it was. But the decisions to take the tyres at the right moment were fantastic, and the decision to come in… the radio was working fine. I had everything under control. Once I almost hit the wall at Club when I decided to go for the extreme wet tyres. They told me you’ve got to stop for some other tyres even though it might be five laps or so, in those five laps you can conquer ten seconds a lap and that’s what happened, didn’t it? I was going so much faster than people and I could overtake. I had to be patient because as Nick said, I was so much faster than people that you could overdo it. I had to take my lines carefully and it worked fantastically well.
Q:
And a great reception as well.
RB:
Yeah. Since I joined the team… I’ve joined them for a purpose. I always thought they had a fantastic 2004 season. They didn’t do very well in 2005, so I thought that it was just going to come back in 2006 because they have fantastic engineers, fantastic mechanics, the organisation, the whole policy of the team is good, but they need a technical leader, so it took a long time until Ross came. Everything calmed down a bit and now we have a lot of respect between ourselves and I think the work is nice, very nice. I think the podium comes at a good time. I have no intention of stopping. I will only stop if I have nowhere else to go, but my intention is to stay with
Honda. I have no contracts just yet, but I feel young. I love racing more than I ever did. The day that I find that I’m actually slower than in that first race at Kyalami is the day I will stop. Right now I’m just feeling that I’m faster than that day.
