San Marino: We've come a long way

By Phil Huff (20/04/2003)
April 20 2003

Today's San Marino Grand Prix brought mixed fortunes for the Lucky Strike BAR Honda team. While obviously pleased with Jenson's point for eight place, the teams third successive points finish, there was disappointment for Jacques, and the feeling that eight wasn't representative of the cars speed.

Jenson said "It's good to get a point here but a little disappointing that we couldn't do better today. I got a little bogged down at the start behind Webber but then I pushed as hard as I could. I think we got everything right today in terms of strategy but we still finished a long way off the leaders. I think we've been able to demonstrate improving reliability but we just need a little more speed. We have an aero and engine upgrade for the next race, which we're testing in Mugello next week, so we should see a small step forward for Barcelona in two weeks' time."

"It's very disappointing not to finish the race here because things were looking good for us today," added 1997 champion Jacques Villeneuve. "I had a problem changing down and then the engine stopped shortly after. I was quite surprised that so many people ran a three-stop strategy because we were on two stops and we were quite competitive. We've had a few problems recently and sadly they've been on my car, but it is encouraging that we are competitive. We just need to work on reliability now and make sure we don't keep missing out on good opportunities."

David Richards added "Overall we were extremely competitive this weekend but when the leading three teams get all their cars to the finish, scoring a point is an achievement. If I compare our gap to the front of the field versus 12 months ago we've come a long way, and if we continue this level of improvement, the whole team must feel very positive for the future."

"This was a mixed result for us, with Jenson gaining another point but Jacques not finishing.", said BAR Technical Director Geoff Willis. "There was a small fire at the first stop, and on the out-lap the engine stopped after the fire caused terminal damage to the wiring loom. Both cars were running a two-stop strategy but Jenson and Jacques were baulked by Webber's slow getaway and dropped behind slower runners. After Jacques' retirement, Jenson ran to plan to finish P8, although he struggled a little for pace in the last stint. The race history shows that we qualified with the same fuel load as the front row; this gives us further evidence that we have made substantial progress towards the front of the grid since last year."

"Jenson drove hard today and this is the third race in a row that we've scored points, so that's encouraging. This wasn't a good race for us though." concluded Shuhei Nakamoto, Engineering Director at Honda Racing Development. "It was very unfortunate that Jacques had a problem and couldn't finish. I would also like to add that our thoughts are with Daijiro Kato's family at this very sad time."