Malaysia: Race team quotes

By Phil Giles
March 19 2006

Making small but significant gains, this weekend saw Midland drivers Christijan Albers and Tiago Monteiro bring their cars safely home in 12th and 13th place respectively.

The race saw the team battle with high track and air temperatures, slower Super Aguri racers and a launch system that didn't quite work properly, however these problems can be overcome with the team promising new parts on the car for Melbourne in two weeks time.

Collin Kolles said that there was still a lot to learn about the car.  "I'm pleased that we were able to overcome our reliability issues, which was a positive sign. Our pace was not so bad either, compared to where we were last year. What's more, we were actually  getting faster toward the end of the race, so we're continuing to make improvements all the time. We still have a lot to learn about this young  car, and there is a lot of room to explore its potential."

"It was satisfying to have our first double-finish of the year after the problems we had in Bahrain." said Adrian Burgess.  "We were forced to make manual starts with both cars, which compromised our eventual finish quite heavily. As a result of that, we got stuck behind some slower cars off the lights, but after that, we had pretty good pace for the rest of the race. Both our guys drove brilliant races. The pit stops, the cars and everything else ran fine for the rest of the race. We just have to work on the reliability issues that we had with the driveshafts and get our starts back to normal. We know what we have to do and we should have some new parts for Melbourne."

"We had bad luck with the start, because both Tiago and I ended up being held up for a few laps." commented Christijan.  "Afterward, we got caught up in traffic, so that limited what we were able to do for the rest of the race. That part was unfortunate, but it was nice to finally run a full race without problems. My crew did a great job, and I think we can have an even better result in Australia in two weeks."

Tiago said: "It was kind of a tough race for me. I got stuck behind a couple of slower cars at the beginning, so I think my engineers made a good decision to bring me in early. I really felt I had the pace to get by them, but it was difficult because I was losing ground on the straight sections. I was also disappointed not to be able to put in any quick laps on my fresh tyres because of all the traffic, but that's the way it goes, I guess. We pitted early a second time, which was another good decision, and was able to put in some good laps during that stint. But my race position was pretty much set by that point. I can't say I'm very excited to finish 13th, but in any case, I'd like to congratulate the team on a job well done: the pit stops were quick and clean, and we had good reliability."