Canada: Race comments from the team

By Phil Giles
June 27 2006

The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in the middle of the St Lawrence Seaway in Montreal, Canada has always been a bit of a car breaker and it proved this again to Midland's detriment when on the first lap, it caused a coming together between team mates Tiago Monteiro and Christijan Albers.

The cardinal sin in Formula One is colliding with your team mate and taking him out of the race.  It happened at Monaco and it happened again at the Casino hairpin yesterday during the Grand Prix.  The hairpin went on to ruin a number of drivers races but not so easily as Midlands.

Coming into the corner, Tiago behind Christijan couldn't brake hard enough on the dirty side of the track.  The front of his M16 hit the rear of Christijan's car, spinning him through 90 degrees, smashing the right hand side of the car and taking off Tiago's nose cone.

Immediately after the race, Tiago apologised to Christijan and the team.  Christijan put it down to a racing incident.  "I felt a bump" he said, "The car spun and I saw it was Tiago."  Christijan's race ended there and then.  Tiago limped back to the pit and changed the nose cone but his race ended on the first lap.  He never found the balance of the car, ending the race in 14th place.

Adding insult to injury, Portugal went on to beat Holland 1-0 in the world cup later on that evening!

Tiago said: "First of all, I have to apologise to my team for my mistake at the start of the race. I was on the inside portion of the track, on the dirty part, and I locked my rear wheels. I lost control of my car and hit my teammate, so I'm very annoyed with myself and sorry about that. After that, we changed what we could on the car - obviously, it wasn't in the best condition - and we brought the car home in 14th. We took a big risk on the strategy - Christijan and I were on different strategies - and although mine didn't pay off, we needed to try it. Our soft tyres weren't ideal for the track conditions, and it was really tough race. There were lots of marbles in the corners and the car was very difficult to drive. But we managed another finish, which is really the only positive thing we can take away today. I hope that next week, in Indy, we can have a fraction of the success that we enjoyed last year."

A magnanimous Christijan said: "It was a shame to be out so early, because I think our race pace could have been really strong - better than our qualifying, that's for sure. I had a reasonable start and was able to pick up a few positions, overtaking Montagny and Monteiro after the first few corners. I was fighting with Sato for position and then, when I arrived at Corner 10, I don't know what happened. I just felt something hit me from behind, I spun, and then I saw it was Tiago. Our wheels were interlocked, and it was game over for me, because the right side of my car was destroyed. I think it's quite obvious what happened, so let's leave it at that and move on."

Colin Kolles commented:  "It was not a very enjoyable race for us, because it was finished before the end of the first lap. So, unfortunately, we just had to endure the rest of it and do our best to bring the remaining car home. As far as we're concerned, the shunt was a racing incident and we've already dealt with it and put it behind us. Now, we must concentrate on doing a better job in Indianapolis."

James Key said: "A very disappointing afternoon, to be sure. We had an unfortunate shunt at the beginning of the race, which didn't really allow us to continue with any sort of competitive pace or challenge for position, as Tiago's car was very damaged and lost a lot of down force as a result. We had him on a long strategy to try to take advantage of safety cars or improving track conditions, but being down a lap right at the start made that impossible. We need to sort out a number of issues for Indianapolis, because these types of incidents really don't do us any favours."