18-Aug: At the post
Race press conference for the Hungarian Grand Prix, Rubens
Barrichello was delighted with clinching the Constructors' title for
Ferrari and said "I think the most important thing is to have
clinched the constructors' (title). I think it's, for the team, I think
Michael has said many times how good they are and how good we are together
so it is just a day of commemoration. Sometimes you feel like you only
have to do this or that to win the championship and you feel a little bit
under pressure, but after all we had a great car, a great team, great pit
stops, great everything today."
Rubens described his race and particularly his start as a dream and said
"I couldn't believe when I looked behind and I was like two cars
ahead, I said, Jesus, just stay cool and don't brake too late. It was a
dream, really, to start from first place because I knew from last year
that by starting third, I had so much of a chance to overtake David. So it
was very clean on my side and I had a real good jump and off I went. It
was really good.
Everything was good. Initially we tried to save a little bit of the rear
tyres just to see if we could have any problems, but during the race we
had no problems at all, not with any kind of temperature problem on the
tyre, anything, I mean anything, anything that we might have suspected,
there was no problem. We just had a fantastic race in terms of everything,
especially for me, tyres or engine, everything was really perfect."
When asked if he was worried about Michael trying to overtake him, he said
"Well, when you have such a champion - I'm not saying this because
he's here or because he's my team-mate - but when you have such a champion
behind you, he's always a pressure. It doesn't matter the situation,
there's always a difficult race, especially in Hungary because you always
have the chance of running off the track. The track was particularly very
dirty on the outside so it was so easy to make a mistake today, to miss
the race and to miss points. I still felt it was very difficult. We had to
keep concentrating and physically it wasn't easy as well, so it was a hard
race but a good one."
Rubens indicated his shock when he saw Michael close in on him towards the
end of the race and said "To be honest with you, I didn't pay
attention much. I was looking in the mirror... I felt like asking Ross if
there was a problem with Michael or not, because I didn't know what was
going on. I saw that all the time my board was shown, his board was there
too. Suddenly, I wasn't looking in my mirror, and his board wasn't there
any more and my one was there. So I felt like asking, but I said OK, I
just concentrate and see... Then all of a sudden, I had Boom! I saw a car
behind me and I said 'Jesus Christ! He must have done a quick lap.' But
Ross said, there was five laps to go, he said don't worry, he's having
fun!"
Michael Schumacher struggled at the start but
still managed to keep second and said "It was not very pleasant to
have to try to start from the position. It felt like we sort of started on
ice and that made obviously the situation tight into the first corner,
where Ralf naturally tried to squeeze me from the outside, but I was lucky
being up enough to stay late on the brakes and stay in the position, but
it was a very fair manoeuvre from him not to do anything in the wrong way
but obviously we know each other not to do so and that allowed me to stay
right behind Rubens and drive home, the race we did."
Michael admitted that until Rubens secures second in the Drivers'
Championship, they won't be racing against each other and said "It is
very clear that we want to make sure that Rubens sort of does the job in
order to get the second position in the championship and until this,
obviously, to some degree, we are not completely open to race because
there's no point in me taking points away from him, that's not the
intention. Let's hope that happens soon and then we can have good fun
again."
Michael also admitted that setting the fastest lap time was a payback to
Rubens and said "The story behind it actually, was that at
Silverstone, he (Rubens) was behind me and we sort of slowed down the
pace, we didn't push hard any more, and some laps before the end, he put
in the fastest lap of the race. So I asked 'when did you do this?' We were
in the stage of actually slowing down, so today I asked Ross, 'what's the
fastest time?' and he said it was 16.8s for him (Rubens) so I thought OK,
I will pay him back! I just went for it."
Ralf Schumacher was happy to finish third as he
didn't expect it and said "To be honest, we didn't expect to be third
here this weekend. That was our target but we had such a bad weekend
except for qualifying and the race today, so we are totally happy. We were
the only car out there being able to stay in reasonable distance at least
and the team did simply a great job, the pit stops were brilliant and I am
very happy."
Ralf admitted that Ferrari are still too strong for them despite being
able to match their pace at some stages of the race and said "Well,
for us it seems that the tyre throughout the race gets better and better
and that's basically the case. They usually start on new tyres which is an
advantage for the first five, six, seven laps maybe compared to us but
then we start to stabilise. But by that time, usually, it's a bit late, as
we saw again today. But whatever, even if that had stabilised there was no
chance. As in previous races, they are still too strong for us."
Ralf also indicated that he didn't have a chance of passing Michael at the
start and said "No, there was never a chance. He was on the inside
and he decided to brake late and I knew that there was no chance. The
problem is, especially in turn one, that as soon as you come off the line,
there is so much dirt and stuff that usually you lose the back end and
lose even more positions, so I decided to back off and stay inside and to
take the third, safe option."
18-Aug: What the teams and
drivers said following the Race at the Hungaroring ... Report
18-Aug: Hungarian GP
– Race: Rubens Barrichello wins the race ahead of Michael Schumacher
and Ralf Schumacher. Kimi Raikkonen, David Coulthard and Giancarlo Fisichella
make the top 6 ... Timed Results ...
Report ... Notes Ferrari clinched the Constructors' Championship
18-Aug:
Honda announced today that they have reached an agreement with Jordan
to terminate their engine supply deal at the end of the season. It was
widely speculated that this would happen and that Honda wanted to focus on
a single team and that was British American Racing. Takeo Fukui, Senior Managing Director at the Honda Motor
Corporation said "We appreciate very much the two years that we have
worked together with Jordan Grand Prix. We will obviously continue to do
our best for the last five races of the year. We'd like to give everybody
at Jordan Grand Prix our best wishes for the future and look forward to
some exciting racing during the 2003 season and beyond."
Shortly afterwards, the Jordan team announced a 3
year deal with Ford for the supply of Cosworth engines from 2003. Eddie
Jordan was delighted with the announcement and said "Today
we're happy and proud Jordan, Ford and Cosworth will be working together
for the next three years or so. It's a very big day for Jordan.
It means the car next year will be a Jordan-Ford, with the blue oval back
in Formula One, which is for me very exciting news. I think we should all
rejoice a day when Ford publicly announce they are coming back into
Formula One.
We worked with Cosworth as a customer in 1991 and we thought we would get
a Ford participation in those early days, but maybe we were a bit too
naive.
Finally Ford and ourselves have eventually got together, which is
fantastic. I'm slightly surprised it's happened so quickly because we only
got the signatures on the contract last night."
Brushing aside earlier comments by Jaguar's boss Niki Lauda who claimed
the Cosworth offer is for customer engines, Eddie Jordan said "It's a
proper Ford-related partnership, with dedicated people inside Cosworth who
will be exclusively dedicated to Jordan."
18-Aug: Hungarian GP
– Warm-up Session: Michael Schumacher sets the fastest time of the
session ahead of Rubens Barrichello and Kimi Raikkonen. Giancarlo
Fisichella, Takuma Sato and Ralf Schumacher make the top 6 ... Timed Results
...
Report ...
Notes
Friday
Practice Session 1
Friday Practice Session 2
Saturday Practice Session 1
Saturday Practice Session 2 Qualifying Session
Warm-up Session Race
11
AM Budapest Time / 9 AM GMT
1 PM Budapest Time / 11 AM GMT
9:00 AM Budapest Time / 7:00 AM GMT
10:15 AM Budapest Time / 8:15 AM GMT 1:00 PM Budapest Time / 11:00 AM GMT 9:30 AM Budapest Time / 7:30 AM GMT 2:00 PM Budapest Time / 12 PM GMT
