Allan McNish Q&A

"Obviously after all the things that have gone on it was very good to have a nice clean race and get to the finish, and get one under my belt. It's not just for me, but also my team. To have two cars at the finish, especially looking at the attrition rate, was quite good."



"The car was slipping and sliding around a lot in the first stint, which I think was actually due to circuit grip. I was following Villeneuve, and he was having the same problem on the Bridgestones. I don't think it was necessarily anything except the circuit. He was a few tenths quicker and he was able to pull away, and I wasn't really in a position to try and keep with him. But overall the car got better through the race, and from my point of view it was pretty lonely. From 30 laps in I was on my own. And after that you've just got to keep concentrating, keep pushing, and get a bit of an idea of where you are by your lap times, and also by other people's."



"I was always pretty happy with the races, and I felt there was no problem there. But in qualifying I was a little bit off Mika. We did some testing in Valencia prior to Imola, and the car was a little bit more to my style of driving, and I liked it a bit better. From that point of view I was on him in Imola, and I was on him in Spain. Now I've got a reasonable understanding of what we need to make the next step."



"From the overall point of view, yes. Obviously everybody is developing, every weekend they're going that little bit quicker. We're a new team, and for a new team that's the hard part about F1. But we made it to the end of the race in Spain, and that's a little bit more important than being a couple of tenths quicker and stopping on the second lap. I think we've got to take the whole thing into perspective. It is a building year, it is a learning year, and even though we're in hard competition and we're fighting, there are some things that will take a little bit of time and a bit of experience to sort out."



"It's an ever moving goalpost through the weekend, never mind every week!"



"It will suit it a bit better than Spain, no question. The big thing in Austria is always how the tyres fare, but I expect that Michelin will be pretty competitive around there. In normal circumstances we will be a little bit better. But you can plainly see that people like BAR have made a significant step forward, and we're trying to do the same."



"I raced there in 1997 and '98 in the Porsche, and I think I finished third in both. I've got to be honest and say it's horrible! The problem with the circuit is the comparison to the old one, which I've driven round in a road car. The new one looks slow and start/stop. It's a funny sort of circuit, because although it doesn't give you much driving satisfaction, it does create a good race, whether you like it or not. For the spectators and TV it's really good in terms of wheel-to-wheel racing. It just doesn't have an Eau Rouge or something like that."