Minardi Deserved Better, Says Stoddart

Minardi boss Paul Stoddart said his team deserved a better result at today's Belgian Grand Prix at the Spa circuit.

The Anglo-Italian squad saw both their cars failing to make it to the end of the race after falling victims to other drivers' crashes. Italian Gianmaria Bruni retired on the opening lap when he crashed into the BAR of Takuma Sato, who was spinning after a collision with Mark Webber's Jaguar.

Hungarian Zsolt Baumgartner, meanwhile, went out of the race when he was hit by Briton Jenson Button. The BAR driver was sent spinning out of the race when his right rear tyre exploded at high speed, crashing into the Minardi driver as he was lapping him.

"This was another case of the team deserving a better result than it actually achieved, especially as this was clearly Minardi's best-performing weekend of the year," said Stoddart.

"To be involved in someone else's accident on the first lap, which eliminated Gimmi, and then for Zsolt to be the victim of what looks like a tyre blow-out on Jenson's car and taken out of the race, it's just really a sad way to finish the day.

"Both race drivers, our Friday test driver, Bas, and the whole team, have performed excellently this weekend. It's a shame the results don't reflect just how good a performance it was."