David Richards Q&A

"When it comes together it comes together, and it just proves that perseverance does pay in this business. You have to keep pressing on. I know sometimes you really wonder if you're pushing water uphill, but it's very rewarding for the entire team. It's also on out doorstep, so it's very important for the people."



"I've been around a long time so I've seen situations like this before. But you have to persuade people that you have to keep plugging on, doing the job right. There's nothing wrong. The team has great morale and a great spirit about them, and they were always going to get a result. The truth of it is we are only one rung up on a very tall ladder."



"No, I would say not. I'm not being too complacent about it, but if you do the job right, the results will come to you when the opportunities arise, and this was a typical race. When the opportunities came to us we didn't do a single thing wrong, and it all happened around us."



"It's always in the back of your mind. We've had a few electronic problems over the weekend, but they cleared them all up, and at the end of the day it all came good."



"Yes. You look at the strategy and you look at how it all comes together, and that really proves what a team is all about. You're right. You get the odd lucky event for individuals, but when it all works for a team it does come right."



"I did it last time it rained here, with Benetton in 1998, and we use it in rallies all the time. With that type of weather, when it's so close in and you're not sure whether it's going to rain or what it's going to do the only way is to spot it, so we run the helicopter upwind, just floating around."



"It was absolutely the most accurate you'll ever get, because it goes upwind and just tracks any weather coming in. So it can give you a time, it knows what the wind speed is, it knows exactly to the minute how quickly it's going to arrive."



"He was talking to me on the mobile all the time."



"It was absolutely spot-on. At first he said it's only going to be 15 minutes of rain, and then he said, no, it's all slowed up, it's going to last a lot longer than you think. Luckily James Robinson and the race engineers had fuelled up for a longer middle stint, and they could hang on in there. The engineers just played it so right."



"They use weather radar. That's more expensive and in fact more sophisticated..."