Luciano Burti Q&A

"It's pretty much what you can see on TV. I had a Jordan on my left, and I think a BAR on my right, I don't know, and I also had someone in front of me. So suddenly the car in front of me avoided Michael, and when I saw him, it was too late. Because I had a few cars beside me I had no choice. It was close to the braking point and it was just too late, I couldn't avoid it."



"Not very hard. The whole thing was very smooth, and that's why maybe I wasn't that afraid, to be honest. In the first impact with Michael, and then even when the car landed again, the whole thing was smooth, which surprised me really. Maybe because the car was destroying itself it was absorbing the impacts. That shows us how safe the cars are now. And it shows you how fast F1 cars accelerate - I was doing 250kph..."



"I remember I was upside down for a moment, but it was quite quick, and then I was again the right way."



"They told me about it, but I didn't see it!"



"That was probably the biggest hit, the one in the barrier. But it all took quite a long time to happen, so I had time to take my hands off the steering wheel, and I knew exactly what was happening, so it was pretty good to realise straight away what I had to do and that I was OK. Before checking myself I knew I was OK because I didn't feel I'd hit anything. I had hit my arm, but at that moment I didn't feel anything."



"I didn't see him. I guess he saw me walking or running, and you can't be fitter than that!"



"He just asked if I was OK, because probably he saw it from the best angle - he saw the whole thing."



"I was just trying to run back to the garage. I didn't think I would have the chance to start again. But it's very unsafe to be running over debris here, and maybe have a puncture, so they did the right thing to stop it."



"I think so! I think everyone that saw it was more worried than myself. Again, I cannot explain why, but because the whole thing was very smooth I wasn't scared about it, so going back into the spare car was OK. My first lap in the race was the same time as other people, so it showed that it was no problem."



"Even on my out lap I felt a lot more comfortable with that car, and I was surprised that Jean's spare car was handling better than my own race car. On the grid I said this car is better than mine, so I was looking forward to starting the race."



"No. To be honest no one came to see me..."



"It was very good. Like I said, the car was the quickest car that I had for the whole weekend. But after five laps I started to have a lot of pain in my arm, that I'd hit in the first shunt. It started to be very difficult to hold the steering. Our steering is already very heavy, and it started to get worse and worse. I told the team that I suffering with this, but they told me to keep going. But I started to make mistakes. I made one and Jean overtook me, then after a few laps I made another one when I spun in the stadium. I told them again I couldn't do any more, and they said just try your best."



"For another few laps I was following Panis and Trulli, and it was like a motivation to keep going, because I was quicker than them, and it was good just to keep fighting. I had a little oversteer in the first corner, and I didn't have the strength enough to pull it back, and I went off. But to be honest I wouldn't finish the race because the pain was quite big."



"No, and on Jean's car it is a bit heavier, because we use a different ratio on the steering column, so it was even worse in that situation!"



"I would have to say not really. But I think the team did a very good job to be on a good pace without testing. We were the only team that didn't do any testing in high speed tracks. We came with our low downforce set-up with no testing, so the team did a very good job to be able to qualify in our average position on the grid, and of course to score a point today."



"I think it's a big pressure for everyone, looking for a job, but I'm lucky that I've been with the team for a few races now, and I think they know what I can do. Even on a bad weekend like this one I think I showed when I had the equipment to do the job in the race that I was able to be as quick and if not a little bit quicker than Jean. I think they were happy with that. Of course they weren't happy about the whole crash and all that, but I think with my performance they were quite happy."