Mario Theissen Q&A

"Well, we cannot be satisfied with the gap between Ferrari and us. It was 0.6s in qualifying and it was more than a second a lap in the race. It was partly due to the weather conditions, certainly, but Ferrari had the strongest car, that was clear. I'm very satisfied with the reliability of the car and the engine considering we have the new regulations that say the engine must stay in the whole weekend."



"We didn't apply any mileage restrictions throughout the weekend or in free practice. We revved up close to the 19,000rpm we achieved last year in qualifying, and kept the same engine speed throughout the race. We didn't have a single technical problem. So this is really rewarding and satisfying. It means that the guys have done an excellent job over the winter. It's a good basis to build on. We know the car is reliable and we can really focus now on performance."



"No, there weren't many. I expected a bit more. Maybe some teams took a conservative approach. We'll see how it develops over the season."



"I hope so, obviously. I think we need the second race in Malaysia behind us to really find where we are. The temperature makes a big difference. We saw that the tyre performance was varying throughout the stints in a big way, and it can look really different under hot conditions."



"I think today we were on an equal level. Alonso got away early in the race, while we got caught behind other cars, so he was able to pull away. Performance wise if you look at the lap times it was comparable."



"We can expect higher temperatures, and I hope we can be more competitive under these conditions."