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Michael Schumacher Q&A

Michael Schumacher's eventful 2003 season continued with an incident-packed race in Malaysia. His problems started with a first lap tangle with Jarno Trulli, which led to a pit stop for a new front wing and a drive-through penalty for 'causing an avoidable accident.' Last year Michael hit Juan Pablo Montoya at the first corner and made a similar stop, but on that occasion it was the Colombian who received a penalty. Once again Michael commenced a comeback drive, although this time he only made it back to fifth rather than third - although as in 2002 he gained a spot from Jenson Button on the last lap! After the race Michael didn't seem too chuffed with the way things had gone. Adam Cooper joined the scrum when the World Champion emerged from the Ferrari debrief



"We have been having many podiums in the past, this year the first two races not, but podiums will come."



"Basically I misjudged the distance between Jarno and me, and had Coulthard on the other side next to me. And I just made a mistake and braked too late, and hit Jarno."



"I'm not very satisfied, but what can you do. It's racing, it's part of racing. I'm a human being doing mistakes, I can't help myself, I don't do that purposely. But that's the way it sometimes goes, and you have to pay for it. If you see what happened again today, we've still taken three points, and I have now eight points in total after two for me not very good races, which sort of OK."



"Yes. I went to him straight after the race and apologised. It was clearly my mistake."



"I think McLaren will be strong all year long, basically. Brazil probably percentage wise a little bit stronger, I guess Imola will be a strong circuit for us again. So there will be strong races for them, strong races for us, so it's going to be a tight battle as I said at the beginning of the season already."



"Very easy, because Montoya lost a wing and my brother started from 17th position, which didn't help him. But you shouldn't discount them."



"I would like to race the car as soon as it is ready. We'll be testing it permanently until it is ready, but there will be no stupid decision and force something which is not right."



"I don't know. The guys will check it. The car felt very good afterwards, but maybe there's a little damage."



"I think if you sort of take all factors into consideration, Montoya losing the wing, Ralf starting from 17th, myself having what I had, Coulthard stopping, I guess I could be right in saying all of those guys could have been in front in the Renaults, so the Renaults would have been in the position where you expect them."



"He was not slow enough to be overtaken, or I was not fast enough to catch him! It was a close battle, and obviously with Button in the way, it didn't work out in the end."



"Because we weren't sure whether the wing was damaged or not."



"There are issues, naturally."



"I don't think we are lacking pace too much. If you see that Rubens was stuck behind at the beginning of the race, Raikkonen took the lead from there, and the gap stayed in the important phase of the race until the end, basically, then Rubens decided to slow down a bit more. This was expected to be a difficult race, and if we were competitive here - which we haven't been last year - it's actually promising rather than the other way round."



"There will be a few issues that have to do with it, but not mainly."



"That's the way it goes if you do what I did."

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