Patrick Head Q&A

"He made quite a good start but then went straight on at the first corner and went over the grass and lost a few places, but he was going pretty well on the track. I think we were heading for a fourth place, because I think his lap before the car stopped was 1m29.6s, and we had quite a few more laps of fuel on board to stay out and I think we'd be able to bounce [Olivier] Panis. As it turned out, the connection on an oil line failed, and so the engine pumped its oil out and failed. It's not an engine problem, it's an installation problem with the connection to the oil radiators. When the tyres were part worn we had quite a lot of understeer, but as the tyres wore that understeer went away. So the car was fairly good just before it went out."



"Yes, we did have a lot of fuel on board."



"In think it's been pretty good. I don't think that the tyres have shown as well as they could have done. I don't think there was a podium position on the cards - maybe with Ralf, you don't know."



"We were running the option [softer] tyre, and that tyre was better when it was more heavily worn. But you had to go through that phase early on when it was in not such good shape at the front."



"Certainly we haven't had that much problem with understeer on the tyres in the testing. It was only when we came here that that problem existed. But then we haven't really been testing with the compound that we ended up racing."



"No, not really, but I think we've got the potential to close that gap down a bit fairly quick."



"Well I think the first thing is for cars not to hit each other on the track. We've got two cable ties for the wheels now. I don't know what hit the unfortunate marshal, but if one car collides into another like that, bits come off them."



"Obviously we'll have a look at the data, but Ralf said that he braked in the normal position, and I think the data will show that as well."



"These things obviously have to be discussed. One's got to ask whether the marshal was really provided with proper protection in the place where he was standing. When you have open wheel racing cars, it doesn't matter what you do in tying bits to the car. These cars are immensely fast, and if they hit each other, then there are going to be bits flying around. In which case you've got to look at that realistically, and say how are you going to deal with it? It may well be that the marshals will have to have more robust protection around them. There's no reason to need a man with a flag out there. You can have a button pushed and an arm can come out waving a flag."



"The tethers have about a five ton breaking strain, and there are two of them. But then it doesn't take much of an impact to give a load of five tons. Obviously these things have to be looked at."