Patrick Head Q&A

"Yes, I'd say to beat Michael here in a Ferrari is tough, but Juan did a fantastic job. Ralf was I suppose unlucky... Normally you only get a penalty if you overtake somebody by hopping the chicane, but the problem was he went across the chicane and set a [fastest of the race] purple sector time on that sector. And Charlie [Whiting] judged that he gained in that sector by getting closer to Barrichello. It's a very harsh penalty, a 10-second stop and go, but there it is. It put him from what would have been third to sixth."



"Basically they just had to be nursed a bit. From that point of view I think the team and the Michelin guys and the drivers, in terms of selecting the tyre and sorting out how to look after it and how to get the best out of it, did a fantastic job. I'm very pleased for them."



"That was excellent. I like to see a guy coming back when he's been overtaken once, so that was good to see. Why Ferrari did a three-stop strategy [with Rubens], I don't know. There's no numbers that we can put into our computer that come up and say you can ever attempt to do that here. But it's like most things in life, you have to be judged on average performance, and on strategy on average they have been fairly good."



"Yes, two cars in the points - it's only the second time we've done that this year. That's the sort of thing we've got to be doing much more regularly next year."



"One's always optimistic in this world! I don't think I'd have taken it. I'd have said let's see if we can get them, but anyway, it's not too bad."



"It's like anything. Yes, you can certainly see the progress, but how we perform next year is going to depend on how good the work has been that we've done in the last four or five months, and how good is it going to be in the next three or four months. You can look promising and then make a balls-up. It's the easiest thing in the world to do. We could do a super-trick composite gearbox or something, and be parked on the side..."



"I would hope so, yes. They've certainly learned a lot this year."



"I don't think Ralf's got slower. I think Juan's raised his game quite a bit, and one or two things haven't worked out for Ralf at the end of the year, but I'm very confident both of them will start next year just as strong as each other."



"Yes. It gives fun for journalists on the outside, going to one driver and saying, 'The other guy thinks you're an arsehole, what do you have to say?' There's plenty of potential for fun, but I'd rather have two quick guys in the team than one quick one and one slow one..."