Pizzonia happy to secure points

The Brazilian was criticised by technical director Sam Michael on Saturday following his poor show in qualifying that placed him a disappointing 11th place on the grid (10th following Jenson Button's demotion).

But Pizzonia was able to salvage two points for the team and notch up his best result of his F1 career.

"All in all I'm happy with my performance today although I got stuck in a lot of traffic during the first two stints which cost me a lot of time," he said. "When I was on my own, I could put in some quick lap times but it wasn't enough to catch Webber in the last few laps. I still scored two points so I'm happy I could do that for the team. I think the potential is there, I just need some more race experience. After all, I drove my last Grand Prix more than one year ago."

Team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya finished two places up in fifth spot after a dire race. The Colombian was slow to get away from the grid and then suffered severe degradation on his Michelin tyres.

"What a bad start I had!" he exclaimed. "The clutch didn't bite soon enough on the start and then I just had so much wheel spin and the car didn't go anywhere. I had no grip at all and lost a cool five positions. I also had some blistering problems on my rear tyres and it came to the point where driving the car was very, very hard since it was pointy and unpredictable.

"This prevented me from catching David Coulthard in the last part of the race. I came very close to him, but then I didn't feel I could make it. I am, of course, a bit disappointed because when you start from second you expect a podium finish. We did score some points today though which is very important for the team."

Technical chief Michael was more complementary of Pizzonia's efforts today but said the team would need to investigate why the cars were so slow to leave the grid at the start.

"It is good having scored points with both cars and it is nice to see Antonio picking up some
points as well," the Australian said. "We had a poor start on both cars so for the next race we will be looking to make improvements on this. In general, the cars performed better in this Grand Prix, so the latest car developments have demonstrably improved our performance. The pit-stops were good once again and helped the strategies work."