Ricardo Zonta

A feature of Cristiano da Matta's curtailed season was his bad luck on first laps, for time and again his race was spoiled by an early drama. It was thus doubly ironic when the dust settled after the first corner in Hungary to reveal his replacement Ricardo Zonta trying to get going again after making contact with Mark Webber's Jaguar.

From the back he was never going to achieve very much, and he eventually retired. Overall it was another disappointing weekend for the team. A lot is riding on the revamped car, and the change of driver didn't seem to make an awful lot of difference, as Zonta started only 15th. Watching back home in Brazil, the frustrated da Matta must have had a wry smile on his face.

"The start was quite good," said Zonta. "I overtook two or three cars, but when I braked someone touched me from the rear - it was one of the Jordans - and then I touched the other car in front, and I spun. It was very frustrating!

"A small piece of the front wing broke. It didn't affect it so much, so I could continue to run like that. Of course a crash is was not what I was expecting, but starting on the back like that, I had to risk a little bit.

"I lost a lot of positions after that. Trying to overtake here was impossible, and also getting closer to the other cars you lose a lot of front aerodynamics, so you have to drop back. It was impossible to regain any places.

"Then we had the first pitstop, which was OK. After the pitstop the quick cars were coming and I had to let them past, so I was going one lap down already. I got so much dirt on the tyres going off the racing line. And then I had the problem with the throttle, where eventually I didn't have the throttle any more, and I lost the power. So I had to stop out on the circuit. We think it was something in the electronics."

Despite his disastrous race Zonta was pleased with the weekend as a whole. He insists that the TF104B is an improvement, even if qualifying didn't seem to show it.

"The team is very happy because we improved the car a lot this weekend. Of course in qualifying we had some problems on both cars, relating to the wings and some new things we were trying with the tyres - pressures and stuff like that. The weather changed a bit between practice and qualifying, and that made the car slide around more.

"Also it was my first experience with one-lap qualifying, so it was quite difficult to put everything together. We weren't where we should have been. It's something we need to understand better with the new car, but we didn't test yet to allow us to."

To be fair for Ricardo jumping into a race seat at short notice was not an easy task. As we've seen before, testing - even on the Friday of race weekends - is not always ideal preparation for the hurly burly of qualifying and racing. Although he has raced in the Nissan series in the interim, three years had passed since his last Grand Prix start.

"It's quite hard. If I had tested before the race, it would be a lot easier. For example, on Fridays I always do pitstops at 60kph, and now I had to do 100kph in the race. You don't practice that. And also everything happens so quickly, the whole weekend. The start is also something you don't do in testing. I had to get used to the new car, and this track was quite difficult for me as well, and for the team. It was everything together.

"I missed a lot, but I was feeling comfortable by the race. If the Jordan didn't touch me in the first corner, then it would have been perfect. I don't think it was any problem that was my fault. I pushed as hard as everyone was pushing."

You can't expect miracles, and it will take him time to get back in the groove, which makes one wonder why the team felt it necessary to sack one of its drivers with just a third of the season to go. Ricardo is hoping for an improvement at Spa, where he had that huge crash in a BAR back in 1999.

"I think it will be a lot better for me. I like medium/fast corners, and the car works a lot better on those kind of circuits. We want to try to work very hard before we go there and try to do a shakedown before. We need to practice some pitstops, and do some more things to help me get more confidence."

Zonta says he feels some sympathy with the man he replaced, who is of course a fellow Brazilian.

"Of course. He's a very nice guy, and I have a very good relationship with him. I am very sorry about what happened to him, but F1 is like that. I tried to call him, but there's no answer yet..."