Ron Dennis Q&A

"You couldn't possibly change to intermediate tyres with that amount of water. Even on rain tyres the drivers were saying 'we've got massive aquaplaning'. We were informing Charlie [Whiting] that the drivers were complaining of aquaplaning. He had to take a view on how long the safety car should stay out. Obviously all the main water was dispersed when the safety car came in, and it played to an intermediate tyre choice. But at the point we had to decide, that was the right decision. You can't put a driver's life at risk. You could see how wet it was by how many cars were spinning, and if you're stood in the pitlane and it's really tipping down, how can you fit a car with anything other than wets? It was the right decision then, but the wrong decision if you look at the large quantity of laps behind the safety car."



"I'm not. We had some problems and we coped with them. At the end of the day we swapped the strategies around, and at one stage we would have maybe been able to put Rubens under pressure, but it needed a mistake by him to lose second place. But we left Brazil [the second race] last year with nothing. We're fighters, we know what we've got to do. I think we improved the car for here, and we certainly improved the car from yesterday to now. Of course we didn't have either of the Ferraris under pressure, so we don't know what they could have done, but we still did fastest lap, which was a pretty good time in the conditions."



"Well, we'll see what all the speed differentials are at Barcelona. But I've got no comment to make other than that."



"We were pleased. The way it happened is that we got them both out, which was pretty good. It was a good call to change strategies on both cars. We had a few options covered. It's just a little disappointing for Ralf to get ahead of us, but that's life."



"Exactly. But so did all the other cars that came. Ralf was stuck there for a fair while. I think probably what they had on the Arrows was a very low downforce setting to compensate for their engine, which I don't think is particularly powerful. Of course that just makes it absolutely impossible when there's a dry line, even though you're much quicker. They were 6-7secs slower behind Verstappen than in front of him, and that's basically because you can't go off line. If it's wet like that and you go off line you're history. It's pretty frustrating, but it was a result, although certainly not one we're pleased with. But there's a long way to go."



"No, no. We decided that this was going to be a difficult race, and it was important to come away with the quantity of points that was achievable. We should have got more points, but we still got points."



"They do at the moment. But wait until after Brazil. We know what we've got to do... Once we've done it, see how quick the car is."