Trulli - the long and winding road

"Actually I had very bad luck! I had a very good start, but at the first corner I was side-by-side with Heinz, and to avoid a collision I lost two places. Then I was behind Ricardo Zonta, and I couldn't push properly. Once I overtook him I was very, very quick. I caught Villeneuve and Hakkinen in a couple of laps, and then I had to refuel just three laps before it started to rain. So we were very unlucky."



"It was very hard, and I took many risks. I went straight on at the chicane, and had a very tough moment. Fortunately I got hold of the car and was able to carry on. I had a big battle with the guys behind me, and in the end I got one point, a very hard point! One more point is good, but for sure it's not what we expected."



"Well, he was very quick from the beginning, I don't know why. His acceleration and general grip was very good - maybe he had more downforce than me. He was definitely quicker than me in the wet. My car was very good when it was raining on slick tyres, but on wet tyres I couldn't get hold of the car."



"You're right. I was very, very disappointed. Even more so when I saw Michael going off, because I realised that I'd lost a big chance to win a race. We have calculated in the team that until now I have lost 14 or 15 points, just for reliability problems - not mistakes by me or the team. That makes the situation not easy for us. We are working very hard, and I'm happy with the team because they are working very hard, but unfortunately it seems that we cannot get it right. When I came to Jordan I was pretty sure to have a reliable car. I didn't know how competitive it would have been, but for sure I was very confident that it would be reliable, knowing myself that I can be very reliable during the races, very strong, I was expecting to score more points than I have now. At the moment I can say that I'm a little bit disappointed about how the season has gone. In the beginning my target was to fight for the podium at every single race. If we look back, every single race I was running for the points, until something went wrong. It makes me feel a little bit sad, a little bit disappointed. This season should have been one of my best seasons in F1. OK, we are not even at halfway of the season, but at the moment it doesn't look like that in terms of results. I'm performing very well, I'm proving that I can be very good. In Monaco I proved once more that I can win races, but unfortunately for me I can't get the points."



"Yes, it was a long time! But as everybody knows I didn't drive a very good car before. This year for the first time I'm driving for a good team, with a pretty good car, and once more I'm showing that I can be there, I can be right at the top. I was fighting with Schumacher for pole position. During the race I was holding very well with Coulthard and keeping my pace, doing my strategy. Everything was perfect. But I still missed the podium."



"I hope so. I hope that Jordan will improve the car. Soon we will get new pieces, aerodynamically and on the engine side. Honestly we must say Ferrari and McLaren look so strong for everybody. For sure what we can confirm this year is that we can probably again be the third team by the end of the season, but the way is still very long at the moment."



"Yes, we've seen that Williams has been very strong in a couple of situations, a couple of races. And Benetton has a very reliable car, and sometimes a very quick car. We just have to push very hard, because every single race we have a different problem. We lost a big chance not only in Monaco, but also in Australia, and again in Brazil. Things are becoming for everybody tougher and tougher, and whenever you lose points, even one, it's very important, very hard. So Monaco was a pretty difficult situation! No one made a mistake during the weekend. The team was perfect, the car was perfect, I haven't made any mistakes, and in one second you lose everything, and you go away from the race with nothing. Sometimes silly problems are stopping us. You feel that you are running behind the problems, without really catching them or stopping them."



"Realistically it's going to be very tough for us to catch McLaren and Ferrari. We can get closer for sure at some tracks and in some situations, but we will probably never close completely the gap, We can probably fight with Williams for the rest of the season, but even that is going to be a very tough job for us. I must say we've found some problems at some tracks, for example Barcelona. For sure that wasn't a good track for us, our car doesn't seem to suit very well this track. But in Nurburgring we realised our car is competitive. We have to find the right tracks for us! It seems the weakest places for our car we've already had, like Barcelona, Silverstone and Brazil, and the tracks coming now will be all good for us."



"It's good. They are very professional and generally they are very organised, which makes a driver's life easier, it's easier to work with the mechanics and engineers and everybody. So generally the life is better, as you can see from the results. I feel very confident this year, I feel I'm working very well with the mechanics and the engineers, and the atmosphere inside the team is very good, which is important, because when you have a tough season, you need to keep the morale high."



"So many things. It's not so easy! First of all you need to find a good compromise to talk and communicate with everybody, when you on the track when you are at home. And you need to understand the car. Because every single car on every single circuit reacts differently. So if you know the car already from one year before, you can understand and anyway manage the situation better. An example was at Nurburgring; Heinz already knew that we were going to have some problems, but I didn't, because I didn't drive this car on that track last year, so at one stage I was really struggling to understand which way to go. Then I found out the way, and I am happy. So many things. You never finish learning, even when you running in one team for several years. Even for Michael Schumacher there are still things to learn."



"It's a completely different relationship from what I had with Alain Prost. He was more into the technicalities of the car, so we were talking a lot about set-up, the general feeling. With Eddie it's different. You can talk to him about girls, drums and business, but not a lot about the car! Which in one way is good, because he has his own people doing that job, so I know who I have to speak to about the car, which is the most important thing."



"Oh yeah for sure. But honestly I've found myself fitting very well with Heinz, he's a very nice person. Both of us are very quiet and calm, we work well together. It's good for us, but it's also good for the team. Apparently we like the same set-up. We don't go in a different way, we go in quite a similar way, which makes car development easier for everybody, because we know which way we have to go."



"I think we will get better and better now, especially as we will have better track characteristics for our car. So the next races will hopefully very successful. I feel very confident, because the team has done very well in the past, especially from the middle to the end of the season."