Wilson makes it to the end again

The Englishman, who is rapidly earning a reputation for himself as another of Minardi's rising stars, was pleased to have completed another race distance, even if he did finish last of the classified runners.

"The car was reasonably well balanced today, and in fact it seemed to get better as the race went on," said Wilson. "It was definitely a good feeling to see the chequered flag for the second GP in a row.

"I made a launch control start, which worked well, and then pushed hard every lap. We were scheduled to make two stops for fuel and tyres, but when the opportunity presented itself to make a very early pit stop, we took it, as that gave us the possibility to reduce the number of laps between the other two stops."

Jos Verstappen's retirement off the grid pretty much summed up his weekend and the Dutchman, understandably, was unimpressed. "It has been a very disappointing weekend, what with the problem in final qualifying yesterday and then another at the start of the race today," he said.

"The launch control worked fine in practice, but not when it mattered. On the positive side, we did a lot of testing this weekend, and we now think we understand the aerodynamic behaviour of the car better as a result."