Piquet Relieved to be on Podium

Nelson Piquet Jr: I'm very happy - I think we deserved being at least on the podium. When I started the race today my wish was to finish in the top three and it worked. I think the start was really good, the first lap was really good, and then I made no mistakes in the race and managed to overtake [Scott] Speed when he did his little mistake, and finished on the podium. I think everything worked out the way it should, and everybody knows that since the beginning of the year a lot of things have gone wrong for me, and unfortunately I'm not in the top four or five in the Championship as I should have been.

Q: It must be great to actually have the car get to the finish so you can show what you can do.

Piquet: Yeah. I knew I was going to be quicker, like at Magny Cours, even though qualifying was terrible for me - on the first set of tyres I made a big mistake and had to stop, and on the second set of tyres Speed destroyed my two laps. So I knew I was going to be quicker, and I even had a strategy of stopping earlier because of traffic, but I managed to get rid of traffic very early and then keep up a good speed for the race. And everything worked out better than I expected.

Q: And it must have been satisfying to get by Scott after what happened yesterday.

Piquet: Yeah! And it was risky what he did to me - I don't know if you saw it on TV or not, but the way he came back to close on me [at turn one, as Piquet was overtaking Speed] - I nearly crashed because of him. Okay, he was defending his position, but I was closing and he made a mistake, and then I was coming sixty kilometres faster than him! When I got by him I had two wheels on the grass, I think.

It's risky - I had an issue with him in qualifying, and he wasn't fair with me in qualifying because he saw me four corners before and then at the end of the lap he didn't let me go through to finish my lap, and now in the race he's done another dangerous move. I think when it comes to my chance to do it to him he'll see how bad it is.

Q: How has the podium affected the team now?

Piquet: The team is working well, and I think we were quite unlucky because the car broke down quite a lot of times, but they're always pushing hard and they're always trying their best. Sometimes it just doesn't work, it doesn't come together, and that's it. But now we've done a very good job, and the pitstop was good, and if we've continue to do it this way I think we'll get at least a podium at every race for the rest of the year.

Q: Your car has looked quick all weekend - given this, what are you hoping for tomorrow?

Piquet: Tomorrow I'm starting sixth, and today I started eighth and didn't think I could get a podium. So tomorrow my goal is for sure to do a podium finish - a podium for me tomorrow would be the best thing in the world for me.