Johnny Herbert Q&A

"Hindsight says I should have gone for a time on Sunday [of the week before Bump Day], but I felt I should have done a 228mph lap and I thought 'give it another week and we'll be at the head of the top nine' [the number of starting places left open]. But on the day I was on the bubble. The problem was that you're only supposed to scrub off 3mph in the turns and I was losing more like seven. I took off wing thinking that if I could get into the corner quicker then I'd be alright, but that didn't work. The maximum speed I got was 231mph. Bruno's (Junquiera) averaging that, so he's doing 236/237mph on the straights. We tried a lot of things but they just didn't make a sodding difference. On the final day we went to minus three on the wing, which is as low as anyone has run and I was still back in 10th or 11th. We changed the engine but that made no difference. We tried soft dampers and some of the hardest I've ever used, but the result was always the same. It was very frustrating. I was running flat out but nothing was happening for us. We even asked other teams for their set-ups but still nothing worked. I don't fully understand how there can be such a difference between cars."



"Before I went to Indy I explained to David Maraj how much I wanted to do the 500, but when I spoke to him on Saturday to see if they wanted me in Sears Point he said: 'we don't want you here, we need you here', so that made up my mind that I would do the ALMS race."



"I certainly made the race very interesting for myself. Tom (Kristensen) did a good job in the wet and when I got in the track was virtually dry. I was just getting on with my race when I came up to a blue Porsche that was driving on a track that no one else was on! He was wandering all over the dusty side of the track and when I came up to him I thought 'okay, he's seen me'. But then, just as I started to go by him he starts turning and I'm like 'oh please don't do that'. I don't know how hard I hit him but I sent him flying sideways across the track! Unfortunately, by the time I realised I had a puncture, I'd passed the pitlane entry so I had to do a full slow lap. Went I came out of the pits I was pretty much a lap down on the Panoz of Magnussen, so basically 77 seconds down, with 30 minutes remaining."



"Basically, I was five seconds down going into the final lap, but I could just see Jan (Magnussen) in the distance and I thought 'there's no way I can do this', but I had to give it a go. Going into the final corners I was still probably two seconds down, but I could see that Jan was in traffic. I knew I had to go for it, so I went as late on the brakes as possible into the hairpin to pass the backmarkers. Basically I had my wheels over the kerb and the car was rubbing against the tyres at the side of the track. There's a kink that follows the hairpin and I was side-by-side with a white Panoz on the exit, trying to go around the outside. But he kept on moving over and over pushing me into the wall. There was some contact - I'm not sure if it was the wall or the Panoz - but it took my wing off and sent me spinning. I crossed the finish line going through a full 360 degrees. I think I might of won it if I hadn't spun!"



"Now I just need to be consistent. It will be hard when Audi comes back. The new car is going to be very fast and there will be some tracks where they will be so quick I won't have a goddamn chance. But I need to produce drives like I did at Sears and try to spilt them and concentrate on picking up points."



"That would be the plan. I'm glad I did what I did this year, but I want to come back next year. I've spoken to the Dusenbergs and they want to do it next year, so we'll see. But although I don't necessarily expect to win, I don't want to be there just to make up the numbers."