Post-Qualifying Press Conference

Q. Welcome, gentleman. Mika, with a time faster than anyone else by 0.4 second, you appeared to be well in control of today's qualifying. Was your car particularly well set up?

Mika Hakkinen: We had various setups available today, and also at last week's test, so it was a matter of which one to choose. Obviously the car was working well on all the settings, but with the different requirements of qualifying and racing there are still little differences to be made. And today it looks as though we chose the right ones.

Q. The times this afternoon were quite a lot slower than they were in untimed practice this morning. Was there a reason for that?

Hakkinen: Yes, it's because this circuit is rather like a few others, for example Magny-Cours, where the wind direction has an important effect on lap times. The temperature has also increased an enormous amount since this morning, which is quite unusual in England. In fact the heat affected tyre grip, and some other things, but once again everyone has done some fantastic work. The engine power, for example, is getting stronger and stronger from one race to the next. Well done, Ilmor and Mercedes, well done all the mechanics and engineers.

Q. Your car seems to have been performing perfectly since last week's test. Is that your feeling, too?

Hakkinen: Absolutely, yes. What the team has done to improve the car, the engine and the chassis -- little details, and things like that, overall, have given me a faster lap time. I feel very confident with the car -- to push it on the limit, under braking and in high speed corners. We made some small changes during qualifying that gave me some extra time. When I improved my time I was happy about that because the circuit was not as fast [as earlier] at that time. So the team did a very good job.

Q. You aborted some laps as well.

Hakkinen: Yes, absolutely. On my last run, obviously, there was no point to continue [because Schumacher had not improved on my time]. On one run when I was following Michael, he was going quite slowly and I eased off. There was no point in continuing. I think we were racing at one time even in the pit straight [lane].

Q. Did the conditions change during the session?

Hakkinen: Yes. We went out exactly at the right time to get the lap time that we did. The temperature went up, and the wind changed during the lap -- and that affected the lap time.

Q. Michael, you have had quite an eventful afternoon, with a different story on each of your four runs. You set your best time on the first run, then you aborted the second and had what looked liked an ordinary third run before having a big sideways moment at the final attempt. Is that a fair summary?

Michael Schumacher: Basically, I had put in a pretty good time on the first attempt, so there was no point in trying to do the same again, because then you are only trying to improve on what you have already done. There are certain limits to the car and [on the second run] I exceeded the limits, but because the times were already coming down I came in to be able to save one lap for later. It is a good thing I did that, because the first lap of my final run wasn't good and I had to abort it. Then I tried a second lap, which seemed quite good until the second last corner, where I lost the back end simply by trying more than the car was capable of doing. That was the result. But as I had already got my good time in, it was no big loss, to be honest.

Q. On the fourth lap of your first run, the times through the first two sectors were actually better, by about 0.2 second, than they had been on your fastest lap. Did you know that? Could you have benefited from it?

Schumacher: Yes, by driving it home! The point was that in reality I was faster by only 0.1 second, and I would have lost at least that much time in the third sector. So there was no point in continuing and I aborted that run. But it was worth examining the lap, in order to know what to do on the later laps.

Q. Michael, you overtook Mika in the pitlane. Is that allowed?

Schumacher: The rule is that you are allowed to go 80 km/h. [You are allowed to overtake] somebody is slower if you think he has a problem. That is what I thought. He was going pretty slow; I don't know why. I'm obviously going out for qualifying, and there is not so much time, so you want to make sure you are out [on the track].

Q. Were you happy with the session?

Schumacher: There was something left, but probably not enough to take pole position. But I had a good first run, as I usually do. After that it's only a question of trying to improve. If you try more, there are certain limits, because I seek to achieve the limit on the first lap. Well, at least almost the limit. So we tried various other things, but none of them worked. I don't know how much the wind direction changed, but certainly in the infield it got a bit more difficult to keep the car under control. The back end was a lot more slippery.

Q. David, what are your feelings about being 0.7 second slower than Mika and being 3rd today?

David Coulthard: Well, I am certainly not happy to be that far away from the qualifying pace. But under the circumstances I think it is quite understandable, because I haven't been able to get the back end stable all weekend. Under braking, the rear slides too much -- and you need a stable rear to carry the speed into corners, especially the ones like Club and Brooklands. In the absence of that stability you lose a bit of confidence, and on a circuit like this it is very easy round a circuit like this to lose a bit of time. My main concern to make sure I didn't slip any further down the grid.

Q. Would you agree that to stay in contention in the world championship you need to win this race? What can you do to ensure that happens?

Coulthard: The correct thing to do would be to make sure I am the first driver to cross the finish line! But anything can happen in the world championship, and in terms of the points recorded by the leaders, this is quite a low-scoring year. But I don't think about that, all I think about is doing my best in each race.

Q. David, the fans don't have the autograph slot which used to be available in the paddock fence. What are your feelings about that?

Coulthard: It's better to be able to sign autographs when you are walking out the gate, because you don't have this horrible fence between you and the people who are paying for you to perform. Before, I could never quite tell whether they were being caged out or we were being caged in. So personally I think it is a good thing that the slot has been taken away, because those who want an autograph will be there [at the gate] anyway, and we still have to walk to our cars or motorbikes. It is much more relaxed.