Sunday March 17th, 2002

Michael Schumacher was philosophical after finishing in third place at Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix, where the Ferrari team saw their domination at the Sepang track end with a victory by Williams driver Ralf Schumacher.

The Ferrari star, who had scored his fourth pole position in four races at the Malaysian circuit on Saturday, clashed with Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya at the first corner of the event, losing his front wing, something that relegated him to the back of the field.

After recovering well to what looked set to be a fourth place finish, Schumacher benefited from Jenson Button's problems in the final corners to take third place away from the Renault driver.

Being able to keep the Championship lead after his victory in Australia, Schumacher was happy with his result.

"That was an exciting race and my car was reliable and consistent," said the German. "As far as the accident was concerned, maybe Juan could have given me more room, but he chose not to and we just touched. That's racing. It was only a little touch, but I had to pit to change the front wing.

"As for the rules regarding penalties, I think they should be made more consistent, although that might be difficult to achieve. I decided to push right to the end and if I had not, probably I would not have caught Button, who obviously had a problem.

"We have brought the old car to the first two races and did not really expect to have 14 points in our account at this stage. So to pick up 4 today is fine and I am happy and relaxed about it."

Teammate Rubens Barrichello suffered an engine problem when he was running in second position behind Ralf's Williams, failing again to score his first points of the season after retiring in Australia.

"I gave it my best shot," said Barrichello. "I made a good start and managed to stay on the clean side of the track and avoid the accident taking place in front of me. I think the choice of a two-stop strategy was the right one for us, because we might have had tyre problems doing just one stop.

"Given the performance of our main rival's car-tyre package, I think I could have finished at least in second place, which would have been pretty good."

Published at 10:38:09 GMT