Cristiano da Matta and Ralph Firman scored the first points of their F1 careers for Toyota and Jordan respectively and Mark Webber open Jaguar’s account by finishing seventh on Sunday.
Cristiano da Matta and Ralph Firman scored the first points of their F1 careers for Toyota and Jordan respectively and Mark Webber open Jaguar’s account by finishing seventh on Sunday.
Da Matta charged from 13th on the grid to finish sixth in what was only the fifth grand prix of his career. Barcelona is the only current F1 track where Da Matta has driven before and he made his experience count at the Spanish Grand Prix.
“It feels good to score points for the first time,” the Brazilian said. “I am happy with this result today for myself and for the whole team. This was one of the first clean races we have had this season and overall it was a generally trouble-free weekend for me.
“We really deserved fifth place, but I just couldn’t get past Ralf at the end. My brake pedal was going a bit too long from midway through the race, so I couldn’t push hard enough.
“Barcelona is a track where we knew we would have a good performance and we have been highly competitive all weekend, but I hope we can also find this level at other tracks. I hope these three points are just the beginning,” he added.
Toyota team boss Ove Andersson said: “I am very pleased with this result. It has been a long wait but we have been competitive here all weekend, so I think we deserve these three points.
Meanwhile, Ralph Firman silenced his critics by finishing eighth for Jordan. Some F1 observers say the Englishman owes his position at the Cosworth-powered team to the substantial amount of cash his sponsors contribute to the Jordan team… In addition, Firman was under pressure to deliver in Spain after failing to make an impression in the first four races of the year.
However, Firman outqualified his experienced team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella and brought the EJ13 home in the points.
“When the safety car came out my race engineer called me in for a pit stop, which obviously worked out well as it effectively changed my strategy to two real stops,” he said.
“I had a really good middle stint to the third stop but when I came back out Ralf Schumacher had been off and damaged his car and was weaving all over the circuit. I couldn’t get past him.
“Anyway, once my tyres had worn there was no chance of overtaking him but I managed to hold off (BAR driver Jenson) Button and keep my position which is great. The result is excellent for the team,” Firman added.
Jaguar Racing’s Mark Webber had been threatening to finish in the points in most of the previous four races only to be denied by mechanical failures or crashes, but on Sunday the Australian scored the Milton Keynes-based team’s first points of the year by recovering from a slow start to finish seventh.
The two points moved Jaguar up to ninth place in the constructors’ table. It was a case of good and bad, though, as the Spanish Grand Prix might also have been the last race for the embattled Antonio Pizzonia, whose car failed to get off the line.
Jaguar Racing managing Director David Pitchforth said: “It’s great to have finally been rewarded for all of our hard work. Mark did a tremendous job today and, had he not been boxed in going into the first corner, he would have been even higher.
“Nonetheless, we came into this weekend with reliability in mind and coupled with the car’s competitiveness we leave Barcelona very pleased, albeit we need to understand what happened to Antonio. We spent three days at Mugello last week working on various things including launch control and we experienced no issues, until today,” he added.
Webber was delighted with the result: “I made a good start and was trying to get on the inside of Heinz-Harald Frentzen’s Sauber into the first corner. I then got inside Jacques Villeneuve’s BAR going into Turn 2, but I saw a dust cloud caused by the incident between Jarno Trulli and David Coulthard.
“I had no choice but to take to the gravel, because I was worried about hitting Coulthard (who was bouncing about in front of me). The aim now is to capitalise on today’s data with three days of testing at Paul Ricard,” Webber added.
