"In the qualifications, everything went as planned. I dealt with the pressure, and did a quite good lap.
The race starting very late, the first laps were hard for everyone. We were a group of 5 cars within 3 seconds, with Marconi in front being a little slower than us but fighting very well for his position.
After passing him, I had a few laps fight with Bengtsson, but he was faster and overtook me nicely.
At the end of each stint, the tyres were becoming really worn and it was so hard to make good times. I also made a little mistake in my final pit-stop and didn't put enough fuel in the tank, so I stopped in the last lap, hopefully it didn't cost any position since Marconi was a lot behind."
"My ISP cut my internet at home, so I took all my hardware at my job (40x2 km) to be able to race. As always, I never give up!
My pace was good, I was really confident. But when I went on track, I had a 'connexion lost' problem. Start from last position...
At least I avoided all problems at the start, and when front was free, I tryed to push the car. Why 'try' only? Because I quickly realised that my problems weren't over: my MOMO pedals had that known gas problem. I was simply lapping 1s slower than normally!!!
Izotov was able to overtake me, but position gained again in pits.
Suddenly in lap 45 i felt something was wrong, and indeed my brakes started to fade...Two turns later I had to stop the car in a safe place.
I have mixed feelings for this race. Of course I'm really disappointed of the result, I'm not used to DNF...but the pace was good!
I'm gonna take a week off in Egypt, and I'll be back in Australia in 3 weeks."
"Australia is a very special track for me, since it was my best result last year with a 4th position. It's a track where consistancy is very important, because a slight mistake leads directly in the wall. Being my strong point, my goal was to score at least a point.
Things began very badly, since I hurt my left ankle at basketball and had to take some strong anti-pain to be able to race. But finally I didn't feel to much pain for the whole race.
In quali, things were smoothly. I didn't take any risks to avoid cutting, and my result was pretty much what I was expecting.
But even before the race, Marconi suffered from lag and destroyed my car in formation lap. I thought the race was finished but my engineers had a backup vehicle so I jumped into it to start from the pits. I already knew that scoring points was 'impossible' since we left pits 35s after race start.
I put myself in a 100% fight mode, and I was doing real nice laptimes, very consistant and no mistakes at all. I catched up Ash cars, then passed Joao from the outside after fast S of sector 3.
Many cars were retiring, and suddenly many cars retired and I found myself in top8, then 7th!
I felt the front brakes had a problem, so in 5-10 last laps i was braking most with engine. In last lap I saw Davison losing a lot of time so I thought he had some kind of failure. I took his p6 a few corners from the end.
I can't believe the race I've done, starting 35s after the others. Of course many retired and I have huge profit of it, but the race is not a hotlap competition as some drivers seem to think."
"It was a long time since my last mistakes in a race, and thus it is even more disappointing now.
In qualifying my position was bad (17), but only .3 separates me and 10th!
The start of the race was difficult, because I was able to go faster than the cars in front. After a few laps behind, I got a bit stuck and took a bad rythm.
It went even worse after I lost a little bit the rear and Rouault couldn't avoid me.
Suspension was bent and it was really hard to drive! I think it's a mistake from me, but it might also be due to lag.
Then Kasimatis closed the gap with me easily, and pushed me off track while I was letting him (too?) little room in the inside. I got stuck in sand, race over.
I'm not sure if I could make it to the top8, but I definitely had a pretty good speed...I'm looking forward to race in Monaco and bringing a point would be perfect.
Congrats to my team mate who scored his first point. That makes 2 races in the points for Virtual-Games.com! Bravo mate!"
"Before the race, I was really confident because my laptimes were fast and consistant. The quals went fine as I did 10th time..it was better than expected.
The start of the race wasn't fine, I lost 3 positions. Casalins made a superb start, with a very nice overtake on 2 cars in the same turn, and he was just after me. I had real difficulties in the beginning because of pressure and very cold tyres. He could overtake me when Lanzara spun and I had to brake.
Around lap 30 we had really close fight between DIsley in front, and Schmalenbach who was behind me. Unfortunately, Schmalenbach touched me in Rascasse and make me spun and...moreover...Kolbe couldn't avoid me and stalled his engine. I'm feel sorry for that, but I hope he realised it isn't a driving mistake from me.
We had also great fights with Spengler!
The end of the race was really very interesting, with Disley in front and Saxèn behind me, fighting for p7! Saxèn suddenly disappeared and were remaining only me and Disley. I was faster but he was really driving well and it was impossible to take advantage!
I only thought that I had to stay as close as possible behind, to maintain pressure and maybe make him do a mistake. And that's what he did 2 laps from the end...so I got his p7. It was nice fight!"
"Everything started fine with a very good qual lap. But when race started, i was afraid of an incident (with very close grid) and a couple of cars passed me. Then there was that mess in T1 and no room for me so I went in the grass because I really didn't know what to do. And of course, I got a stop-and-go penalty...which isn't fair since I let other drivers pass.
In my first pitstop, I forgot to disable the 'repair' that was useless, and lost my position to rouault. We were same speed so it was impossible to get it back again, so I tried to remain 2-3 seconds from him.
I lost concentration near the end, and I spun in the acceleration of final straight and I had to repair the car. That was 4th stop instead of 2 planned...!
I went on p14 with a lot of time from p13. But suddently begun all the retirements, and I was p9 with disley in front of me. He was losing a couple of seconds per lap, so I thought he had something damaged. I had to push, but not too much because I didn't want to lose brakes.
I pushed just enough to be behind in last lap, and overtook him in last chicane...a few meters from the end.
I feel sorry for Casalins, since he had an amazing speed and could have fought for first positions here. But the result for the team is a 4th consecutive time in the points, which is excellent!!!"
Race
"After a good start, I was in front of Sergio (he had 5 positions penalty at the start). After a couple of laps, I let him pass, but I didn't know Kaasa was right behind him, so finally I lost 2 positions.
Then Marconi was faster, but he lost time in both pitstops. I could keep p11 until the end, and he finished less than a second behind me. It was very exciting. I had also a few laps fight with Lapchin, who obviously had a damaged car...but was real honour to fight with him."
Future
"Again in this race, I was quite a bit off pace (1.7s from pole, 1.5 from best lap). It's of course part of the setup and practice (350 laps), but I know it doesn't make everything. Everyone in the team has put a lot of hopes in me, and obviously I'm not making good enough for WC
The level is much higher than other seasons. Proof is that with my racetime, I would have been 'only' 7th in Ace!
But not everything is bad, since I'm still very consistant (88% of possible laps) and I never got any penalty or involved in incident.
For that reason, and also private team-stuff that I don't like, I decided to retire from the team (2008-07-15). I want to thank Rogério that believed in me, Nuno for the superb paintings, my team mates Fred Gosling and Sergio Casalins. Also all drivers that I met in WC this year, and more particularly Patrick deWit, Bruno Marques and Petter Kaasa.
Thank you and see you soon...maybe in 2008."