Alonso and Renault take World F1 title

Michael Schumacher, Ferrari, 4th: “First of all I want to congratulate Fernando and his team on winning the title. They have done a great job and from a personal point of view it is nice for me to see some of the guys I worked with at Benetton looking so happy. I look forward to fighting them again next season. We had a reasonable race today, certainly better than the last few. The Constructors’ championship is important to us and from that perspective this was a good result. Maybe this afternoon’s positive tendency can continue in the final two races.”

Jean Todt, Ferrari: “Today, we did the best we could, getting the most out of the package at our disposal. This result means we can consolidate our third place in the Constructors’ classification. Today, Fernando Alonso took over the Drivers’ title that Michael had won with Ferrari for the last five years. Fernando has put together a perfect season, supported by Renault, led by Patrick Faure and Flavio Briatore and Michelin. Congratulations to all of them. There are still two races to go. Along with Bridgestone, we face a lot of work to develop the tyres. We must do our utmost in these next two rounds, because they can produce precious data that can even be useful for next year. Today, our cars proved reliable, the team worked very well and the drivers gave their all.” Fernando Alonso third and Giancarlo Fisichella fifth this afternoon in Brazil. The Spaniard becomes the youngest world champion in F1 history.

Giancarlo Fisichella, Renault, 5th position: “I had poor rear end grip at the beginning of the race, and that meant I was struggling with oversteer in the high speed and low speed corners, and just trying to keep the car on the circuit. To be honest, I was a little disappointed to finish fifth because we should have been able to beat the Ferrari today, but the really important thing is Fernando becoming world champion. I am very happy for him, he has done a great season with no mistakes, and I wish him all the best. But we still have a second crown to race for, and we need to keep fighting against McLaren to get back the lead. I though we were much closer to them this weekend, so their pace in the race was a surprise. We’re not giving up though, and we will fight to the very end of the season.

Rubens Barrichello, Ferrari, sixth: “I had a good race, but I was blocked by the people ahead of me and I had nowhere to go really and could never really push to the maximum. It was a shame. I had a particularly exciting battle with Jenson which was a bit crazy because it was a bit wet on the inside line. I just tried hard not to create any problems for myself. If it hadn’t been for the difficulty in qualifying yesterday, I could have had a much better race as the car returned to normal today. The only problem I had this afternoon was with twenty laps to go, when the power steering started pushing me to the left. Sixth was the best I could do. Congratulations to Fernando. He deserves this title.”

Ross Brawn, Ferrari: “Our race went pretty well. I am pleased that we beat Fisichella and it showed we had a good strategy with Michael. The team carried out the pit stops very well. Of course, we would like to win races, but we are not in a position to do so at the moment. However, I think that all weekend here, we performed to our maximum doing the best that we could at this point in the season. It is a shame that Rubens was unable to start a bit higher up the grid, as he could have been up there as well. The cars worked well as did the tyres. We just need to find some more performance.”

Jenson Button, BAR Honda, seventh place: "It was a difficult day for us. Our pace was slow and we suffered with rear graining right from the start. We were on the hard tyre as well, so we didn't expect to get the graining. In fact that's the reason why we took that tyre. I struggled particularly on the last section of the circuit, through the fast corner and onto the straight, where we had big oversteer. So not a great day but at least we picked up a couple more points and have a decent qualifying position for Suzuka. I would like to offer my congratulations to Fernando Alonso, the new world champion. He's done a great job this season."

Ralf Schumacher, Toyota Panasonic 8th: “That was a pretty tough race for us today. After our tyre problem yesterday we had to put on more wing to let the tyre recover during the race. But the car was very difficult to drive all race, especially early on. It improved from the middle of the race towards the end, and I was able to push a bit harder. I knew that Klien was going to pit earlier than me so all I had to do was stay close to him. Then I was lucky because I had to let Raikkonen past during my crucial extra laps but I didn't lose too much time. After all that, one point is better than nothing."

Tsutomu Tomita, Panasonic Toyota Team Principal: "It was good that Ralf made the points but he could have had so much more. During qualifying he had some severe understeer on his car because he was not satisfied with his particular set of tyres. We are very disappointed that this happened, but because of the strong racing and commercial relationship between Michelin and Toyota over many years we are confident that this situation will not arise again. Ralf should have started further up the grid and it certainly didn't help his race balance so in the circumstances he did very well. It was a frustrating race for Jarno. He did well to avoid Pizzonia in the first corner but then spent much of the race in traffic without a real chance to attack because it's so hard to overtake here. It all means it is now very difficult to chase third position in the constructors' championship, but we will keep pushing. We are especially keen to show our best performance at home in Japan in two weeks' time."