Formula One season gets underway - Renault, Ferrari, McLaren and Honda on the pace

Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director): The start of the weekend was promising, but unfortunately we could not maintain our performance for the race. Jacques’ car suffered a serious engine failure, without any warning. The unit was removed immediately after we got the car back, and sent to Munich for analysis. Nick was the victim of a collision in the first corner with Nico Rosberg, and was relegated to the tail of the field. From there he recovered to 12th but the lap times were not as good as expected. That shows that we have started well but still have much to do.

Willy Rampf (BMW Technical Director Chassis): After qualifying we were optimistic for the race, but I have to admit that our pace this afternoon was not at the level we had expected after practice on Friday and Saturday. We have to analyse the reasons for this carefully, but for sure there is a lot of work to do.

Rubens Barrichello, Honda F1, 15th place: “It’s a disappointing way to finish my first race for the team but in the early stages we saw a taste of our potential. Jenson and I had a great race with each other early on which I’m sure got a few people excited! Soon after though I knew we had a gearbox problem and I had to try to race with one gear missing. I was unable to push and had no chance of a points finish, so it wasn’t a good way for me to spend the race. We know that the pace is there so we just have to resolve our problems for next weekend when I’m sure we will have a much better race.” Giancarlo Fisichella, Renault F1, Retired Lap 21 “I had the same problem as in qualifying, with a big loss of power on the engine. It was OK for the start of the race, but then I just lost power all the way through the rev range and the car was much slower on the straights. I was still able to fight with the cars around me, but I was a long way from the potential we could do with full power. Then I had an hydraulic problem which forced me to retire. The good thing is that we have another race in one week’s time, and the car is clearly very quick. I want to bounce back strongly in Malaysia.