By FIA
March 17 2005

Jacques Villeneuve answered questions about his performance at team SAUBER PETRONAS in the press conference leading up to this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix. Q: Was your Melbourne performance what you expected, or did you expect to be better or worse off?

Jacques Villeneuve: We were expecting to be more competitive so I hope it was just a bad weekend.

Q: Yes, you have had massive amounts of criticism about that sadly. What are your feelings about it?

JV: It's okay. I'm used to it. I've had years of practice! It doesn't … Well you learn not to read. It's much better.

Q: What's been done for this race to cure the situation?

JV: We got to Melbourne not prepared because our winter testing didn't go very well and the last test session when we were planning on doing race simulations, we got snowed in. So, we had no idea how the car would evolve and how the cars would evolve and so we made our set-up accordingly and we went the wrong way. Then, we just carried that the whole race.

Q: So you would expect a complete reversal?

JV: Well, complete would mean, given where we finished in the last race that we would be right at the front! I don't think we are that competitive, but definitely we should be a lot better than in Melbourne and hopefully the heat should help us out as well.

Q: You've had quite a lot of time to acclimatize here and you've been fairly busy. Can you tell us what you've been up to?

JV: Well a lot of shaking hands and, you know, PR. We did five days non-stop, but it is an important one. Our main sponsor is Petronas here from Malaysia so it is a home race for the team.

Q: Jacques, one always thinks of you as being flat out all the way. Is the prospect of conserving tyres of interest to you?

JV: I thought that is what we needed to do and obviously in Melbourne it was not required at all. There was no tyre degradation and they could have lasted forever, but Melbourne was colder than expected as well. I think we will get a better read on what the tyres will do this season from this race.

Q: Is this a race where the heat is at the extreme, the tyres are going to be very difficult and the engine is going to be very difficult - if it all works out well here is it going to be okay for the rest of the season?

JV: This is definitely one of the hardest races and has been for most years. But this season we go to some other places that might be hotter. But if you survive here and it is your second race on the engine then normally you should be alright the rest of the season.

Q: From where you were, what did you think of the Renault performance?

JV: They were quite impressive. We knew they were fast after the winter testing, but they were a lot faster than we thought.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR:

Q (Dan Knutson, National Speedsport News) : Can you guys just tell us a little about the training regime you adopt for this race?

JV: The training you do all year - this is just a continuation and you just get here and get used to the heat a little bit. But you don't really do anything different. We have been quite busy with the PR week so there wasn't a lot of time to do sports in that week, so that is why we train hard in the winter and all season.

Q (James Allen, ITV): Jacques it has been suggested that part of the problem you are having with the car is braking and you want to do something different. Is that accurate? What are you struggling with?

JV: Yes that has been the main problem, braking. F1 has evolved a lot over the last few years and mainly on the electronics side and it takes a long time to get used to everything with the car and the other thing is that with all the electronics you have now, you don't feel everything that is happening. You become a bit of a passenger in the race-car and that is very different to what I'm used to.

Q : Jacques in 1998 you drove a very difficult car for the Williams team and in the BAR team from 1999 to 2003. Last year you were of Formula One almost to the end of the season. Do you think seven years out of driving good cars could affect you as a driver?

JV: I have good training in driving hard cars! But the Sauber-Petronas is not a difficult car to drive. So there was nasty happening with it. We just weren't fast enough in Melbourne.

Q (Wolfgang, Premier Television): Was Michael Schumacher's move on Nick Heidfeld at the last race too aggressive and do you think there will be any backlash among the other drivers towards Michael?

JV: I didn't see the accident so I cant really comment. I only saw it on the big screen while I was racing, so I wasn't concentrating on it too much.

Q (Luc Dom): For Jacques, apparently the team don't let you set up the car how you would like… Can you tell us more of this?

JV: I just think we are not doing enough mileage at the moment to get into it. The winter testing was not conclusive on that because we didn't do a lot of mileage and then the one when we were going to concentrate on set up work, which was at Imola, we got snowed in… So we didn't actually work on it and with the two race per engine rule, you don't drive on Friday or Saturday, you just do the minimum amount of laps to choose a tyre, you don't work on set up, so it will take us a while to work together in the same direction. That's all.

Q: Would a third driver help?

JV: It would definitely help in figuring out what the tyres are doing. It is a big help now that we have a limited number of laps.

---