By Phil
May 22 2002

Takuma Sato was part of todays pre-race press conference. He spoke about his accident along with Nick Heidfeld. Also present at the conference were Juan Pablo Montoya, Jacques Villeneuve and Rubens Barrichello.

Q:
Nick (Heidfeld), Takuma (Sato), any effects after the accident two weeks ago?

Takuma Sato:
My knee and the right hand leg muscles are still sewing but obviously mentally there is no effect and I spoke to Nick on the Tuesday after the accident and we are all fine and there's nothing between us.

Nick Heidfeld:
Yes, I'm fine as well. I was already testing on Wednesday of last week and I was in no pain at all. It was worse just walking up and down the stairs than being in the car, because I don't really need to use the muscle on top of the leg in the car. It's a bit blue still but it's not a problem. It doesn't really hurt.

Q:
How do you feel about the safety measures that have been put in place over the last few years, which almost certainly helped you in the accident?

TS:
It was obviously the biggest impact I've ever felt. Obviously, I've seen that the monocoque has had a big holed punched through it which is very dangerous, but luckily, nowadays in Formula One there are huge safety regulations. Obviously the rescue team and the medical team did a really good job so that's why I wasn't hurt and was obviously able to get out of the car. So I was very, very happy with this and yes, I drove the classic Lotus here last weekend and it was very different to Formula One nowadays. You're sitting in the middle of the fuel tank and obviously it's so dangerous compared to nowadays. The improvement is significant.

NH:
I'm very happy about the job Formula One has done over the last couple of years to improve safety. It's difficult to say what would have happened a few years ago but definitely more would have happened. I was more worried after the crash about Takuma than about myself because my crash was in the best possible way, just backwards, where you are quite safe. But I think if you hit another car in the middle, it would have been even worse to crash into the Jordan a bit more in the front, then it really gets dangerous. I'm really happy about the improvements.

Q:
How do you think the HANS (Head And Neck Support) device might have affected you if you had been wearing it?

NH:
I didn't have any problem with my head so it wouldn't have made it better and also I don't think it would have had a negative effect.

TS:
I think that in that kind of accident the HANS device wouldn't be so effective because Nick was completely backwards so his head was protected already. My situation was having a side impact, like 90 degrees, and obviously my head was bouncing. But I have no pain in my head and neck, so obviously they were fine. If Nick was forward, then probably the HANS device would have worked very well because there is nothing in the front. But in that case, we were fine.

Q:
Nick, how do you feel about your prospects for this race?

NH:
I'm really looking forward to this race here although last year we weren't very strong and it was one of our worst qualifying performances, at least. But it's my favourite circuit. Last year, we really struggled here but we tried to analyse it very closely and then in Budapest, which is a bit of a similar circuit, we were quite quick and we've got a lot of new parts since then. Back then we didn't even have a hydro diff and I think that's really important here, I'm quite sure about that.

Q:
Takuma, what do you think of the circuit since your experience with it last weekend?

TS:
It's a shame that on the Saturday it was raining. Obviously sixties and seventies cars put a lot of oil down on the circuit and I only had dry tyres! The circuit conditions were so difficult! I had a little experience of the circuit and since my days at Macau I have never driven a street circuit so I'm obviously looking forward to driving such a historical street circuit in a Formula One car. It should be very exciting. Hopefully it will go well for us. Giancarlo (Fisichella) had a very good race two weeks ago and the team's expectations are much higher now. I'm really looking forward to it. Also, I'm so glad that I could get out of the car myself and that I can drive again this weekend.

Q:
Jacques (Villeneuve), I don't know what happened between qualifying and practice and the race in Austria, but either you were transformed or the car was transformed or both...

Jacques Villeneuve:
For the last few years we've always concentrated on a race set-up and in Austria, as in past years, there were ten cars within half a second so the position on the grid made a bigger difference. Then we had a different strategy than most people on the track which allowed me to drive aggressively and I just had to go for it and have a little bit of fun. The problem nowadays is when you do that you end up getting penalties anyway, so there's not much point doing it. It was fun, it was exciting, that's why I started racing years ago, to have fun like that on the track and to play, and that's how it was last race.

Q:
And yet sadly the team still doesn't have any points, Olivier (Panis) has yet to finish; what's still missing?

JV:
Well, we're close to where we were in '99, which is not very good. The car's not very reliable and on top of that we're not very competitive, so it's not looking very good for us. But we're working hard and we just need to get points to get a good weekend.

Q:
What about these next two races, here and Canada, your home race?

JV:
We did have a good race here last year. Our car seems to be better off on the slow corners than on the high speed ones compared to the past, so it should work well in Monaco, I'm looking forward to it.

Q:
And they've moved wall away from the final corner (in Canada) apparently.

JV:
I've hit it enough times anyway, so I'll stay far away from that one.

Q:
Rubens (Barrichello), what do you think of the fact that you're up before the FIA? What do you think is going to happen?

Rubens Barrichello:
I don't know. It's something we have to wait and see. Basically we are going to go there and answer the questions. I don't have much to say anyway, not really.

Q:
What about the reaction of people? Were you surprised?

RB:
In all honestly, when somebody put in people's minds that something is going to happen and all of a sudden you see that that is really not what has happened, then people get upset. So in a way, I would feel sorry if some of them didn't feel upset, because I hope they were cheering up some other driver to win the race. It was huge, it was really huge, especially when we went into the press conference and then I really felt that was huge. That's why I was trying to calm everyone down saying 'it has happened, we're not going to back.' That's it.

Q:
Now since you've had the F2002, you seem to have been transformed. Is that the case?

RB:
I don't think so. I think it's an attitude. I think my first pole position this year was is the old car and already I think that when they gave me the chance in the last four races of last year to be able to race and to be able to win and so on, I think I've changed the way I approach things. It's very difficult to race against Michael (Schumacher) because he's already a very fast driver. So inside your mind you can put a lot of things, but you forget about yourself. It was two years of a lot of experience, a lot of going through things. Since the last four races of last year I've had a good time, a good time to think of myself and then the period of the vacation I had time to reorganise everything. I had a new engineer on board and so on. And the new car is a very good car, but it looks like everything is down to the new car, but I think it's more to attitude.

Q:
Nine years ago, here, we listened to Chris Rea singing Happy Birthday to you on your 21st birthday. Tomorrow you're 30, does life begin at 30?

RB:
I hope so! As I've said many times before I've always been the youngest in everything I've done in the past. Since Magnussen came on board in the Stewart it was the very first time that there was someone younger than me in a team, so I already started to feel old. But yeah, tomorrow I'm thirty, so I hope it's the big time.

Q:
Are you surprised that he's that old, Juan Pablo (Montoya)?

RB:
I raced against his father, so I'm old enough, yeah!

Juan Pablo Montoya:
No, no, no, I knew about it. It's actually quite funny. I shall tease him a little bit.

Q:
How good will your singing be tomorrow?

JPM:
Hopefully the driving will be better than the singing, we'll see.

Q:
What do you expect from this weekend?

JPM:
A better weekend than last year. Last year was horrible. If I can get out of here with some good points I will be happy really.

Q:
You've said this isn't really a very favourite circuit.

JPM:
In F3000 it was really good fun. Last year, in Formula One, we couldn't really find a good balance in the car, I never felt comfortable, so it's very difficult to push it when you are not comfortable with the car. I think things have changed since. Basically after Monaco and Canada last year, things really changed within the team. I think we've understood things we've wanted from the car a lot better and the results are coming. This year, from the beginning, we got that. I think the approach is going to be a bit different and it should be a lot better weekend.

Q:
Is the circuit a challenge?

JPM:
Yes, it's an interesting challenge. Some corners are way to slow but part of the swimming pool and the Casino are quite interesting.

Q:
Looking back at two weeks ago, you looked shocked that there was all this going on around you. What do you think of their actions, in hindsight?

JPM:
I was a bit surprised, because it was not the first time that it had happened. I've got to say I was a bit surprised, but I did enjoy that. It was a good laugh to be there!

Q:
Could you imagine the same thing happening at Williams?

JPM:
Team orders? No, they tried that last year and it didn't work.

Q:
Have you been surprised by the reaction of the world in general?

JPM:
Yes, I am really, because it happened before. I think the position the team was in, to put out team orders wasn't necessary because they are so far ahead in the championship that they didn't really need to do that. That's the team's decision.

It wasn't necessary to do that. If I was within five or ten points of Michael, you know, get the points, but he's 27 points of me ahead of me, or something like that. That's only three races.

JV:
You seem to forget that Rubens is not out of the championship yet.