Argentinian GP winners' press conference

Q Jacques, a fantastic result for you, a sixth career win and your second victory in a row. How did it go for you today?

JV It was very, very difficult. First of all Panis was very quick at the beginning of the race and I think he had less stops than us so it was going to be tough. I don't know what happened to him but then on the first stop I had problems with the gear shift. It was staying stuck on the upshift a lot of times so I slowed down a little bit until I noticed that these two guys that were on a harder compound would win on one stop. It was really, really tough. We had to push hard. The car was very good, the team did a great job the whole weekend but I think we chose the wrong tyres. With the amount of rubber on the track towards the middle and the end of the race we were picking up a lot of understeer and we were blistering the tyres, so it was very difficult to keep them behind. They both really impressed me today.

Q Did you plan to do three stops right from the start or was that a last minute decision?

JV No, we had planned to do three stops. We weren't expecting anyone to do a one stop so we were a little bit surprised and it almost caught us out.

Q Were you confident that you were going to hold Eddie off there at the end?

JV No, because I had huge blisters on the tyres and on low fuel, with his tyres, he was actually quicker than us. So just before we did our last pitstop I really pushed hard to make sure that we'd pit out in front of him because I knew on our last stint, with the same amount of fuel, Eddie would be quicker.

Q Jacques, well done. Eddie, your best podium finish yet. You must be absolutely delighted today.

EI Yeah, I'm pleased. I had a feeling all weekend it was going to go well. The car handled a lot better here than it has done in previous races although we struggled a bit in qualifying a bit more than I thought we would but in the race once the fuel came off the car was very, very good and it went obviously reasonably well. We had a good start also.

Q Yeah, you qualified seventh and came out of the first corner fourth. What happened on that first corner, were you involved at all?

EI I just made a great start. I came around the outside of Heinz who just got ahead of me so I just pulled in behind him and the next thing, I came round, I saw the yellows with Michael off, so I don't actually know what happened there.

Q This is your best result since Australia in 1996 so do you think things are finally going to come right for you now and you're gonna be up here on a regular basis?

EI It's been a long wait for sure. I've always said I prefer this car to last year's car. It's still obviously lacking a bit in qualifying but it's coming together. I had problems in Australia, I had problems in Brazil with the brakes which we sorted out. We're definitely making headway.

Q Eddie, well done. Ralf, only your third grand prix and you finished third. You must be delighted.

RS Well, yeah. I mean, the whole weekend, especially the qualifying, went quite good. With choosing the hard tyre which seemed to be the right decision, the point being that it was very hot today. I was surprised a bit in the qualifying that we could drive so quick compared to the Williams and Ferrari, then today in the race the tyres last a little bit more than I expected. I was a bit careful in the beginning. I even couldn't push too much because I was in traffic. Our strategy worked very good and I was very satisfied with the car today.

Q What happened with your teammate because you seemed to have a bit of an incident there?

RS Well, yeah. The corner before the back straight he missed the line and then he was too close to me. I tried to overtake him and I thought he made space and then he closed the door. I tried to go over the grass but I touched him. I don't know what happened to him. Did he continue or not? But I mean, well, it happened but it's a shame I mean, normally it shouldn't happen really in the team, but well I just can... later I will speak to him.

Q How confident are you for the rest of the season for yourself and the Jordan team?

RS So far I think our car work quite well on all the circuits, so I think we could be quite confident to keep pace and to have some good results for the rest of the season. We will work hard on our car. For sure there is something to work on. For sure I have to do, I have to learn, a lot of things and hopefully by the middle season we have a good package to stay there where we are really.

--- David Goodwin