Brazilian GP McLaren notes

BRAZILIAN GRAND PRIX 1997 - RACE DAY ====================================

The West McLaren Mercedes team finished the Brazilian Grand Prix in fourth and tenth positions with Mika posting a 1'18:649 and David a 1'18:925 as their fastest lap times. With a total of 17 points with WMM team still leads the Constructors World Championship with David tieing with Villeneuve for the Drivers Championship with 10 points each. The points accrued today takes McLaren to a grand total of 2003.5 points in the Constructors Championship which is the greatest number recorded in Grand Prix history.

MIKA HAKKINEN 'It was a very exciting first start, but I think that I benefitted from the restart which saw me running in third position for some time. However, whilst my car was quite good at the beginning my tyres suddenly went off and I lost a lot of grip. Berger overtook me so after that it was a question of trying to cope as best as I could with the deteriorating tyre situation'

DAVID COULTARD 'It was a hard race battling to get passed Damon whilst keeping others behind me. I am amazed that so many people finish, normally if you stay on track you can get in the points and win some races, but today everybody had reliability.'

RON DENNIS 'Some useful points but not a result that reflects the true capabilities of our cars today. Our race strategy put us ahead of Michael Schumacher and it was interesting to see how the cooler weather played in the hands of the Bridgestone runners. It could have been better but it could have been much worse and at least we are still leading both Championships.'

NORBERT HAUG 'After two races we are ahead in both the drivers as well as the Constructors World Championships. Mika was stuck in traffic at the beginning of the race and considering this and his tyre problems the gap to the winner of 33 seconds, shows that we are not so off the pace as is would first appear which is giving us some encouragement'