Michael Schumacher explains battle with Montoya

In the Australian Grand Prix yesterday there was much excitement when Michael Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya went head to head fighting for the lead. First Montoya over took Schumacher then there were a few brilliant laps of close racing until the German finally retook the lead. Schumacher explains how it was from his point of view.

Michael Schumacher passing Juan Pablo Montoya.

Photo by BMW PressClub.

"Basically in the first safety car, nothing really happened. I didn't make up anything, actually when I was behind Juan at the time I lost out quite a bit because the traction initially wasn't there for me and then he gave me a favour of braking a bit on the oil, in turn three, which allowed me to pass and then I was battling with Trulli, which he was basically closing everywhere the door and didn't allow any overtaking, which then made it tricky because I saw Juan coming again so I thought I have to watch out.

"Next safety car, Trulli obviously was gone by then, David gave us a favour in going wide - it almost happened to me as well, I went wide too - and I think this was one of the reasons he had a good ride at me because I didn't have the right exit of the last corner, couldn't take the speed because the line was wrong in the corner before so it meant that the last corner was wrong, and he easily passed me.

"I couldn't do anything about that, honestly, I tried to go to the inside and I gave him the outside and he, well, overtook me easily there, but then it was a nice battle. Initially, obviously, he was going away a little bit and I was thinking hopefully he is on two stops, but then it seemed to be a tyre situation where initially our ones didn't work so well and theirs did work very well and then it turned around to our favour afterwards and I was all over him but it was difficult to find the space.

"Then with the move, Juan obviously saw me being very close and he didn't like me to pass him inside in the first corner so naturally you close the door, so what you do is then you go to the outside to take the better exit and him being so far inside it means that the corner gets very tight and he doesn't have the speed out of the corner so things worked out for me."