Monaco GP Sauber Saturday notes

Jean Alesi:
"It was a very exciting session for everybody, very tiring also for the team who had to change all my gear ratios before qualifying began. It did not feel perfect to me during the morning free practice session when I had some ratio problems. Very early this afternoon, I had an alternator problem and so I had to switch to the spare car. At these times, I always wonder if it is going to work well as, even with an identical set-up, two cars don't always behave in the same way. Fortunately, the spare went very well. Thanks to some good advice from the 'Professor' we had only to make a few refined adjustments and I was able to extract the maximum from my car in the final seconds."

Nick Heidfeld:
"Obviously I am not happy to be in 18th position on the grid. I think this is because I lost a lot of practice time on Thursday, in particular when I lost most of the second session due to my crash and today I lost nearly all of the second session because a Marshall touched my car to push me off the racing line. I was not allowed to carry on because he had pushed my car. So I was not able to find a good set up for this afternoon."

Alain Prost:
"Jean has been competitive all through the weekend in all configurations. Unfortunately, following his accident on Thursday Nick has had other problems, which have prevented him from finding an ideal set-up for his car. At the start of this qualifying session, when Jean went to change to the spare car, we truly feared all the work would go to waste, all that we have done in these last few months and particularly this weekend. Fortunately, we reacted very well, the spare car was ready and Jean drove a quite fantastic lap. I believe that all of us should be happy, not only because of the visible progress we have made, but also, above all, for the new atmosphere and rediscovered motivation in the team. It is a pleasure to find such morale and spirit."