Formula 1
Pitchforth optimistic for Malaysia
The Australian Grand Prix marked Jaguar Racing Managing Director David Pitchforth's first race at the helm of the team. Although both Mark Webber and Antonio Pizzonia retired from the race, Pitchforth is confident that the problem has been ...
Published: Mar 15, 2003, 12:48 PM
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The Australian Grand Prix marked Jaguar Racing Managing Director David Pitchforth's first race at the helm of the team.
Although both Mark Webber and Antonio Pizzonia retired from the race, Pitchforth is confident that the problem has been rectified and the team is in a strong position for Malaysia.
"We understand the root cause of the problems and it wasn't suspension failure as such that caused the retirements," said Pitchforth. "I don't think we'll have that problem again."
The team's race strategy meant that both Mark and Antonio qualified with heavy fuel loads. The fact that both drivers also made minor mistakes on their laps meant that they found themselves further down the grid than they would have liked.
"We could have done better in qualifying but mark and Antonio both made small errors," added Pitchforth. "We also resisted the temptation to do anything in qualifying that would affect our race strategy, such as running with low fuel and sticky tyres."
Having gambled on slick tyres on a drying circuit, Michelin's race compounds came into their own in the race and Pitchforth is happy with the position the team finds itself in approaching Malaysia.
"The tyre war is going to be very interesting now and I think we're in good shape. We had five different compounds in Australia and we opted for a harder compound, which worked very well. It's difficult to say where we are relative to the competition but I'd like to think that we're near the front of the midfield pack."
-jaguar-
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