San Marino GP BAR race notes

The Lucky Strike Reynard British American Racing Honda Team - no points in Italy at the start of the European calendar.

Jacques Villeneuve Car 10 Position : DNF
"It was a huge disappointment that I could not finish the race today. It was looking as if I was finally going to get some points this year. It has been a very difficult start to the season and yesterday we had a bad qualifying session. At the start of the race we worked hard to get up to sixth position and I am not sure if we had a mechanical failure or a gearbox problem. It is very frustrating to end another race without any points."

Olivier Panis Car 9 Position : 8th
"I am very disappointed for the team. I made a very good start, probably my best start in Formula One but I developed a few niggling problems fairly early on in the race. The car had a lot of oversteer and it was very difficult to drive. In the end I had some problem with the gearbox so I made a pit stop and we changed the steering wheel. I managed to finish the race but we need to continue to work hard because I am sure sometime soon we will achieve a good position and be in the points."

Malcolm Oastler, Technical Director
"Not the result we were looking for. We failed to finish with Jacques car due to a mechanical problem and Olivier's car was just not fast enough. We had a very brief gearbox problem on Olivier's car which seemed to fix itself, although during the pit stop we swapped the steering wheel as a precaution. Next week we are testing in Silverstone and we will be looking to see what we can achieve from that with a view to lifting our performance in Barcelona."

Craig Pollock, Team Principal and Managing Director
"The whole weekend and the race has been very difficult for us as a team. We are clearly disappointed with the eventual outcome here in San Marino. The team did a good job today so it is important for us to keep our focus and look immediately to our next race."

-BAR