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Formula Sprint 2
Japanese Grand Prix
Suzuka International Racing Course
Tuesday 2nd of April 2024 19:00:00
More
March 17, 2004
The top 3 drivers from the first race of the 2004 season have been interviewed by Toby Lock.

Winner - Scott Whiteman (EIRE)

Congratulations on your first F1VWC victory! How does it feel?

It feels great, the car was not quite up to scratch, but to come away with a hard earnt victory makes it all the sweeter.

You raced to victory, even with a spin! Was that a minor lapse in concentration or did tyre wear play havoc?

Definately not tyre wear, concentration probable played a little part, the way the backmarkers were behaving was quite unprofessional, also the EIRE chassis wasn't running so well in the dirty air behind other cars and probably also played a part.

The EIRE package looks great, do you think you can secure more victories, or even the title, with it?

Well i hope i can secure some more victories in it, obviously the engineers will be hard at work trying to make the aero package more stable before Sepang, as for the title, well there are still a lot of races to go, and 4 or 5 guys capable of victory so we'll have to wait and see.

Finally, do you think that you'll return to the golf course this year?

Hmmm, okay i thought this was going to be about the race, but yes i'm hoping i can find my way back to the golf course this year, the last few years i haven't played much but hopefully i can turn that around.

2nd Place - Paul Sleight (MMC Racing)

Second place in the opening round of the championship must be pretty encouraging! How do you feel?

Yes an encouraging race, 2nd place and 8 points for the team will go down very nicely.

Clearly from your race pace you were not, as some expected, light on fuel. This must encourage you for the rest of the season?

Yes this does give me some encouragement for the rest of the year, but of course a race win would have given me even more encouragement!

Many expected Whiteman to walk away with the title this year, but you seemed to hang on to him here in Melbourne, can you make a habit of this for the rest of the year?

Im not promising anything, I think its a bit too early to say yet. I will try my best and I think in this race I have shown that Whiteman isnt as brilliant as people think. Of course he did very well beating me in this race. But this race is only 1 of 17!

How did the car work for you today? any problems you could highlight?

The car was excellent in qualifying, I was slightly disappointed when i discovered that my car started to eat its tyres quicker than expected during the stint. I feel that it was more race setup than Bridgestone tyre problems which hopefully we shall watch out for in the heat of Malaysia where we expect the Michelins to be very strong.

3rd Place - Mikko Jakonen (Mapes-VO)

An excellent third place in the opening round. How do you feel?

Thanks. Earlier I was entertaining the idea of repeating last year's victory here, but after qualifying it became evident that our Michelin's weren't quite up to the task. Considering that I think 3rd place was about the best we could do today, so yeah I guess I'm feeling quite pleased. But there are two better places than 3rd so there's room for improvement.

Did you come across any problems in the race?

As I said the tyres weren't giving optimal grip, so some corners, especially the first one, felt a bit hazardous every lap. And some rookie drivers didn't really behave accordingly when I was lapping them.. you should maintain your speed and move away from the line, not stay on the line and hit the brakes! The pitstops went great, the mechanics did an excellent job there.. no, not many problems per se, just need to improve a bit on every aspect.

How do you feel about the Mapes-VO package?

The car is really fun to drive.. the engine feels great and it should be reliable; there's still some work to be done with the front aerodynamics and setting up the car correctly.. last year's data doesn't apply much to this car. But I think we are more ready and the whole team atmosphere is more positive than at any other season opening, so things look really very good. And I'm confident the tyre supplier will get their act together at Malaysia, too.

You came close to the title in 2003, do you think you can win it this year?

Yeah it was open until the last race. Last year I had quite a bad mid-season slump, which I'm not going to repeat this year. We'll see what the opposition proves to be like this year, but I'm planning to win the title anyway. We'll see how it goes.