May 30, 2002
After scoring the team's first win, the first 1-2 and the first fastest lap, the Mapes-VO team was completely drunk after the great party at the Mapes-VO cruise in the nice Monaco harbour.

First there is a very very happy Peter van Oostende, who stepped down yesterday from the 'podium' to get the constructor's cup:

"Oh man, no words for this, this is simply great. Also great to hear the Wilhelmus (Dutch anthem) for our team once instead for Daan. Although it's always sad to see a team having problems it suited us very well both Hernj-Roaldo's couldn't make it to the grid. The start was simply great. Our launch control worked out perfectly. Mikko passed both Kieran and Annunziatta's KRB at the start and passed the 2nd KRB at Loews while wheel banging in the tight corner. A great move! Also Kieran had a great start passing Annunziata right at the start. He was very close behind Davidson when Davidson was passed by Mikko. Kieran dove into the slipstream and passed him at the end of the tunnel. So after half a lap around Monaco, the yellow cars were running 1st and 2nd! Just think of what this means to this coffee addict. And that poor mechanic who had to walk all the way to the paddock the entire time to get the coffee I really needed."

"The only problem was the first pitstop. Mikko was 10 seconds in front of Kieran, but both cars really needed a pitstop. So we tried something very exciting. We decideed to pull them both into the pits. For both cars we had the tyres ready. Mikko's stop went perfectly, but the fuel guys weren't in time with the hose to fill Kieran's car. I'm sorry for Kieran as he lost his connection to Mikko because of that. It were a few seconds he needed very hard.

But fortunatelly Kieran was able to stay in 2nd position. The rest of the race went great. No problems occured. Only some drivers who weren't looking at their mirrors good enough. Mikko almost had a crash with Ponissi. But looking at the championship things look very bright. Mikko Jakonen has a very strong 2nd position in the championship, followed by only 1 point differnce by Kieran. Also our 2nd position in the constructor's championship is really solid now. We almost have twice as many points as MCR and KRB who are both on 3rd position in the championship. But as I predicted, we leave Monaco with 3 cups."

"And yes the party yesterday woohoo, that was great. Me and Mikko had a drinking contest. Never knew Finnish people could drink like that! Damn my head is still killing me. Too bad Matt was in England. He would have liked to be on this party"

Also a little word from the race winner Mikko Jakonen:

"After the solid qualifying we did it was obvious that the car needed some changes for the race. We tried a different setup but the car turned into

being very very difficult to drive. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to perfect it, so I just had to settle with what I had. The start went fine

with me and Kieran and then we started pushing. The

first two sets of Michelins were not good; they lost their grip after a few laps. Luckily the last tyre set was very much better, and I was able to push

more and more as I got lighter load. On the last laps I got 5-6 backmarkers blocking my way, which nearly caused me to crash into barriers, and anyway cost me almost 10 dear seconds. Without them I could've had the fastest lap when crossing the finish line. I would especially like to ask Ponissi to check his mirrors more often, so he'd behave accordingly when he's lapped. I touched his side coming out of the tunnel and I hurt my arm pretty bad there... I don't think I'll be able to take part in the testing session i Monza because of that."

We couldn't talk to Kieran yet. Maybe the party was a little bit to much for the young Irish guy.

The Mapes-VO team will be present in Monza, with Andy Cooper and Peter van Oostende behind the wheel of the banana car, giving both drivers a well deserved rest.