September 18, 2002
Mikko Jakonen, the 2002 World Champion, retired on lap 18 of the Italian Grand Prix with a transmission failure. Despite this he was in a good mood and gave us a short interview:

"Well, my race was looking pretty good. I was on hard compound and 1 stop strategy and I was going for a top 4 finish when I suddenly lost all gears from 4th up. There was no point in continuing so I pulled over. It's a bit tough, especially for the Michelin people who wanted to get some data on their race hard compound. I'm not too disappointed though, securing the championship title let off a huge pressure and at the moment I'm just enjoying every aspect of this fantastic sport. We still need more reliability for our technical side but I'm confident we'll focus on it right from the start of the next season."