Grand Prix du Japon

Question: Rubens, you really only had a hard time from two people - Juan Pablo early on and Fernando Alonso as well - so how much of a hard time was it?
Rubens Barrichello: I had a hard time all the way through because even though you think it was 15 seconds or something to Kimi and sometimes to David I felt that if it rained it could ruin everything in one lap so I had to keep on pushing. Okay, we dropped the pace towards the end to be safe but even then I wanted to keep doing high 34s because if it rained on the last lap it was okay but if it rained five laps from the end but did not rain enough to put on wet tyres we might have had a problem. If it rained enough everyone would have had to come into the pits but if we had all stayed on the track it would have been a problem for me. Talking about the beginning, I had a problem, a little problem with warming up the tyres and as I went through turn 12 going to Spoon it was slightly damp, especially for our tyres, so I got sideways and I had to back off and Juan Pablo ran to the outside and overtook me. He was very fast for the first three or four laps but then I was catching up slightly. But then my visor got completely fogged, I couldn't see anything and then I had the problem that somebody had run with a problem on their engine so there was a lot of oil on the track. I almost ran off and Alonso caught me out again so that first stint and the beginning of the second one was quite busy. Afterwards I could run my pace and concentrate on the racetrack.

Q: And Alonso, he was right up behind you.
RB: Well, thanks to the Ferrari engine we were very fast on the straight so I was relying on that basically. He had fantastic traction out of turn 16, the last chicane, but I was able to keep him behind and quite honestly that was okay, I could do that no problem.

Q: Today, obviously, you have helped your team to win the constructors' championship and your team-mate has made history as well. Just give us a few words on their achievements, the team's and also your team-mate's.
RB: Well, I think I have one of the toughest jobs not because I am here sitting in front of the television or the journalists but sometimes just being a team-mate to Michael makes life difficult, what people write or what people say. So I am proud of what I have achieved this year. Even though I didn't achieve as many points as last year or the position that I finished last year I think it has been a much better year for me, much more competitive. I have been on top all the time and I think I have made a step up. That was really good and so the team did a fantastic job to provide both cars with the reliability and the performance they had. My engineers and my mechanics have all been very good and I think everybody has to be proud of the achievement. It is four years in a row that I am part of the team that has won a lot.

Q: Kimi, you did as much as you could. The car, especially in comparison with David's towards the end, didn't seem to be at its best today.
Kimi Raikkonen: No. We have been struggling with set-up a little bit this weekend. We just didn't get it right. The first set of tyres was pretty much okay but then on the second I was struggling quite a lot with the grip. It wasn't like just understeering or oversteering it was everything. It was quite hard, I was pushing as hard as I could but I was just not very quick.

Q: Earlier on you were right up behind Cristiano da Matta. Were you much quicker than him?
KR: Yeah, I think so, like a second, but they were quite quick in a straight line and I was not getting very good traction out of the last chicane. I always got very close but not quite close enough to try overtaking him into turn one and it cost me quite a lot of time but that is racing and next time we try to get past.

Q: Second in the world championship was not what you were hoping because everyone aims for first. But what are your feelings after this season?
KR: I think it has been a good season for us and for me. Okay we really had big expectations before the start of the season and I think we have done very well. We have been quite quick and the car has been much better, much more reliable than last year and we have improved a lot. Thanks to the team, they have worked very hard all season, and to David, to everyone. But this year maybe we were consistent but just not up there on the speed and hopefully we can catch up for next year. I think if we can improve as much as we did over the last winter we should be in a good position to fight for all the wins and to have a good chance to win both titles.

Q: David, nice to see you. The car actually seemed to be quicker than Kimi's today.
David Ccoulthard: Yeah, I think I only had one set of tyres which gave me problems, which was the second set, and I can imagine what Kimi's car felt like if each of his tyres were like that. So we need to understand what exactly caused that problem. But otherwise the other sets allowed me to push and largely I was in clean air so I didn't really have any problems with traffic.

Q: Well, you were behind Kimi a couple of times and also behind Jarno Trulli and Jenson. I thought it was quite a lively race for you in many ways.
DC: Yeah, but never really in a position to race with anyone so it was just a question of trying to run the strategy and try to be as quick as possible.