Grand Prix du Japon

Question: Michael, well done. It's been a race or two since you were on the top step. What is it like to be back to your winning ways?
Michael Schumacher: Yeah. It is obviously nice, for other reasons, particularly that it is Bridgestone's home Grand Prix and we wished to do well for them and we did. We did very superb in being basically fastest all weekend and finally get the win and it is the way to pay back something to our partners.

Q: It really was a dominant performance, you were up to 24 seconds ahead of Ralf at one time.
MS: Yeah, it didn't look like it in the beginning stages but then he pitted so much earlier and it was pretty clear which way it would go.

Q: At the end you eased up quite a lot. I know you do tend to ease up in the closing stages but even to the extent of letting Felipe Massa un-lap himself. Was there any problem there, or was that just normal?
MS: No, I mean, I was doing a certain pace when Felipe was in front of me until he hit Jacques he was sort of going the same pace, or slightly quicker. But then he got stuck behind Jacques and I was closing then and they let me through. Then I was just keeping to the same pace and, as Felipe was slightly quicker, I let him through so he could continue his race.

Q: But otherwise it was an incident-free and trouble-free race.
MS: Yeah, pretty much.

Q: Ralf, how good was the car considering the lack of preparation time?
Ralf Schumacher: It was good, it was even good in the wet, I must say. Even last year the car was good here. We expected to be reasonable. I must admit that we did not expect to be that strong in comparison to other teams. Some of it might have been the strategy, to look after it. We maybe pitted a little earlier than we needed to considering the pace we were able to go, but it still worked out. It was pretty hard because I had some traffic in the race but luckily they had to pit a bit earlier and then I could pull out the gap I needed again.

Q: Did you feel you were on the right specification Michelin?
RS: You are always on the right tyre if you have a Michelin on the car, that's pretty clear.

Q: Yes, I see! Your brother told us what he thought it was like to qualify and race on the same day; what did you think of it?
RS: I thought it was no problem at all. As long as you don't throw you car out, sometimes you might need a bit more preparation time. I think it was not a problem but somehow I think having it on Saturday is a bit better for various reasons.

Q: What did you think of it, Jenson, having all this action on one day?
Jenson Button: It is not really much different, is it? I had a little sleep in between so it felt like two days for me. But it's been a good day for us. It's BAR's hundredth race and to get on the podium is a great result, I think and with Taku in fourth we have got some fantastic points and pulled away from Renault, which is good.

Q: Tell us about that start?
JB: It was quite tight. Mark (Webber) got a pretty poor start and it was good to see that we've sorted out our little problems and I was able to come from fifth to third. It was very tight but a lot of fun.

Q: Have you heard Taku's reaction?
JB: No, I haven't. Why.

Q: I just wondered how tight he thought it was?
JB: He's used to that, he's used to close racing, isn't he? (laughter)

Q: So do you feel the car was handling as well as it could be?
JB: The car was very difficult to drive on the first six laps of the race and I was really really worried, about the balance. I had a lot of oversteer, very very unusual, big snaps. When I started to grain the front tyres, the balance came back slightly then when the fuel started coming out of the car the balance felt very good. I think it was just the dirty track at the start of the race that hampered me a little bit. After that the car was reasonably good, consistent, just not on the pace of these two.