15/04/2002

Allan McNish's reflections on Imola

Even though the outcome of the race wasn't exactly a success for me I've got to say that I quite liked Imola. I tested there last year on my own but it's quite different over a race weekend when you are running with other cars.

Like Brazil the elevation changes are greater than you realise watching on TV and there are some difficult corners with bumps and adverse cambers. To go quickly you have to really commit to the corners and you rely on good vision at what is quite a blind kind of track. Combine that with short braking areas and I think that's why overtaking is so difficult.

The other thing is that to get a good lap time out of the car you've practically got to act as if the kerbs aren't there and go straight over them particularly at the last corner. That's simply because it makes the lap shorter. A problem for us this weekend was that we weren't as good on the kerbs as we would like to have been.

A lot of people asked if I was satisfied with qualifying ending up just 0.003s behind my team mate Mika Salo and really the answer is yes and no. Yes because we did a test in Valencia and have now started to get the car set-up a little more in the direction I would like to go. No because 17th position was a little bit disappointing for a circuit we thought we would have been good on in the dry. I guess if someone had offered us that before the season started we would have taken it but before the weekend we were hopeful of lining up somewhere between 12th and 14th.

Then came my start. I would probably have put money on Australia being my shortest race of the year but it seems I was wrong! When the lights went out I went about one metre before I lost drive. The team is not sure of the cause just yet. When it happened I looked in the mirror and saw that thankfully Mark Webber was not right behind me so I had time to pull to one side leaving him in no doubt about what I was going to do.

I suddenly had a bit of spare time on my hands and the chance to take in the paddock scene without so many people around and a race going on around us. You can't help but be impressed with the show behind the show if you can put it like that. We had our new motorhomes here with a room each for myself and Mika and the whole thing worked very well.

President of Toyota Motor Corporation Mr. Cho and Executive Vice-President Dr. Saito also came along to Imola to cheer the team on once again. It is a real boost for the team to have the full support from Japan. I am just sorry that neither myself nor Mika managed to give them anything to celebrate!

It's interesting just seeing the effect that Formula 1 has on people. I'm definitely getting a lot more recognition and I'm stopped in airports occasionally and asked for an autograph. It's at the level where it's pleasant rather than intrusive.

You do notice that your time is not your own as much though! I flew straight home on Sunday night for a quick change of clothes and then it was straight off to Mugello for a test on Tuesday/Wednesday. We were not so strong in wet conditions at Imola and I was just working out that we've probably only done 120 or so wet laps in total with the TF102. So whatever the weather throws at us this week we can make use of the time.