Pretty frustrating - Fisico

The Italian ING Renault F1 Team driver, Giancarlo Fisichella, was disappointed with today’s result. Fisichella finished Renault's home race in 6th place and collected 3 points, but the Roman expected more...

"To be honest I was expected to finish higher up. I did everything I could today. My aim was to finish in front of the two BMWs and we adjusted our strategy with this in mind. To try and pass Kubica we bet on a very long second stint: over 30 laps. My tyres suffered because the car had a very heavy fuel load and this caused a lot of understeer. I lost time and finally Heidfeld got ahead; unfortunately, he was driving a BMW as well. It’s all rather frustrating as the first and third stints went off well."

"First of all, our qualifying performances have been very encouraging. Then we’re really close to BMW, our main rival. And lastly I was able to fight off Fernando Alonso’s attacks at the end of the race: it’s an obvious sign that we’ve progressed. I think we’ll show it at Silverstone next week. The test we did there was very encouraging."

"In the final laps of my last stint on soft tyres I suffered graining and my performance level wasn’t fantastic. Fernando took advantage of this to catch me and I really had to fight hard to defend my position. Then my tyres’ performance improved and I built up a small cushion. I’m happy to have emerged victorious from that little scrap!"