Q+A Mike Gascoyne

After the euphoria of scoring a point in Japan the Chinese GP proved to be a frustrating race for the Spyker team. With rain heading in, both Sutil and Yamamoto started on extreme wets while the rest of the field opted for standard wets. Unfortunately the rain was not as heavy as predicted, and both drivers had to switch tyres after dropping back from the pack. Later Adrian spun off, but Sakon had another reliable run to the flag with the B-spec car. We asked Mike Gascoyne for his thoughts on the Shanghai weekend.

"Basically we had the prediction of heavy rain for the first 20 minutes, and the radar plot showed that coming in. It really just veered away and we only got the tail end of it. We just gambled that it was going to be heavy rain, and if we were the only ones on extremes, and other teams had to stop, we would be looking good. The bottom line was that we weren’t competitive during the weekend, and we were just going to drive around so we had to take a risk to move up. We were not the only ones to struggle – if you look at Renault and Williams and where we were relative to them, we were in the same position as normal."

"Really we weren’t going to get much out of the weekend, and if you are in that position then you need to take risks – effectively you have nothing to lose. If it had worked out then we would have been very well placed, but in the end the gamble on the tyres didn’t pay off. We then went on to the wets, and we then changed to drys just as it started raining again."

"Adrian made a mistake, but to be honest he can’t be blamed for that. It was raining again and he had just changed to drys and just skidded off in the last corner after Ralf Schumacher had just done the same thing. It had started raining, and it was wet in that corner. It’s just one of those things."

"I don’t think we had a competitive car to really do anything with. We could have maybe jumped a couple of people who got it wrong, but we weren’t going to get much out of the weekend. It’s difficult when you’re a team at the back and you’ve got rookie drivers. Shanghai is a tough circuit to learn, and I think if we’d had a dry race, you’d have seen us get more on the pace."

"We’ve had a couple of cracking races with the B-spec car, and a couple of mediocre ones. Interestingly, we had two circuits that Adrian knows very well, and two that he’s not been to before. He’s done some tremendous races recently, but you’ve got to remember that he’s still a rookie, he’s still learning everything, and he hasn’t had all the testing that Lewis and other drivers have had. I think we suffered from that last weekend."

"We’re pleased with the point, and at the end of the day we’re going to finish 10th, which is important financially for the team. But it’s much nicer when you’ve scored a point, it just means something for the whole team. For me personally I’ve never gone through a season and not scored a point! So even that one point means something to me, and it means something to everyone. We’ve got one more race, and who knows?"

"We’re definitely more competitive at lower downforce levels. You’ve got the long straight where I think we’ll look to take a lot of wing off for the race and try and be quick, as we were at Spa. It’s a very similar sort of wing level to that track, and obviously that was one of our more competitive races, passing people and getting stuck in. I think we can have a similar race in Brazil."

"We’ve sort of prided ourselves on getting it all right, but we’ve come crashing back down to earth with a bang after China. I have to take responsibility for that, I made the calls, but it didn’t work out. As effectively as we did it at Nurburgring, where we put ourselves 30 seconds in the lead, I managed to put as nearly a lap behind everyone else! I went round and apologised to all the boys. It’s nice to get the plaudits when you get it right, but you have stand up and take the responsibility when you mess it up!"