Brazilian GP - 31 March 1996
Red Bull Sauber Ford Press Release

Two races down and still the Red Bull Sauber Ford team have no points to show for all the work and effort that has gone into our new world championship challenge. I came away from the Brazilian Grand Prix feeling both frustrated and disappointed not to have run a reliable race to gain a finish in the top six.

After my false start to the title chase in Australia, where I was an innocent victim of Martin Brundle's spectacular accident, I flew to Sao Paulo with high hopes of doing well. I thought we were looking in reasonably good shape, particularly when it came to reliability. We ran a full Grand Prix distance in pre-season testing and then my team-mate Heinz-Harald Frentzen managed a finish in Melbourne, a track that was reasonably hard on engines.

I was especially encouraged after Friday's practice session. Thankfully, the Interlagos circuit had been resurfaced after last year's bone-shaker of a Grand Prix and we were able to gather a lot of useful information about the performance and the potential of the Sauber C15 chassis and the Ford Zetec-R V10 engine.

Qualifying was very competitive. Damon Hill was out on his own in the Williams, but just one and a half seconds covered the next 17 places. I was disappointed to wind up 12th fastest, just under half a second slower than Heinz-Harald. My confidence about a good race result was boosted when I lapped faster than Heinz-Harald in the Sunday warm-up, but I wasn't happy with the engine which wasn't running as clean as it should. It was fluffing low down in the revs which was making the car quite difficult to drive, but the team decided to try and fix it rather than change engines.

When I drove round to the starting grid it still sounded a bit rough. The team again tried to rectify it but if anything the problem got worse. That left me with no option but to run for the spare car and start from the pit lane. It was okay for the first five laps or so, and I started to climb back through the field even though the visibility was appalling because of the rain.

Did you see the storm on television? When it rains in Brazil it seems to pour water from the sky like someone has turned a tap on! The atrocious weather added to my problems because the engine blip, which helps make for ultra-rapid gear changes began to fail. The effect was that I started locking the rear wheels, and that made the car a right handful on the streaming wet track.

But my problems weren't over yet!

The engine began to go off song and soon it was going slower and slower and slower. We have a row of shift-lights on the dashboard which come on, one after the other, to give the driver a quick and clear indication of when he is approaching maximum revs. Well I was eventually going so slow that I couldn't even get the first shift-light to come on. I decided to pack up and call it a day. The seal was set on a disappointing Grand Prix for the Red Bull Sauber-Ford team when the pneumatic valve train in Heinz-Harald's engine lost pressure, forcing his retirement.

I have been through times like this before when I was driving for Lotus. I try not to let it get me down. You just have to stick at it and work at rectifying your problems. I got rid of some of my frustrations by going to a post-race party thrown by the two Brazilian drivers Rubens Barrichello and Pedro Diniz. Rubens suffered his own disappointment by spinning out of a place in the points late in the race so we were able to commiserate with each other.

At least we don't have long to wait before the Red Bull Sauber-Ford team gets another chance to prove it can be a force in Formula One. We head straight from Brazil to Buenos Aires and Sunday's Argentine Grand Prix, a race in which Heinz-Harald managed fifth place for Sauber last year. I took fourth position driving a Benetton, and don't see why a repeat of that result should not be beyond reach.

The track is short but fun. It has only one real straight so the engines won't be under too much strain. Having said that, a lot of low-down revving can do damage so we will have to work extra hard at getting our reliability back.

Away from the track I will try and find at least a little time from our hectic schedule to have a look around Buenos Aires. The architecture of the city is absolutely beautiful. The other big attraction of Argentina are the steaks served up in the restaurants. They are massive!

I might be tempted to have one when first arrive. In truth, though, steak is a heavy, fatty meat and I much prefer to eat chicken or fish when I am preparing for a race. I'm preparing to race for points this weekend. We've put a lot of work into this season. It is about time we saw a return for our efforts.

With thanks to Johnny, Red Bull Sauber Ford and Bob Herbert
This page prepared 30 May 1996. All rights reserved.