After the qualifying session ended things didn't look so good for the Mapes-VO - Honda team. Mikko Jakonen was 6th and Peter van Oostende was 12th on the grid. Not the perfect spots on the grid to get a strong points finish. We choose a setup that was both very fast on the dry, but could also work in the wet.
There was a slim chance of rain on raceday so the team choose that setup and also a 3 stop strategy, so there was room to switch to a different strategy in case of rain. An hour before the start there was rain in Monza and a lot of teams looked pretty worried. Mapes-VO - Honda was quite satisfied with this. It would be tricky, but the setup was good enough for it. While other team's faces started to look happier, Mapes-VO saw the chance of a lifetime slip away. There was sun again and the track started drying up. At the start of the GP the track was pretty dry except the part from the Curva Granda to the Lesmos. It was quite tricky the first few laps, but Mikko was right on pace after the lights went off. In the end he was only 1 second behind Kieran Ryan who took his first victory here at Monza. So 8 important points and Mikko was able to gain 2 point on Steve Elencevski who drove a very good race again. Also Kari Koski drove a superb race and the FinOz team scored 11 points. Luckily also Peter found a very nice pace and got 7th after the flag dropped. So 10 points for Mapes-VO after a very hard race, and because of that FinOz only comes 1 point closer in the constructors championship.
We spoke to Mikko shortly after his strong 2nd position:
"That was a tough race. Congratulations to Kieran for his maiden victory, it was a good fight. I concentrated on keeping Steve behind me, and with Scott seemingly out of the picture it did me a world of good to succeed in that. The track was a bitch to drive today, the grip changed very much during the race, the first laps were really difficult, and as it was quite a cold surface our tyres weren't very good. Braking into the first chicane was very difficult, I did a lot of small mistakes there. And the Lesmos were bad as well, the dry line was very thin, no room for mistakes there. But I'm glad that we could take all the Honda power to good use, although my visor was covered with oil after the race. I'm really happy with the result, and I'd like to wish the testing crew the best of luck in Spain next week, I hope they get some 2005 technology up and running for the remaining races. See you in China."
We also spotted Peter, this time without his cup of coffee, but with the champagne Mikko brought from the podium.
"I'm so happy right now. Mikko drove a great race and I'm very, very pleased with my 7th position and first points in this championship. Another 10 very important points for Mapes-VO! It was quite hard in the early stages of the race. The car was good on dry, the car was good on the wet, but it was very difficult on a drying track. You really needed to stay on the dry line, because 2 wheels on the wet and 2 on the dry would result in a spin. I'm glad I passed that stage and I could drive some fast laptimes when the track was dry. Unfortunately I made some mistakes in the closing stages of the race, so I couldn't attack Ross [Loram] anymore.
I wish to congratulate Kieran, who won his first race. He was close a few times back in 2002 when he was driving in this banana, but he finally made it.
I'm off to the SCUM motorhome now, they planned a huge party of there. I wouldn't wanna miss it."
Mapes-VO will pack their stuff and go straight to Magny Cours from the Spain testing, where new Mapes-VO driver Zlatko Bratonja was seen driving the Mapes-VO - Honda that he will race in France.
