October 08, 2004
The French GP didn't go too well for the English-Dutch team. Already after the qualifying session the team knew it would be a tough race. The team managers, Matt Maple and Peter van Oostende, technical director Bas van Sambeek and both Mapes-VO drivers Mikko Jakonen and Zlatko Bratonja spent hours and hours on examining the data and video images and talking about possible scenarios for the race. But it didn't help very much. Both drivers didn't lose or gain any positions and finished in the positions they qualified in. Jakonen finished in 5th position and Bratonja scored his first point in his first ever GP.

Because of this Steve Elencevski closed the gap to Jakonen to 10 points after a superb victory. In the constructors championship Mapes-VO has a lead of 26 points to FinOz with a maximum of only 36 points in the remaining races to score. So still a lot of work to do for the banana squad.

After the race both Mapes-VO drivers gave a comment on the race.

Mikko Jakonen was the first to speak to the press:

"This race was a mild disappointment for me. I originally anticipated having serious problems here, but by qualifying I started to feel very optimistic, as the team gave me a very good car to drive. Our computer simulations suggested that with my car 4 stops should be slightly faster than a 3 stop strategy, so we went with that. Unfortunately at the start I couldn't gain places, which would've been crucial to benefit from the strategy. But things were looking pretty good until the middle of the race. On both my 2nd and 3rd stop the crew had some problem with fuel equipment, I just heard FUEL PROBLEM FUEL PROBLEM on the radio, and I lost some very valuable time on those stops. Before that it seemed I should be able to compete with the front runners, but after the 3rd stop I was pretty much stuck at 5th place. Steve was very fast again, he might've been hard to catch but 2nd place was definitely possible. It would've been a much better place for me to finish considering the championship. But at least this year I got to finish this GP, so it's an improvement. And Zlatko got a point from his first race, which was great. So, congratulations to everyone, I hope to be more of a threat in the remaining races."

Then it was Zlatko Bratonja who gave his comment on the race:

"Things did not go quite as we expected in France, we were well prepared, the car was performing really good, but in the end we came a bit short-handed. The competition was real strong here and every tiny mistake was severely punished. Luckily FinOz did not gain too much on us here, so securing teams championship looks close now, we only need 11 points in the last two races to secure it.

Mikko, on the other hand, got a real tough battle on his hands now, but I'm confident he'll drive out of it as a winner.

Suzuka is at hand and I'm sure we'll be at our best here and show this is a Mapes-VO season in all aspects."

After both drivers finished, it was Peter van Oostende to give his view on the weekend:

"This weekend was pretty disappointing for the team. Everybody hoped for a better result, but then again, Mikko scored 4 important points again and Zlatko scored a point in his first ever GP, so we can be pretty satisfied with that. In the first test session here at Magny-Cours we, well everybody but me, was pretty fast here, but we missed some crucial testing here during the season. Luckily we are still in a good position to win both championships. Mikko takes the championship if he finishes in front of Steve and we secure the constructors championship when FinOz doesn't score 9 points or more then we do.

So let's bring on Suzuka!!!"

And finally it was Bas van Sambeek who gave a comment on the Magny-Cours race:

"Well, erm, I don't have a clue what went wrong, we tried some new things in the windtunnel, but as you all could see it didn't had the effect we wanted. Nevertheless, we are very happy with the points we scored, and compliments to the drivers for their excellent spirit, for keeping pushing under these hard circumstances."