CVRT Manager, Chris Connolly, was very much impressed by the performance of Christian Neumann, who brought himself and the team their maiden victory at Malaysia.
"It is such a great feeling to experience, having our first ever victory! Christian had no problems in the morning warm-up before the race, and neither did Darren. But my confidence for a race win had faded, as just minutes before we had to get both cars out on the grid, Neumann couldn't start his engine.
A mechanic had a try, but it wouldn't start. I'm still not 100% sure what the problem was, but anyhow, we had to rush some changes on the new yet to be used T-Car for Neumann to complete the race in."
"When this drama was over, we relaxed a little a didn't expect anything else to happen. But what did we end up seeing on the formation lap? Darren White trundling around in a cloud of smoke, with giant flames spitting out the back of the car! I was really annoyed that it had happened because Darren is yet to show is full potential this season. I can now only hope he does well in Brazil, as this is most likely going to be his final chance."
"The race started well, Neumann had a little bit of a bad start, and lost a position to Hoek, but we weren't worried - especially after Neumanns impressive overtaking manouver into first place on lap 4. From then on, he powered off into the distance. I must say, this driver certainly has a lot of talent when seated in a GPVWC F1 car!"
"The pitstops were very clean, the pitcrew did a marvellous job to get Neumann back out into the lead as quickly as possible. There were only a few moments where I nearly had a heart attack, when Neumann ran slightly wide at a few corners and the side of his car bounced along the gravel. But he drove on, unscavered and took his first ever victory!! We are all very pleased today."
Neumann was quite happy with his performance which gave CVRT and himself the first race win for the 2001 season.
He said the following, "I had no big problems during the whole race. The setup was good, the tyres were working fine, the strategy was ok and I did nearly no mistakes, only a few tiny errors, even the very slow CC didn't make as much of a problem as I thought they would while overlapping them."
"After the great qualifying, I knew that a victory was a must, but after the race I wasn't sure if I was fast enough. I was quite surprised by the big gap I had to Ton Hoek."
"Of course I'm very glad to lead the championship now, but it's very early in the season and Jason Endean, who will obviously be my biggest opponent has missed the race."
" Next race in Brazil isn't my favourite one, but I'm aiming for a 2nd win there."
