April 17, 2002
Another great result for Mapes-VO ? Honda. But there were also a few problems which cost us a few points.

First of all it was great to see Kieran on the podium again. In the first 4 laps he was able to drive himself to P3. We needed to do something crazy to get Kieran in front of the other drivers, so we took the gamble to start with intermediates, but it turned out to be the correct choice. He also had a very exciting battle with race winner Jason Smith, which placed him in P2 for a few laps. But after the first pitstops we weren?t able to follow Miguel?s BMW powered Hernj-Roaldo and Smith?s KRB-Ferrari. So P3 was the best we could do.

Kieran on his race: ?The decision to run on intermediates was a calculated gamble, that I was willing to make. My choice of a 3 stopper seemed to be most suitable as with the changable conditions I think it was the best strategy to go on. I still, hadn't been able to totally solve my rear balance in the car but as I knew in the wet any engine advantage wouldn't show up as much as in the dry and also any car problems. 3rd today was a good race unfortunately it might of been better had it not of been for a number of back markers getting in my way. I had a good and lucky race as I seemed to plan my stops to coincide with when the rain would stop/start. To me, no matter what tyres you were on, 6 laps later or so, you'd be on the wrong tyres. I would like to take this opportunity to thank again Matt and Peter for giving me a chance to drive this excellent car, and also to our test driver Andy, for this podium could not have happened, had it not been for his input in the race. My team mate did a good job this weekend but he couldn't join me on the podium, for other reasons which I'm sure he'll tell you. To date this is the teams best performance, and we can take a good few things from this weekend. We can still improve the car is qualifying and more in the race. We also got more points then Hernj-Roaldo, which is a welcome to beat the top team on points. We've got some more work to do before Spain, and with more help from Honda, I think we can win quite soon. 23 points of the lead, and it?s just gonna get better.?

Also Mikko scored some vital points driving himself to 6th position. This wan?t exactly what we hoped for. It was because of wrong strategy which caused us to lose some more points. The plan was to get Mikko in front of the field at the start, because we were quite confident of our launch control system. But this didn?t happen. Fortunatelly we didn?t loose any places either, but because of the wrong strategy it was quite hard for Mikko to be higher than P6. But thanks to Mikko?s excelent drive the Mapes-VO team is currently 3rd in the constructors championship alongside MCR-Mercedes.

Mikko?s comment after the race: ?6th is fair result, considering that I haven't raced in such wet conditions in a long time. My tyre choices and pitting strategy weren't optimal; I ran half the race on the same set of monsoons and the rest on soft wets, which made me lose my 4th place right at the beginning. Also because of the changing weather I ended up having way too much fuel onboard most of the race.

But it was a good learning experience for the team to try out different strategies in practise; we surely are more prepared in the future. This time Kieran was on a better strategy, he drove really well and deserves the podium. I hope to be there myself very soon as well, as the car has proven to be very competitive at all kinds of track and conditions. I hope the team can work with Honda people at Magny-Cours to be able to deliver the next version of the engine for the next race; then we should be able to continue our current streak of good finishes."

Team founder Matt Maple was running around with his happy face after the race: "I was delighted with the results and we showed once again what a force our 2 drivers are. I was especially happy for Kieran as because of a dumb mistake on our half he had very limited track time on saturday to qualify, he opted for a 3-stopper whereas we ran Mikko on a 2 as we felt that if we could get him in front by the first corner it would allow him to control the speed of the race. This didn?t happen but we were still very happy with his 6th place. Kierans 2 podiums in 2 has shown his true ability and that when we get him in the car he can perform to the height of his skill. We are all systems go for Magny-Cours and would like to thank Andy for the data he gathered about the weather, we kept him in overnight working with our on-site weather team and it pulled through, thanks a lot and good luck to him and all in the Magny-Cours test"

But behind the scenes it was Peter van Oostende who was totally stressed out: ?Man, things went nuts in our pits. We were ready for Kieran to make his stop everything went quite well, but suddenly we saw on Mikko?s on board camera that he was coming into the pits the same lap! This was because of a miscommunication. Apparantly the team wasn?t clear enough in saying he should pit in the next lap and not the current lap. But this was where I jumped from the pitseats ran into our pitbox and got one of the 4 wheels of the car. Thank god everything went allright! But I?d like to congratulate Kieran on his excelent podium and also Mikko who was able to bring the car home in 6th position after a mistake the team made. I?d also like to say good luck to Andy who will be doing the Magny-Cours test?

Like already said by both team managers, Andy will be participating in the official Magny-Cours test this week. We will do everything to get the Honda engine more powerful and more reliable.