July 18, 2002
The Finnish tabloid magazine "MoottorinM?k?? viikottain" (EngineNoise Weekly) writes in its column "Flying Finn at lower altitude?":

"... and the official Kyalami testing results for Loukasmaki were worse than we expected. Our reporter Mary Nosense met Mr. Loukasmaki at the airport after Kyalami testing when he returned to his homeland for a brief visit."

Q: Mr. Loukasmaki, our sources tell that you drove a 1:15.949 lap at the circuit in the morning that day, just before the official testing session. What made you drive almost one second slower in the afternoon?

A: Well, there is an unusual reason for this. I have some old hippie friends living in Johannesburg and I visited them briefly the day before testing. For some reason, one of their "hippie cookies" found its way into my lunch box. The next day I had my lunch at the pit as usual and was preparing for the official testing session, when I suddently felt funny in my head. As I just had a flu, I imagined I had some after effects of that and took some flu-pills and jumpend in the car. After a few laps it was obvious, that flu was not the reason for my condition.

There were nothing wrong with the official car or the setup. Also the pit-crew were very professional and helpfull. I enjoyed the testing session very much, but obviously this incident cost me valuable seconds on the track. After the testing session it started to come into my mind what actually went wrong in Kyalami. Damn Hippies!

Im happy to say that I did fairly well among the candidates, but when comparing to the official team's test results at Kyalami, well, there is still a lot of work to do!

Q: How about the teams, have their representatives been in contact with you after Kyalami testing?

A: No comments.

"Loukasmaki left the airport hastly, clearly beeing irritated. We all have read of many kinds of reasons for poor driver performance but this explanation hits the podium! After this event, Loukasmaki will be surely under microscope by

EngineNoise Weekly!"