May 02, 2004
Pole man Elencevski, 2nd placed Whiteman & 3rd on the grid Jakonen talk about their Qualifying laps at the Imola circuit.

Pole Position - Steve Elencevski (FinOz)

Well done Steve. Your first pole in F1VWC! How does it feel?

Thanks! Well i was quite surprised to get pole here at Imola, i thought we would struggle for pace & it isn't one of my favourite circuits. So i have to say that it's great for myself & the team.

Do you think you could have gone any faster?

Yes definitely, i did a poor 2nd sector on that lap & felt i could have maybe gone 2-3 tenths faster, but having said that it's fair to say that the other driver's could have also been quicker. We'll just have to see how the race unfolds & see where other's are with their strategies & fuel loads.

Scott Whiteman was only 0.025 secs behind, can you keep ahead of him in the race?

I hope we can, but it will be tough, Scott has proven to be very quick in race trim & it's something we have been working on & the characteristics of the circuit make it difficult to be consistent lap after lap, so if we can at least finish 3rd, then we'll be pleased. The top 7 are only within a few tenths of the pole time, so there's a few other guys we have to worry about also, but we'll try our best & hopefully come away with a good result.

2nd - Scott Whiteman (EIRE)

Well done Scott, second on the grid, how was your lap?

Very cautious, i didn't really get any time on the track this week to practice due to a heavy workload for university which will unfortunately continue through the race weekend also.

So close to Elencevski on that lap, you two seem pretty well matched.

Definately, plus if i had to pick anyone to beat me it would be Steve so im not too worried, hopefully the close racing will continue through the season.

Can you beat Steve to the first corner, and more importantly, the race?

Well im not exactly sure how much fuel Steve has on board, and you'd be well aware that getting off the line is greatly influenced by fuel loads, i guarantee that if the car lasts the distance then the result will be tight, as to who will come out on top im not making any predictions.

3rd - Mikko Jakonen (Mapes-VO)

Well done Mikko! 3rd on the grid, how did it go?

Well, 3rd on the grid is a good place to start, but I wasn't at all happy with my lap today. I was too late braking into Aqua Minerale, I lost almost half a second in the middle sector compared to my times in practise. So I could've taken the pole with a clean lap and I'm blaming myself for the mistake. Now I just need to focus to be able to minimize errors in the race, because there's not much time to breathe once the race starts.

Elencevski and Whiteman were very close, can you keep up with them in the race?

Yeah the first rows seem awfully close, it'd be interesting to know how much fuel everyone was carrying. We have a lot of data from last year already and I'm confident we have a good strategy. The car felt really good to drive even on longer stints so I think I should be able to challenge the front row. It's very difficult to overtake here, so I really need to get in front during the first lap. We have a new clutch in the car so the start should be better than before, we'll see.

With Petri quite low down the order, what chances do Mapes-VO continuing their good fortune in the Constructors Championship?

Well so far we both have finished all our races higher than where we started, so you could argue that we have a problem in qualifying. It might have something to do with tyre temperatures or something. Anyway, I'm sure Petri will have a good chance getting into points, as he has in the earlier races. Our immediate goal is to overtake EIRE in the constructors champ.

You seemed to have a heated discussion with your engineers before qualifying, why was that?

During free practise there was a problem with the steering, the wheel felt weird and gave a strange sound when turning left, and there's a lot of high speed left turns in this circuit, so I wanted to know if we can get it fixed. They informed me that it would mean diassembling the whole steering column and we can't do that before race. I'll just have to settle for it for now, and hope I don't end up like Senna.