Jos' reaction on the German Grand Prix

Published on 29 July 2001 by Dennis Visser

Ralf Schumacher has won the German Grand Prix, mainly because he didn't retire, unlike other favourites. Rubens Barrichello came home second, followed by Jacques Villeneuve, Giancarlo Fisichella, Jenson Button and Jean Alesi. Jos finished ninth, just behind Enrique Bernoldi. The race was filled with many incident, which caused one red flag situation and which caused among others Mika Häkkinen, Juan-Pablo Montoya, David Coulthard and Michael Schumacher to retire.

Only just after the race Jos called us with his reaction: "I've been able to do two good starts. After the first start I climbed to the fourteenth place, after the second start I even climbed to the eleventh place. After a couple of laps I had a fight with Ricardo Zonta, and I braked very hard going into one of the chicanes. Because of that I couldn't drive out of the corner very fast, so Zonta was quicker. He touched me, and I had to come in because the profile of my tyre was damaged. During this stop my fuel-tank was completely filled."
Jos was clear about the fight with Bernoldi at the end of the race: "It was a nice battle. Thank to this fight I really 'raced' during the race, which is always nice. Bernoldi was too quick to overtake. The cars are identical, so I couldn't beat him in these laps. It's possible to push too hard, so we both crash out of the race, but that doesn't help us."
The next three weeks will be quiet for Jos. "I will do a training program, and I will be off duty for two weeks. In three weeks we will be going to Hungary, where we will have a new aero package on the car, so I hope we will be a bit further up the grid."