Quotes of the Week
UPDATE "There was a longer line at Long's Bakery than there was to get in the Speedway," said the 1963 winner Parnelli Jones in Robin Miller's latest article referring to the 10,000 or so fans that showed up for Pole Day. "I thought unification would change everything." Unidentified IRL Executive who still does not want to accept the fact that the sport was destroyed by the split.
05/10/09
"I had the race in my hands and I was quite surprised when they told me they were switching Jenson to two [stop strategy]. I would like to understand why they changed that. If that happens I won't follow any team orders anymore. I'm making it clear now so everyone knows." Rubens Barrichello, Formula 1 driver, Brawn GP, commenting after finished 2nd in the Spanish GP because of team orders changing teammate Jenson Button to a two stop strategy, leaving Barrichello on a three stop strategy. Barrichello believes that Ross Brawn changed Button's strategy to favor the championship leader over Barrichello. For six years at Ferrari, Barrichello was Michael Schumacher's 'number two', ceding to team orders on many occasions, including the infamous radio call of the 2002 Austrian GP. "It's just that the car is no good, no grip. I had nothing. It's just a shame they (the team) have not given me a car to defend my championship. The car is that bad. I am driving the socks off it and there is just no hope. We're not even halfway through the season and the car is just really hardcore. At the moment, for sure, we don't have the car to win the championship, but the team have done a fantastic job and every weekend they do a fantastic job. We have great reliability and the morale in the team is high. It's just a shame." Lewis Hamilton, 2008 Formula 1 World Champion, McLaren, commenting on McLaren's poor performance this season, and essentially writing off any hope of defending his title. “Barry [Green] had spent about $150,000 on attorneys fees, and at the end of the whole court proceeding we went away feeling pretty confident about it. And a month later we got the decision that our appeal was not appealable. I mean I was disappointed. We were at the height of the war between CART and IRL. The last two races previous, you had guys coming in on one-offs from CART and stealing the Borg-Warner away from the regular IRL crowd. I just don’t think they wanted that to happen again especially with a guy who had been so supportive of CART and critical of the IRL. Deep down inside honestly, I felt like I got screwed. I walked away with, in some people’s minds would be a great accomplishment, a second place at Indianapolis. But my whole career is ‘second place is the first loser’ in my eyes. It’s all or nothing with me. That’s probably been the defining thing of my career. I’m like a shark. Once a shark smells blood, it goes for its prey." Tracy completed this sentence by saying, Winning the Indy 500 would mean “redemption." Paul Tracy, IndyCar driver, KV Racing Technology, competing in the Indy 500 for the first time since the controversial outcome of the 2002 race when his team lost an appeal of the results when Tracy tried to prove that he passed Castroneves on the backstraight for the win before the yellow came out. "Formula One is Ferrari and Ferrari is Formula One. It's just a marriage made in heaven, one of those super things that work well." Bernie Ecclestone, President and CEO of Formula One Management and Formula One Association, trying to calm the waters since Ferrari has made noises about looking outside of Formula 1 due to the disagreements with Max Mosley. "The big teams don't get it because it's not in their DNA to make money in formula one. All they want to do is spend, spend, spend. Odd isn't it that at a time when everyone else in the commercial world is trying to cut costs and save money, we offer them a plan and some are not happy. How will it look if a board of one of the manufacturers which is losing money turns down the chance to cut costs hugely?" Bernie Ecclestone, President and CEO of Formula One Management and Formula One Association, said the teams are wrong to oppose the 40m pounds sterling cap. "We don't want to see a two-tier Formula One. We think that would confuse the public, that if there is a big disparity in the regulations there would be no merit for those teams that succeed using the most advantageous regulations. It's a fact that stability, when the rules are right, is the cheapest way of going forward in many ways because you can plan, you can organize yourself. But one of the difficulties of Formula One is that we are turning into Swiss watchmakers. We are just refining everything to the nth degree instead of being able to make conceptual or innovative changes because the rules are becoming more and more constrictive. But for me, going down the Swiss watchmaking route, is not what I believe Formula One should be. For us there has to be some constraint on resources, not a constraint on the technical regulations." Ross Brawn, Team Principal, Brawn GP, frustrated by the FIA's budget-cap regulation for next year that paves the way for a two-tier sport. "Motor racing is not like tennis. It's not like you're in the third set having lost two (sets) 6:0. I know from the last three years that I can drive as fast as Jenson." Rubens Barrichello, Formula 1 driver, Brawn GP "To have two different regulations, for me as a driver, that's not attractive at all. I want the guy at the other end of the tennis court to have the same racquet as me, basically." Mark Webber, Formula 1 driver, Red Bull, commenting on Max Mosley's plans for the voluntary budget cap. “This is unbelievable. Just absolutely unbelievable. This was a big surprise. You know we had a strong car but never expected to win. (Crew chief) Alan Gustafson is absolutely the best. I may have been his childhood hero, but I’m living a second childhood now and he’s my childhood hero. I felt like my car was 50 or 40 percent out of control, so I didn’t get close to anybody most of the time. There were a lot of people eliminating themselves. You have to watch yourself if you want to survive conditions like they were tonight. I’m just very, very happy right now and I don’t need to say we’re going to win a whole bunch more races. It could happen, but if not, at least we got two (victories) instead of one. All I want to do is be happy and have fun doing this. If you don’t set yourself up for disappointment, then it’s much easier. It’s okay to have the passion. It’s okay to have the drive. But you can’t let it tear you apart." Mark Martin, NASCAR driver, Hendrick Motorsports, commenting after winning the Southern 500 in Darlington at 50 years old
"Just to be here right now is awesome. I have to say that without this crowd here, without the support of the fans, there was no way I could have gotten through what I did." (About withdrawing qualified run and re-qualifying): "Yes, it was a gamble, a big gamble. But we took a chance, and it paid off. But now that we're (on the pole), that's where the rest of them want to be, so it will be nerve-wracking for an hour and a half." (About the conditions): "It was magic the way the sun came out. Now I hope it is magic for me. I mean to be sitting on the pole position, obviously I did not think about it [when he was going through the tax evasion trial]. Those moments was just to be back racing, and I did see myself coming back to Indianapolis, trying to focus about it. Even if it would be for one race, you know, I was always thinking about I've got to be in Indianapolis. Plus, I was concerned about how long the trial was going to last. So there was a lot of thinking. When you're in the room for about six hours a day, you know, nothing that you can do, a lot of words that you don't understand, you start thinking about a lot of things, you know, other than those words. But it's been very special, no question about it." Helio Castroneves, IndyCar driver, Team Penske, commenting after winning the pole position for the 2009 Indy 500 race.
05/10/09
"I had the race in my hands and I was quite surprised when they told me they were switching Jenson to two [stop strategy]. I would like to understand why they changed that. If that happens I won't follow any team orders anymore. I'm making it clear now so everyone knows." Rubens Barrichello, Formula 1 driver, Brawn GP, commenting after finished 2nd in the Spanish GP because of team orders changing teammate Jenson Button to a two stop strategy, leaving Barrichello on a three stop strategy. Barrichello believes that Ross Brawn changed Button's strategy to favor the championship leader over Barrichello. For six years at Ferrari, Barrichello was Michael Schumacher's 'number two', ceding to team orders on many occasions, including the infamous radio call of the 2002 Austrian GP. "It's just that the car is no good, no grip. I had nothing. It's just a shame they (the team) have not given me a car to defend my championship. The car is that bad. I am driving the socks off it and there is just no hope. We're not even halfway through the season and the car is just really hardcore. At the moment, for sure, we don't have the car to win the championship, but the team have done a fantastic job and every weekend they do a fantastic job. We have great reliability and the morale in the team is high. It's just a shame." Lewis Hamilton, 2008 Formula 1 World Champion, McLaren, commenting on McLaren's poor performance this season, and essentially writing off any hope of defending his title. “Barry [Green] had spent about $150,000 on attorneys fees, and at the end of the whole court proceeding we went away feeling pretty confident about it. And a month later we got the decision that our appeal was not appealable. I mean I was disappointed. We were at the height of the war between CART and IRL. The last two races previous, you had guys coming in on one-offs from CART and stealing the Borg-Warner away from the regular IRL crowd. I just don’t think they wanted that to happen again especially with a guy who had been so supportive of CART and critical of the IRL. Deep down inside honestly, I felt like I got screwed. I walked away with, in some people’s minds would be a great accomplishment, a second place at Indianapolis. But my whole career is ‘second place is the first loser’ in my eyes. It’s all or nothing with me. That’s probably been the defining thing of my career. I’m like a shark. Once a shark smells blood, it goes for its prey." Tracy completed this sentence by saying, Winning the Indy 500 would mean “redemption." Paul Tracy, IndyCar driver, KV Racing Technology, competing in the Indy 500 for the first time since the controversial outcome of the 2002 race when his team lost an appeal of the results when Tracy tried to prove that he passed Castroneves on the backstraight for the win before the yellow came out. "Formula One is Ferrari and Ferrari is Formula One. It's just a marriage made in heaven, one of those super things that work well." Bernie Ecclestone, President and CEO of Formula One Management and Formula One Association, trying to calm the waters since Ferrari has made noises about looking outside of Formula 1 due to the disagreements with Max Mosley. "The big teams don't get it because it's not in their DNA to make money in formula one. All they want to do is spend, spend, spend. Odd isn't it that at a time when everyone else in the commercial world is trying to cut costs and save money, we offer them a plan and some are not happy. How will it look if a board of one of the manufacturers which is losing money turns down the chance to cut costs hugely?" Bernie Ecclestone, President and CEO of Formula One Management and Formula One Association, said the teams are wrong to oppose the 40m pounds sterling cap. "We don't want to see a two-tier Formula One. We think that would confuse the public, that if there is a big disparity in the regulations there would be no merit for those teams that succeed using the most advantageous regulations. It's a fact that stability, when the rules are right, is the cheapest way of going forward in many ways because you can plan, you can organize yourself. But one of the difficulties of Formula One is that we are turning into Swiss watchmakers. We are just refining everything to the nth degree instead of being able to make conceptual or innovative changes because the rules are becoming more and more constrictive. But for me, going down the Swiss watchmaking route, is not what I believe Formula One should be. For us there has to be some constraint on resources, not a constraint on the technical regulations." Ross Brawn, Team Principal, Brawn GP, frustrated by the FIA's budget-cap regulation for next year that paves the way for a two-tier sport. "Motor racing is not like tennis. It's not like you're in the third set having lost two (sets) 6:0. I know from the last three years that I can drive as fast as Jenson." Rubens Barrichello, Formula 1 driver, Brawn GP "To have two different regulations, for me as a driver, that's not attractive at all. I want the guy at the other end of the tennis court to have the same racquet as me, basically." Mark Webber, Formula 1 driver, Red Bull, commenting on Max Mosley's plans for the voluntary budget cap. “This is unbelievable. Just absolutely unbelievable. This was a big surprise. You know we had a strong car but never expected to win. (Crew chief) Alan Gustafson is absolutely the best. I may have been his childhood hero, but I’m living a second childhood now and he’s my childhood hero. I felt like my car was 50 or 40 percent out of control, so I didn’t get close to anybody most of the time. There were a lot of people eliminating themselves. You have to watch yourself if you want to survive conditions like they were tonight. I’m just very, very happy right now and I don’t need to say we’re going to win a whole bunch more races. It could happen, but if not, at least we got two (victories) instead of one. All I want to do is be happy and have fun doing this. If you don’t set yourself up for disappointment, then it’s much easier. It’s okay to have the passion. It’s okay to have the drive. But you can’t let it tear you apart." Mark Martin, NASCAR driver, Hendrick Motorsports, commenting after winning the Southern 500 in Darlington at 50 years old
"Just to be here right now is awesome. I have to say that without this crowd here, without the support of the fans, there was no way I could have gotten through what I did." (About withdrawing qualified run and re-qualifying): "Yes, it was a gamble, a big gamble. But we took a chance, and it paid off. But now that we're (on the pole), that's where the rest of them want to be, so it will be nerve-wracking for an hour and a half." (About the conditions): "It was magic the way the sun came out. Now I hope it is magic for me. I mean to be sitting on the pole position, obviously I did not think about it [when he was going through the tax evasion trial]. Those moments was just to be back racing, and I did see myself coming back to Indianapolis, trying to focus about it. Even if it would be for one race, you know, I was always thinking about I've got to be in Indianapolis. Plus, I was concerned about how long the trial was going to last. So there was a lot of thinking. When you're in the room for about six hours a day, you know, nothing that you can do, a lot of words that you don't understand, you start thinking about a lot of things, you know, other than those words. But it's been very special, no question about it." Helio Castroneves, IndyCar driver, Team Penske, commenting after winning the pole position for the 2009 Indy 500 race.