Post-Race Press Conference

Q: Congratulations, Mika, on your fourth win of the season. I guess all those Finnish supporters out there will be almost as pleased about this as you are ...

Mika Hakkinen: The Finns have always come to support me here ever since the first time I raced in Hungary back in 1991. This year it's been mega: the grandstands are full of Finns and as Eddie said yesterday you would imagine that the whole of Finland is empty this weekend. It's not true, though, because we aren't a small country like Ireland. But this is fabulous and the atmosphere is great. I am sure the Finnish people here will have a great evening tonight. They have good reason to celebrate and to be proud of Finland and proud of McLaren.

Q: Although you seemed to be in control of the race, in the middle of your second stint you were shown a signal to 'Push.' Was that because your team thought Eddie Irvine might have been on a one-stop strategy?

Hakkinen: We had a discussion about that [by radio]. The team was just giving me a hard time: they want to push all the time, you know, it's our mentality.

Q: After the bad luck you've been having for the last four races, were you listening for bad noises from the car as the race got towards its end?

Hakkinen: No, I was not doing that. But obviously this is a circuit where you tend to ride the kerbs quite a lot, and that can cause some problems for the tyres. This circuit is extremely hard for the reliability of engines, chassis and gearboxes, so you have to be aware of that here. But the set-up that the team found for me and David for the race was just right. It allowed us to avoid putting too much stress on the gearbox, for example.

Q: A great result and a great result for you, David, but it didn't start too well and you lost two places at the start. What happened there?

David Coulthard: I was very surprised about that because I thought my reaction to the lights and my getting the power down initially wasn't too bad. But I seemed to sit there with my wheels spinning for a bit longer while the other guys hooked up. It was a surprise when Fisichella was able to get past me down at the first corner and then when Heinz-Harald went through at Turn 2.

Q: For the rest of your first stint you were caught behind drivers that you knew were slower than you, while Mika and Eddie disappeared into the distance. How frustrating was that?

Coulthard: It's certainly frustrating, yes. But if you don't want to have to put up with it, you have to make a better start than I did! It was my own fault. I had to try and stay close enough to force the drivers in front into making a mistake, but I also had to make sure that I wasn't so close that I would get involved if they did make a mistake. It was quite tricky and eventually it was a case of waiting [for my chance] until the first stops.

Q: You picked up 2nd place when Eddie ran wide and had to slow down on the grass. Without that mistake, do you think you would have been able to attack him and pass?

Coulthard: It would have been very difficult. Before the pit stop I was trying to stay as close to him as possible, to put him under pressure and to be able to hope for a mistake from him. But after the stop he was obviously much quicker on his fresh set of tyres, until he made a mistake. That was exactly what I needed.

Q: Eddie, you looked safe in 2nd place for most of the first 60 laps, and things were going well for you until you made that mistake. What happened?

Eddie Irvine: We were in difficulties before then. The tyres felt good for two or three laps, then they went off in a big way. I was struggling with the front and rear of the car, it was jumping around too much and we were only hanging on by the skin of our teeth.

Q: You expected to be able to match or beat the race speed of the McLarens on this circuit. Are you surprised that they proved to be so much quicker?

Irvine: I am a little bit surprised, although there are a couple of [technical] things on the car that we need to look at. Maybe we got something wrong. We need to look at everything very carefully in the de-brief, because it is very unusual for us not to be quick in the race -- and here we were really struggling.

Q: With your lead in the drivers' championship down to two points, what is Ferrari's testing programme in preparation for Spa-Francorchamps?

Irvine: It's been a while since we made any improvements to the car and I believe there are a couple of aerodynamic steps that we can expect to have. I hope those steps will make us more competitive for Spa.

Q: Mika, the Belgian race didn't go at all well for you last year. This time, is Spa-Francorchamps a circuit on which you can look forward to racing with the 1999 car?

Hakkinen: Yes. Under certain conditions, as we know, Spa can be very tricky. But we have discovered that this year's car is suitable for all circuits under all conditions. After a result like today's I have to admit that it is nice to be looking forward to Spa. We have scheduled a test in England later this week and there are a lot of new technical things coming up from McLaren which could make us go a lot quicker.