Q&A With Force India’s Dr Vijay Mallya
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May 28, 2008
ForceIndia
Question: You must have gone through every kind of emotion during the Monaco Grand Prix. Looking back, how do you feel about it now?
Vijay Mallya: We were obviously shattered. We were so looking forward to a spectacular result, which was not to be. It has however done two things, and we need to take away the positives. First that Adrian Sutil has a lot of ability and talent, and we’re glad and proud to have him in our team. Some people started questioning my decision to keep him when he didn’t finish a few races at the start of the season, but I think he has more than redeemed himself. Secondly I think our strategy and our whole team came together. The race strategy was right, the set-up was right, and to see a Force India car running fourth in Monaco was a great pleasure while it lasted. We were seven minutes from home. It was unfortunate, but I guess that’s what racing is all about. I can’t say that I’m not feeling sad, because I am, but we’ll get over it, and we’ll take away a lot of positives.
Question: What went through your mind when Sutil had to retire?
Vijay Mallya: We were well clear of Raikkonen until the safety car came out, and then we knew that he was going to attack us, so we warned Adrian on the radio that you have Raikkonen right behind you on your tail. And of course we didn’t want him to get pressured and do anything stupid, because if he wasn’t fourth he would have still finished fifth and that in itself would have been a huge accomplishment. But you know what happened, Kimi just rear ended him. It wasn’t as if it was an overtaking manoeuvre, something drastic must have happened, because you wouldn’t expect a world champion to run into somebody. It was sad for us, that moment was a very emotional moment.
Question: Were you almost in tears when it happened?
Vijay Mallya: I was, and so were many of us actually! I’ve had quite a lot of SMS messages and phone calls from supporters in India, all of whom are I think highly emotional. But such things happen in racing, that’s what I’ve been telling everyone. F1 wouldn’t be F1 if it wasn’t as unpredictable as it is.
