EJ20H-TT
09-01-2004, 08:20 PM
Michael: "Well, if I start on Mark: every single car that he's got in, he's been fast – whether it be sports cars or go karts or Formula 3 cars or Formula 3000 cars or Formula One cars, straight away he's fast. So that tells you something. And there are only a few guys that are like this that we've seen in history – [Mika] Hakkinen was one of them, Michael [Schumacher] was one of them – they can get into anything and feel the car, know where its limits are on its tyres with not much experience.
"So we've seen that over seven or eight years, watching Mark in various categories, and then when he came into Formula One he's done probably three or four things - and remember, we see a lot more than you guys at testing and in practice sessions, particularly in testing. In testing you do maybe triple the miles of a race weekend, and we see him do things in testing that make you sit up and take notice.
"And we also see him do things in races, even though he might be running around in tenth or something. We keep an eye on everything, especially if we take an interest in a driver. So there's that, and the next thing is his ability against his teammates – he's completely outclassed any of his teammates that he's had. Antonio [Pizzonia] drove with us in testing in 2002 and was regularly quicker than Montoya and [Ralf] Schumacher in testing, and Mark completely dominated him when he was with Jaguar. So that straight away told us that this guy was pretty good.
"Then, coming to the personal side and his actual character - when we met him, we realised this was someone who wants to be a Champion. There's a clear difference when you talk to people who understand how they're going to do it – he's an intelligent guy who realises what's required to do the job."
"So we've seen that over seven or eight years, watching Mark in various categories, and then when he came into Formula One he's done probably three or four things - and remember, we see a lot more than you guys at testing and in practice sessions, particularly in testing. In testing you do maybe triple the miles of a race weekend, and we see him do things in testing that make you sit up and take notice.
"And we also see him do things in races, even though he might be running around in tenth or something. We keep an eye on everything, especially if we take an interest in a driver. So there's that, and the next thing is his ability against his teammates – he's completely outclassed any of his teammates that he's had. Antonio [Pizzonia] drove with us in testing in 2002 and was regularly quicker than Montoya and [Ralf] Schumacher in testing, and Mark completely dominated him when he was with Jaguar. So that straight away told us that this guy was pretty good.
"Then, coming to the personal side and his actual character - when we met him, we realised this was someone who wants to be a Champion. There's a clear difference when you talk to people who understand how they're going to do it – he's an intelligent guy who realises what's required to do the job."