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Europe: Rubens Barrichello in the Press Conference
By Phil Huff August 22 2008
Honda Racing F1's Rubens Barrichello joined the FIA's Thursday press conference, talking briefly to the assembled media about the new Valencia street circuit, developments at Honda, and the possibility of Fernando Alonso taking his drive away from him. Here's what he had to say...

Can you give us your impressions of the circuit and Valencia?

I love it. I think the facility and the track, the surface, the asphalt, is all fantastic. I mean, well prepared, very, very nice. The only thing I don’t like is that the policemen keep on telling me to turn right. My hotel is a five minute walk from here and it takes me half an hour as they tell me to go to Barcelona and come back so that’s the only thing I don’t think they are very well prepared. Apart from that the whole situation inside of the track is pretty nice.

You are hoping to cut your lap time between hotel and circuit?

I hope by Sunday it will take me only 20 minutes.

Are you satisfied with the run-off areas of the track?

It’s very similar to Melbourne, in a way, because you have limited space on a road circuit. I think it’s nicely done. Obviously if you have problems in turns nine and ten which is the bridge – if a car parked there – I think you would have to stop the race because it’s not even a safety car issue. You would have to take the car away and bring trucks onto the bridge. It might be a bit of an issue but I think, so far, as Jarno said, we have to really understand what is the speed of the cars, and the only corner that we were concerned about, as a team, was turn one, because you don’t have a lot of run-off in that turn but apart from that it looks OK to me.

You had developments in Budapest but what about the rest of the season?

I think in terms of pure developments, aerodynamic and mechanical, that’s it. But we have to optimise everything that we brought to Hungary and before. We have new, little things in place. We had a new rear suspension for Hungary but unfortunately we couldn’t rig test it before because of lack of time and in these two weeks we could see that there was a big margin for improvement. We are expecting that to work better here. And the spirit is good because although the preparation for next year is already in place, people are working very, very hard with the tools that we have in hand to improve the car. I am definitely looking forward to the end of the season with the tracks that are coming on as we can score points.

There were articles in the press after Hungary that Fernando Alonso would be joining Honda next year. Where does that leave you?

I think the team is definitely talking to Fernando but that’s the question mark. I have never been so enthusiastic about my whole situation with the team. I left Ferrari because I didn’t have the freedom to do what I wanted to do. I have that at Honda but I still have not had the car to perform and I am waiting for that chance. What can I say, but honestly the day that I feel that I am slower than my first race is the day I will call it off and stop. The conversations are there and I am talking to the team, I am talking to all the teams. I want to be racing.

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