Q & A with Martin Whitmarsh

Martin Whitmarsh: "I've looked into it and we had a little issue when the board was rotated and the car was dropped down, he nudged forward a little bit. But I don't think that unduly contributed because the fuel flow was the limiting factor of the stop. The nozzle went on and off cleanly.

"We took a view that you can get jumped in a pitlane, but we felt we had the pace and performance that if we were on a reasonably conservative second stint, providing you can stay with the cars in front, you can jump ahead of them at the second stop.

"In hindsight, it would have been better if there wasn't some cars fighting at the end of the pitlane. Nothing else went wrong."

Q: Did you give Lewis a warning about the red light over the radio?

Whitmarsh: "Yes."

Q: So it was his fault?

Whitmarsh: "Frankly, we gave it to him, we could have given it to him earlier. There was quite a lot going on, obviously we were stopping both cars. When you come in first and come out third I'm sure you're anxious to see if you can jump past those people, and I'm sure that distracted him. As Nico [Rosberg] proved seconds later, it was easy to do."

Q: What's your reaction to the 10-place grid penalty for Magny-Cours?

Whitmarsh: "It's disappointing, it's a decision the stewards have made so we've got to now make the best we can out of it."

Q: It's quite severe isn't it?

Whitmarsh: "It is. There was a different view taken in Monaco [with Adrian Sutil being hit by Kimi Raikkonen] so we've got to work with what we're given."

Q: How long was Lewis going to go without the safety car?

Whitmarsh: "A little bit longer, but in truth we were potentially going to stop him earlier than necessary anyway because of the likelihood of the safety car. Under the current regs, cars don't run to range if you're in a competitive position, you stop early if it doesn't jeopardise your position. He would have stopped a few laps later, and probably before he needed to."

Q: How seriously do you regard BMW as a title threat?

Whitmarsh: "You've got to. The reality is they have consistently scored points and done a good job. We've got to recover from a disappointing race here and continue to improve our car.

"We've got to make sure there's no mistakes, we're consistent and we score points. If we can do that, then we'll continue fighting Ferrari but score enough points to overcome BMW."

Q: What was Heikki's problem?

Whitmarsh: "He had a difficult weekend, his first so far. On many occasions, on fuel corrected times, he's outqualified Lewis and done a great job for the team. By his own admission, this was a disappointing weekend.

"After the first session he really wasn't in the sweet spot. He put a lot of pressure on himself and maybe pushed a bit too hard. He was graining his tyres in the race much more severely than Lewis in the first stint, and Lewis was on the softer option that's more prone to graining.

"He's got high expectations, he was very disappointed. Maybe we've got to go back and look at how we were running his car, maybe we can do a better job for him as well."

Q: Looking at pure speed, have you jumped Ferrari?

Whitmarsh: "In terms of top-end speed we were stronger and in terms of pace. We were very strong. But, in reality, this circuit is very unusual in its characteristics, and we're about to go to two that are much more typical with long, flowing corners, and it's going to be an interesting phase.

"Last year we were very strong in the combination of Monaco and here, when we got back to high-speed corner tracks, Ferrari was stronger than us. I hope that's not going to be the case this year.

"In fact, in high-speed corners maybe we've been slightly stronger than Ferrari, and I'm sure they've been working on that, but I hope we can arrive in France with an edge."

Q: You have improved on your slow-speed performance?

Whitmarsh: "Yes, we have, the last two races, if you put a positive light on what's been a disappointing weekend here, there were quite a number of modifications and the cars were competitive.

"Coming away with no points isn't a great feeling for the team, but we've got to put that down to experience and do the best we can to overcome the penalty we've got in France. It's still pretty close."

Q: If BMW makes Kubica a de facto number one, does that make them a bigger threat?

Whitmarsh: "That can be a positive and a negative in a team. We've got to play our own game, and make our own car quicker, and make sure we don't make mistakes. If we can do that, we can score more points than BMW and beat them.

"But we've got to make sure we don't get involved in incidents like we did today."