The 2005 Monaco Grand Prix didn’t yield the result that been hoped for, but the Minardi F1 Team will nevertheless leave the Principality substantially encouraged by the events of the weekend.

At the top of the list, Christijan Albers’ 14th place finish in today’s event marked the first Formula One race finish for the Minardi Cosworth PS05, introduced at the recent San Marino Grand Prix, and indicates that the hard-working Faenza squad has made substantial progress with vehicle reliability. In addition, the pace of Albers and team mate, Patrick Friesacher, both in qualifying and in the race, shows the team is beginning to unlock some of the undoubted potential of the new car.

Driving in their first-ever Monaco Grand Prix, both Minardi drivers had eventful races today. Albers spun at the hairpin on lap 23, but eventually took the chequered flag after a gritty drive, while Friesacher, on a two-stop strategy as opposed to his team mate’s single stop, put in a series of impressive laps up to his scheduled pit stop on lap 24. Unfortunately, the handling of his car had deteriorated after the stop, with the result that the young Austrian had an encounter with Monaco’s notoriously unyielding barriers that caused his retirement from the race.

CHRISTIJAN ALBERS
 

“I had a good start and got ahead of Patrick, but I left him some space, as he was running a two-stop strategy and I was on one stop, and it wouldn’t have been fair to hold him up. After that, during the first few laps, I experienced a problem with the rear of the car when I was braking out of the tunnel, but we were able to solve that a couple of laps later. I was then able to race at a good pace, considering the fuel load, but started losing overall grip, even in the tunnel. The situation was the same after the stop, but then, in the last 11 or 12 laps of the race, the problem disappeared and I was again able to run at a good pace. We now need to look through the data to understand what was happening, and improve the car for Nurburgring.