Ferrari

Eddie Irvine: "It is amazing and fantastic to do it with Ferrari. All weekend, I have been working with Luca - my engineer - and I knew we were going the right way. After such a long time (to win my first Grand Prix) I want to thank everyone who has helped me since the start of my career. When the safety car pulled in, I saw Hakkinen had a problem and pushed hard to build a lead. Then I had to do it all over again. I was held up by a BAR for a few laps and I was worried I would go off on his oil. This is the best balanced car I have driven and now we must make it quicker. I came here with very little testing in the F399 and I am very happy with all the hard work Michael did to give me a reliable car. At the start I was a bit worried as we have a new starting sequence. I was sure I had made the right choice to pick the soft tyres and after the pit stop I began to tell myself I was going to win as I did not feel under pressure from Heinz Harald. It is great to win with Bridgestone, after being beaten by them so often in Japanese F3000."

Michael Schumacher: "First, I must congratulate Eddie. Like the rest of the team, I am very happy he has won his first race. He really deserves it after so many years of such hard work and such good work. We faced some problems we had not expected this weekend. At the first start, I could not engage first gear because of a problem on the steering wheel. I had problems with it during the race when it caused the gearbox to occasionally slip into neutral, especially in corners which made my life difficult. We changed the wheel and then the car came back to normal. We are not yet sure what happened to the tyre. Bridgestone will now examine the tyre very carefully. Naturally I am not happy with my race today, but at least we both finished. It is a better start than last year."

Jean Todt: "It was a strange race. Above all, I am very happy for Eddie. He had a great race and made the most of the situation to take his first win. On the other hand, I am disappointed for Michael as he was unlucky. He had a problem with a control on the steering wheel which prevented him from getting off the line and then he had a puncture. The important thing after this race is that we must calmly strive to understand and develop the car. We must also learn more about the tyres from Bridgestone, who have worked so hard with us at the start of the season. We are optimistic, but realistic. There is a team with a higher performance level than us and even if they are behind us in the points, they are still the team to beat."

Jordan Mugen Honda

Heinz-Harald Frentzen made a stunning debut for Benson and Hedges Jordan, finishing second in today's Australian Grand Prix after a race long battle with eventual winner Eddie Irvine. On a day when the top six positions were filled with Jordan drivers past and present, Frentzen drove a wonderfully controlled race, stopping only once for fuel and tyres, and taking himself and the team to 2nd place in both the Drivers and Constructors Championship.

Team mate Damon Hill fared poorly, for after the ex-World Champion made a brilliant start from 9th to take 5th place on the run down to the first corner, he was pushed off the track by another car. Extremely disappointed, Hill was left to watch the race with the rest of the team, but was optimistic that Heinz's performance shows the potential of the Jordan Mugen-Honda 199.

The result was a vindication for the work of Chief Designer Mike Gascoyne and his team of engineers and designers, including race engineers Tim Holloway, Dino Toso and Sam Michaels. It was also a strong result for Mugen-Honda, their all new V10 engine performing reliably and competitively under tough conditions.

Heinz-Harald Frentzen: "I am very happy for myself and everyone at my new team Jordan, and at Mugen-Honda. This was a great result. Eddie was really going fast and I tried to keep up with him, but it was difficult to beat him today. He drove a fantastic race. I thought he was going to make a second stop as I knew he was on soft tyres, but he just kept going. So my tactic was simply to drive as fast as possible and get the best result for me and Jordan."

Damon Hill: "I am very disappointed. I made a brilliant start but was barged out of the way by someone who outbraked himself. It is very frustrating because I passed Ralf Schumacher and Fisichella at the start, but it was just not my day. Hopefully my 101st race will be better!"

Williams Mecachrome

Ralf Schumacher brought a smile to the Winfield WilliamsF1 team today when he finished a strong third in the opening Grand Prix of the 1999 season. Alex Zanardi did not finish the race, crashing out on the 20th lap. In warm-up practice session, Alex's race car had a problem with the clutch so he started the race in the t-car.

Ralf Schumacher: "Looking at Friday and Saturdays practice sessions, I am really pleased to have finished on the podium in my first race for the Winfield WilliamsF1 team. The car was well balanced and I was quite happy with its performance. I lost one of the barge boards towards the end of the race but this did not influence the handling of the car. We are looking forward to our next test in Barcelona so that we can prepare well for Brazil. "

Alex Zanardi: "At the start it was quite difficult to get around all those cars, but unfortunately when it cleared up and I was all by myself, I lost the car. I don't really know what happened. I was having quite a few problems, I was quite a few seconds off the pace, I just turned into a corner and lost the back. I am very disappointed not to have done better, I certainly had more problems this weekend than I thought I would have. All I can do is gather my thoughts in preparation for the next race."

Patrick Head, Technical Director: "A great drive from Ralf. He didn't put a foot wrong and we are very pleased to get points under our belt for the first race. Now we have to go back and sort out a few of the problems we have and find some more performance. Alex said that he lost the car but basically he had a very troubled weekend and I am sure it will be a lot better in Brazil."

Benetton Playlife

Giancarlo Fisichella: "This was a great but very hard race for me. On the first corner I locked my wheels and I got a flat spot on the tyre. This caused vibrations on the car which I had to fight against for 17 laps. Then the safety car came out and when it went back in I collided with Trulli and lost my front wing. I had to take an unprogrammed pit stop to change the nose and then with new tyres the car ran really well. I was hoping to finish fourth or fifth and we achieved this objective. Above all I am happy that we have a competitive car with a lot of potential."

Alexander Wurz: "This was a disappointing race for me as at the beginning of the race I had some problems with vibrations on the car and it was very difficult to drive. Then things started to go better and I was challenging for a podium position. Then after my pit-stop my left rear suspension collapsed and I spun between the walls, but luckily I didn't touch anything."

Rocco Benetton: "Chance played a big role in the result of this race. At this stage in the season, all the teams are still learning about their car and the same goes for us. We had quite a few difficulties during the race, but we used a good strategy and the team reacted quickly to the problems. So taking this into consideration we are happy with the result. It was an unfortunate outcome for Alexander and we do not yet know the reason for his suspension problem. On the whole I am satisfied with this result as it gives us a base to build on for the year."

Stewart Ford

It would be impossible to endure more of a roller coaster weekend than Team Stewart-Ford went through in the season opener in Australia. Both Johnny Herbert and Rubens Barrichello performed well in practice--each was as high as third at one point--but in qualifying, while Barrichello gave the team a career-best fourth starting spot, Herbert had handling woes and gridded an unlucky 13th.

Moments before the start both cars caught fire when oil leaked from the engine onto the exhaust pipes. That caused the start to be aborted. Herbert had to watch from the sidelines while Barrichello climbed into the spare car. Still, Barrichello had to start from the pits and join the race at the tail-end of the field.

Barrichello then drove the race of his life but more bad luck was heading his way. The pace car had been out because of an accident and when it pulled off to allow the race to restart, leader Mika Hakkinen suddenly slowed. Barrichello slammed on the brakes but unfortunately passed another car before the start/finish line. Race officials handed him a 10 second stop/go penalty and once again Barrichello had to fight his way to the front. He had clawed his way up to fifth by the end of this wild affair.

Rubens Barrichello: "I could have won that race! For the first time I had a car that allowed me to overtake, that allowed me to race and to show everything I know. It was such a pity that I had to give up on the race car and come to the spare car. Even so I felt calm and cool. I'm happy to have finished fifth, but I'm upset because it was a race I could have won. It was one of the best races of my career. I drove flat out. I feel so strong. It felt like there were 50 cars out there today because I had to come in, overtake all of them, come in again, overtake them all again... I'm satisfied with myself because I never put a foot wrong today. If I had started fourth, and the McLarens had the problems they did, and with the pace I had I could have won the race!"

McLaren Mercedes

The West McLaren Mercedes team failed to finish the first Grand Prix of the year due to technical problems. David Coulthard retiring on lap 14 with loss of hydraulic pressure and Mika Hakkinen on lap 23 following a throttle linkage failure in the T-Car he had to start the race with when he experienced a misfire in his race car.

Mika Hakkinen: "First of all I am very disappointed because all the effort the team has put into making the car so competitive (as it has been all weekend) was not rewarded. We showed the potential of the car in practice, qualifying and in the first phase of the race. Shortly before the safety car came out I felt that the car didn't accelerate properly . We tried some adjustment during my pit stop but without success, so I had to retire five laps later.

David Coulthard: "My car was running perfectly in the first part of the race when all of a sudden I couldn't downchange at the fast chicane and it got stuck in sixth gear. So I had to retire in our garage. I feel really sorry for the team which has worked day and night to provide us with such a fantastic car for the first Grand Prix.

Ron Dennis: "In a situation when everybody worked so hard the retirements of our cars are obviously very disappointing. But I take satisfaction from our competitiveness. We will work hard to address the reliability problems between now and the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Norbert Haug: "Naturally it is a pity that we couldn't run for more than one third of the distance today. Little reward for the team that has worked tirelessly over the last weeks. Now it's our task to combine our practice performance and our competitiveness we demonstrated in the first part of the race with reliability over the whole course of a Grand Prix.

Sauber Petronas

Jean Alesi: "I don't know exactly what happened, but I put the car into first gear and when I accelerated away at the start something broke. Until we strip it down we won't be sure whether it was a shaft, a gear or something else that was at fault."

Pedro Diniz: "My car was going well to begin with, and the handling was good. In the first restart I moved from 10th to sixth, but shortly after that I began to have a problem with the gearbox. First I lost fourth gear, then later third and second, until just after the second restart the transmission broke completely."

Peter Sauber: "This was a disappointing day for us. Nevertheless, until his retirement Pedro drove a very polished race. There is a lot of hard work and much effort to come for the whole team so we can be more successful in Brazil."

BAR Supertec

British American Racing comes away from its first-ever Grand Prix with mixed feelings of accomplishment and disappointment. The highlight of team's appearance at the Australian Grand Prix was the excellent drive of rookie Ricardo Zonta, who in his inaugural Formula One race showed enormous potential, despite not finishing. His late retirement (lap 46) was due to debris blocking the car's cooler duct, which led to overheating in the gearbox. Earlier in the race, team-mate Jacques Villeneuve retired on lap 14 when his rear wing failed, ending what had been a trouble-free start.

Jacques Villeneuve: "That's not the way I would have liked my first race of the season to end. The crash probably looked worse that it was because I just headed straight towards the wall after my rear wing failed, but I am fine. It's disappointing because the car was going very well and I was making good progress to catch the cars in front of me. It was looking promising for the second half of the race but it just didn't happen this time."

Ricardo Zonta: "I am very happy with my result. At the start of the race I felt a little bit worried as many drivers were having problems. I made my first pit-stop four laps early because the safety car was out, and when I got back to the race I had gained several positions. I had a lot of oversteer in my car, so it was very hard to drive and I knew it would be easy to make a mistake. I tried to drive at the limit, without making any mistakes. Later, I came in for two more pit-stops and was aiming to finish the race in sixth position. Then my engineer called me to make another pit-stop to check my rear wing, because of Jacques' problem. Unfortunately, because of an overheating problem, I couldn’t continue. Overall I am happy with my first race."

Craig Pollock, Managing Director: "This was an excellent show of teamwork. Everybody operated extremely well together. We believe that with Jacques we had a perfect strategy and if the rear wing had not come off, we would have been really fighting for the top positions. Ricardo showed today that, considering his lack of F1 experience, he can be a very good contender."

Bruno Michel, Managing Director, Supertec: "I think this week has been very encouraging for the British American Racing team. I am just sorry that we couldn't score points. We know that both drivers could have been at the top. I would like to congratulate Ricardo for his fantastic drive in his debut in Formula One."

Minardi Ford

Luca Badoer: "I enjoyed the race very much. I managed to get a good position at the first laps of the race thanks to a good start thus having the possibility to compete with the other cars at a medium level. The race became exciting when, among safety cars and pit stops, I climbed up to the 5th position which made me feel very satisfied. I was disappointed when the gearbox broke and I couldn't finish the race when I was very close to the end."

Marc Gene: "At the beginning of the race I didn't want to push hard even though I felt comfortable with my car. At the 25th lap I scored the 13th position and I managed to follow the rhythm of the other drivers. We were too close and suddenly Trulli's car crashed into mine. It is a shame as the goal of my first race could be the finish line. I can feel satisfied because my car ran trouble free and the problems were all solved thanks to the hard work carried out by the crew. I feel motivated for the next races."

Cesare Fiorio, Team Manager: "The Australian Grand Prix gave us positive indications. Luca Badoer did an excellent start reaching the 11th position at the first laps. The team decided a very good race strategy utilising the presence of the safety car and the various pit stops. Both cars managed to get into the first ten positions and Badoer was 5th at half race. Unfortunately Gen? was stopped by an accident with Trulli who recognised that the Spanish was faultless. Luca was betrayed by the gearbox which broke when he could reasonably expect to get closer to the points."

Mark Parish, Ford Cosworth Motorsport programme director: "We are disappointed that the two drivers didn't finish the race but at least we are encouraged that we had a trouble free weekend from the engines."

TWR Arrows

The Arrows Team had a truly amazing start to the 1999 Formula One Season when rookie driver Pedro de la Rosa finished the race in 6th place, scoring the first point of the season for the Team. Toranosuke Takagi in his first Grand Prix for Arrows scored an excellent 7th place, despite stalling at the second start to the race.

Pedro de la Rosa: "Needless to say that I am completely happy about my result today which would not have been achieved without the dedication and hard work of my team. I felt very relaxed throughout the race, the car was good to drive and I managed to stay out of trouble. I was convinced throughout the weekend that the car had reliability to perform well in the race and I was proved right."

Toranosuke Takagi: "I enjoyed the race very much and my team’s pit strategy contributed to the good end result. It was a very eventful race for me with my engine stalling at the second start, however, I was able to make up several places until the first corner when I was running in 13th place. I was in 6th place when I was hit by one of the BAR cars from behind, after which my car lost its balance. I am glad though that I was able to bring the car home safely and bring home valuable data for the Team."

Prince Malik Ado Ibrahim: "This has been a fantastic result for the Team who has worked very hard over the winter months to produce a reliable and points-winning car. Both of our drivers have performed exceedingly well, especially Pedro, who ran his first Grand Prix today. "