Are you wondering why this picture with Schumacher ?

My debut as a journalist! Jokes apart, during the Monza´s GP weekend, I happily wore the journalist clothes for "Sport Week", the weekly magazine of the Gazzetta dello Sport and the unfortunate interviewed in the occasion was Michael Schumacher.

It has been a funny experience in which I tried to ask him the least expectable things, to get out of him those few things that have been less discussed about the man that won everything in our sport.

I have to say that Michael opened up more than usual, or perhaps this is just an impression since I did the interview myself. Anyway, I know his career not because I read it on newspapers but because I lived it in parallel as a rival since go-kart times when, a little more than two little kids, we both were cherishing a dream that he afterwards fulfilled in the most spectacular way. I think that this made the difference in our dialogue. We will see, I refer you to this Saturday, the 27th, when you will find the magazine for sale. Please let me know if you like it...

As regarding Imola, the race has been archived and it is not among the best memories of the season unfortunately...

I had great expectations, I confess this, but after first free practice I realized that our rivals had something more than usual.

Under accelerations uphill opponents gained meters as never happened before during this season and, especially in qualifying, the gap was really unassailable.

Furthermore, Honda added to the uncatchable Seat in terms of maximum torque and it was really flying at Imola in the hands of Thompson.

As a team our performance has been more than decent compared to other BMW´s one, but our brand rivals progressed so much that we have almost been relegated to a solitary race. Only Jorg Muller, thanks to his talent, slyness and a little bit of fortune managed to get in race two among important positions.

I have no doubts about the fact that at Munich people will be able to react quickly to this situation, but anyway, after a lot of years characterized by almost unassailable successes it can happen that opponents get it right...

In addition to all of this, Autumn temperatures of the weekend took away some more "liveliness" to our car, that usually is more "gentle" with tyres, and I suffered more than the others of this due to my clean drive as a "Parisian".

Monza is an engine track and theory says that in two weeks time temperatures will not be higher than now, that´s why I am not too optimist. Believe me, I will try anyway. If during my career I had hoisted the white flag every time I did not feel like the favourite one, well I would have certainly won less races. Wish me good luck, I will need it!

Ciao

Alessandro Zanardi

- by Alberto Brojanigo also photo-