First point for Panis

"I think this eighth place is a very good result for the team because everybody has done a fantastic job this weekend," Panis said. "I am a little bit disappointed for Cristiano because he drove a strong race, but this is my first championship point of the season and for me it is now the first step. The car went very well throughout the weekend and, from here, we need to continue to build on the car's performance for the second half of the season - starting from the next race at the Nürburgring."

Crsitiano Da Matta was understandably disappointed after being forced to retire from a points scoring position late in the race. "I am very disappointed," he said. "I don't know what happened really. Something just wasn't right with the car's suspension at the exit of the chicane and I simply couldn't continue.

"Everyone did a great job and everything was running normally until the end," he added. "At least we can take one point home as a team - I think we deserved it after our combined team performance. The car was handling reasonably well in the race and I think we were running as quickly as we could have, so to miss out on certain points like that so close to the end is extremely annoying."