lead was one of the best of his career, "[When you're third on the grid] that's the only chance to get through. You can immediately improve your position, and I was happy to do it because the disappointment I had in qualifying was fixed." Coulthard spoke of his feeling that he was fortunate to have finish third and called it "one of my most difficult race" due to a lack of grip at the rear of his car, "But I knew from following other cars myself that visibility was very bad. So I just concentrated on driving my car and waiting to see where I would finish when it was over." Barrichello said he was disappointed to take fourth because he felt he could have finished on the podium, "Three-stops was definitely the way to make up lost time, but it was very difficult to overtake other cars in the spray. I have been looking forward to a close fought-race for some time now, and maybe I should have been on the podium today." De La Rosa scored his first points of the season and achieved his best finish since the 1999 Australian Grand Prix. The Arrows team owner Tom Walkinshaw said the driver's sixth-place finish would produce "a good foundation for the team to aspire to do better", and De La Rosa stated the result made up a poor start of the season, "We will try now, we will have to do it. I had some very good first laps and was always with the group but not because of drivers going out – this was just a deserved point." Wurz apologised to Herbert for the collision between the two at the Coca-Cola Kurve in the race's final laps. Frentzen called the event "a very disappointing weekend all round" for him and that "things have just not gone our way – and that is frustrating when you know your car is competitive." Irvine argued the three-car collision at the Castrol-S chicane on lap 30 lost him an opportunity to score points and Verstappen echoed similar feelings. Ralf Schumacher said he could not avoid the accident, "I saw the accident coming between Jos and Eddie and I expected them both to slide off onto the inside. But as Irvine's back end moved right in front of me, I had no way of getting out of the way." The new gap