IMOLA, ITALY, April 13, 2002 – It may not have been quite the result the
European Minardi F3000 team was looking for, but the performance of drivers
David Saelens and Alex Sperafico in today’s second round of the FIA
International F3000 Championship gave the Ledbury, UK-based squad reason for
a degree of quiet optimism.  Starting from 14th place on the grid, Belgian
star, Saelens, made one of his lightning-quick starts and then built on the
momentum gained to power his way up to seventh place by lap four.
Unfortunately, a collision with Mario Haberfeld’s car on lap 13 left Saelens
’ car too badly damaged to continue.  Team mate, Alex Sperafico, enjoying
only his second-ever F3000 start, drove a solid race, eventually taking the
chequered flag in 15th – a commendable achievement considering his lack of
knowledge of the challenging Imola circuit.

DAVID SAELENS                                        Position  DNF Fastest
lap  1 min 41.037 secs
“I had an excelllent start today, as in Brazil, and was up to seventh place
in a couple of laps, making me think that it might be possible to get into
the points by the finish.  I then had a collision with Haberfeld at the end
of the pit straight and damaged the front wing.  From that point on, the car
was quite difficult to drive, but it would still have been possible to
finish the race.  Unfortunately, Haberfeld hit me again at Rivazza, I spun
and we had another collision.  The car was damaged quite badly at the front,
so that was end of my race.  Still, we made some good progress with the
set-up of the car this weekend, and we will now take that knowledge to
Barcelona with us.”

ALEX SPERAFICO                                      Position  15th
Fastest lap  1 min 42.858 secs
“I am pleased to have finished my first F3000 race, particularly as it was
here at Imola, which is a challenging circuit and one which I had to learn
in the wet conditions yesterday.  I was also happy with the general
consistency of my lap times and the fact they improved as I became more
familiar with the car and the circuit.  We are still learning about the new
chassis and made some useful changes this weekend that have definitely
improved the overall performance.”

RICHARD SALISBURY, Team Principal, European Minardi F3000

“After the disappointment of the first race, in Brazil, this was a definite
step forward for European Minardi F3000.  In fact, if not for David’s
accident, we could probably have secured a top-10 finish here at Imola.
Spares availability for the cars remains an issue, although we have made
useful progress in understanding the behavious of the chassis.  We made some
radical set-up changes after the experience in Brazil, and then made more
significant alterations between yesterday’s qualifying sessions and this
afternoon’s race, all of which are going in the right direction.  Today’s
race seems to show that the cars have performance and reliability.  Now we
need to find more consistency over a race distance.  We’ll be aiming to do
that in Spain, in two weeks’ time.”

- Ends -

For information contact
            Graham Jones
            European Minardi F3000
            Tel: INT +44 (0)1531 638105
            Fax: INT +44 (0)1531 634525
            Mob: INT +44 (0)7767 301303
For more team information and the latest photos, visit www.euroav.com