Albers: You ain't seen the best of me yet!

Christijan Albers' performance in the German Grand Prix did not go unnoticed by the Hockenheim paddock on Sunday, but the young Dutchman feels that he could have done even better than his finishing position suggested.

He pointed a minor damage on the Minardi-Cosworth PS05 as a contributory factor to his result, and reckoned that he could have gone faster than he did en route to 13th place at a venue he knew well from his DTM days.

"You didn't see all of me yesterday," Albers said on Monday, "An important piece was missing from one of my bargeboards, which I lost right after the start.

"We have been spending quite a lot of time in the windtunnel recently, and improved the aerodynamics package a lot. Bargeboards are an essential part of that package, especially on a track like Hockenheim. Missing one of the bargeboards cost me approximately half a second a lap, so I could have done a 17.9 instead of the 18.4 best that I managed.

"That's water under the bridge now, but I would like to say sorry to the people at JVC and LB Icon - the sponsors on the missing bargeboard - and I'll make sure to keep you on my side next time!"

Albers, Minardi and new team-mate Robert Doornbos head to this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix in good spirits, boosted by the team's best relative result in several seasons.

"It's difficult to say how we'll do this weekend but, for sure, we are on our way up," Albers insisted, "This morning, I realised that Hockenheim was the first time in over five years that a Minardi car had beaten its main competitor [in this case, Jordan] in both qualifying and the race - the first time since Fernando Alonso was driving with the team! I'm looking forward to Hungary now - and not only because I'm the paddock's biggest goulash lover!"