F1 Madness

Tag: robert fernley

  • 2018 Chinese GP: Friday Press Conference

    2018 Chinese GP: Friday Press Conference

    TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Maurizio ARRIVABENE (Ferrari), Robert FERNLEY (Force India), Franz TOST (Toro Rosso)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Franz, can we start by looking back at the Bahrain Grand Prix. How satisfying was Pierre’s fourth place and can you give us some idea of the emotion within the team and at Honda after the race?

    Franz TOST: Well, it was a very emotional race result of course, because the fourth place we didn’t expect. We expected to show quite a good performance and realistically I expected a place between eight and ten. At the end it was the fourth place. It was a big positive surprise and I’m very happy, especially for Honda after the difficulties they had in the past, and also for Toro Rosso of course, and for Pierre. Pierre drove a fantastic race, without any mistakes. He deserved this fourth position and I hope that we can continue in a similar way. Not always in the fourth position of course, because we must not forget that three cars in front of us did not finish. They were faster, like Kimi Räikkönen, then Verstappen and also Ricciardo. But nevertheless, it was a good performance.

     

    One of your most satisfying results in Formula 1? You, personally?

    FT: Of course one of the most satisfying results, especially thinking about Honda, because we last year, in December, we had many meetings in Tokyo and I promised the president that we would have a successful season and a successful future, and this was the first step. Therefore, I was quite satisfied to have this good result.

     

    You’ve already said that Pierre drove a fantastic race, but Brendon had a more difficult weekend. What can we expect from him this weekend and going forward as well?

    FT: Brendon was also quite good in the qualifying. He missed Q3 just by one tenth. The race went a little bit in another direction because he had a collision with Pérez and he got the 10-second penalty and after this penalty he was not anymore in a position to score points, although I think if the race had gone for another three to five laps maybe he could have finished in 10th position. He drove a good race. Brendon is doing a good job, because you must not forget that most of the tracks, he doesn’t know. Also here, he is the first time with a Formula 1 car, he was here in LMP1. It’s not so easy to get everything together with these real strong midfield competitors and I am quite convinced that Brendon is on a good way and he will quite soon be close to Gasly.

     

    Thank you. Bob, turning to you, a point for Esteban in Bahrain demonstrated progress for Force India, but it hasn’t been the easiest of starts. How do you assess the opening couple of races, and the winter as well? 

    Robert FERNLEY: Well, I think actually it’s probably misleading. As a team, we have actually improved race-on-race, both for Australia and for Bahrain, by quite a significant amount. In terms of the opposition, they have improved even more, and the reliability is there. Last year we probably flattered a little bit to deceive getting the points early in the season, while we were very strong towards the end of the season. And I think it’s probably the same now. We had a good baseline programme for Bahrain in FP1 and FP2, which paid off, and you could see the difference in qualifying. We didn’t have a particularly good race: Checo had his incident on lap one, which basically took him out, and Esteban had a bad re-start, and we got betwixt and between a strategy that really didn’t pay off for us. I think hopefully we’re getting back on track again and the team under Andrew Green will do a great job of bringing the car forward.

     

    You made a reference there to the midfield closing up. Can you give some feeling of how difficult the task ahead is? Not only for Force India but for everyone in that midfield? What’s the secret for your guys to finish fourth this year?

    RF: I think it’s, well, like all times it’s down to reliability and being able to maintain the pace all the time. If you look at Bahrain, and looking at two or three teams, if you look at the Haas programme, one was in Q3, one dropped out in Q1. If you look at the McLarens, they just got the set-up slightly wrong and didn’t have the pace to get to Q3. It’s literally a tenth or two and that’s the difference in making Q3 and not.

     

    Can you remember a time when the midfield was as tight as this?

    RF: Not in recent years, no. I think it’s tremendous. The battle for that fourth place in the championship is going to be extremely interesting through the year.

     

    Thank you. Maurizio, two races, two victories for the team, it’s been a tremendous start. But first, and most importantly, how is Francesco Cigarini, the mechanic who was injured in Bahrain last weekend?

    Maurizio ARRIVABENE: Francesco is fine. He went back to Italy yesterday, so it’s all under control.

     

    And how is he? Is he in good spirits? Have you had the chance to catch up with him?

    MA: Of course, as team principal I was talking with him every day. He’s at home, it’s all OK.

     

    Fantastic news. As I say, two victories so far and Sebastian is sitting pretty at the top of the championship. He seemed happier with his car in Bahrain last weekend than he was in Melbourne. Can we expect further progress on that front here in China as well.

    MA: We are at the early stage of the season. The performance of the car is changing and it is really related to the track. So track versus other track, they are changing the performance. They have different characteristics. So I think at this early stage we are happy for the results that we have. But in the meantime we know that the season will be long. Here, for example, in China we will see Mercedes and Red Bull quite strong, but we are not here to surrender.

     

    Maurizio, can we have a quick word from you about the performance of Kimi Räikkönen this year? He seems to have hit the ground running, he’s performing well.

    MA: Yeah, I’m quite happy about the performance of Kimi. He is in good physical form, which for him is very, very important, because, if you remember, a couple of years ago he has a problem with his back but now he is recovering well, he’s really fit, and focused on his job.

     

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

     

    Q: (Scott Mitchell – Autosport) Maurizio, can you explain why Kimi was given the green light to leave in the pit stop in Bahrain and what has changed in the procedure for this weekend?

    MA: Just to make it clear, once, forever. First of all, the team was hurt. We have a person who was injured, so it was in our interest to review the overall procedure. We done our review, together with the FIA have to say, as they are caring about safety, as we are caring about safety. We went through all the procedure. We have a procedure to ensure that the pit stops during the race are done in the most safe mode. In this case we have three factor – one involves human control, the other involves mechanical, the other involves electronic device. What’s happening there is we have a mishandling of the rear left. It was not perfectly read by the electronic device that gives the green light. We went through all the procedure together with the FIA, making sure that this thing doesn’t happen again, and it’s in our interest, because we care about our people, before anything else.

     

    Q: (Michael Butterworth – Xinhua News Agency) This is to Franz. We talked just now about your fourth place last time out in Bahrain and we know that the McLaren-Honda partnership wasn’t that successful over the last three years or so. Do you think it’s a case that Honda is a better fit for a team like Toro Rosso than it was with a team like McLaren, for example?

    FT: I don’t know the circumstances which happened at McLaren and I do not want to comment on this because this is past tense and I was not involved – therefore I cannot come up with any conclusions. The fact is Toro Rosso has a fantastic relationship with Honda. We work very closely together, we worked quite hard during the winter months to sort out all the problems which maybe occurred in the past and Honda worked very hard to come up with a reliable and competitive engine. The last two races they proved that this is the case and I am really optimistic for the future.

     

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines, Racefans.net) To all three of you but particularly to Maurizio. Your comments please about the Liberty presentation last Friday and whether Maurizio, Ferrari is satisfied with what was proposed in terms of either bonus structure, financial structure etcetera. And the impact on your team of the necessary reduction in headcount.

    MA: First of all Dieter, I was not commenting on the meeting that we have. We were listening to the presentation and any kind of decision related to our further strategy or decision, they are related to our CEO. That is the one that has the responsibility to take this kind of decision.

     

    Bob, anything further to add?

    RF: Not really. I think we have to remember this is work in progress. It’s not something that really is for discussion at this point. It’s something that’s presented to us. It will go another few rounds yet before something becomes more concrete. I think it’s too presumptuous to start thinking that we’ve got the process in place yet. I think it’s too early.

     

    Franz, anything from you on that?

    FT: I support all the points which Liberty Media presented and I hope that they will realise it.

     

    Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) A question for Maurizio about the matter of the meeting. It’s difficult to comment but I would just like to know if Ferrari refuse totally the budget cap or if there is a door open to discuss something like this – maybe with different figures. And, about the new distribution of money, if it’s something that you don’t want to discuss at all with Liberty or there is some chance to speak about it.

    MA: I have to point out that it’s not difficult to make a comment. It’s simply not my job. It’s the responsibility of my chairman.

     

    Q: (Steve Wade – AP) Forgive me, I came in late. Can you explain again the condition of your mechanic and if you’ve been to see him, been in contact with him.

    MA: The first comment is that he’s back in Italy, he’s at home and he’s OK.

     

    Are you in contact with him?

    MA: Of course. As the team principal I’m in contact with him. His name is Francesco but he’s not St Francesco. Blessing the hurt who doesn’t need hero. This is Bertolt Brecht, it’s not Maurizio.

     

    Q: (Edd Straw – Autosport) Question for Maurizio. Although it’s not your job to discuss the proposals, it would be your role to implement any changes to Ferrari as a result of the proposals. Toto Wolff has said a budget cap of $150million is not achievable. Could such a thing be achievable for Ferrari?

    MA: I mean we are reading the overall document. We are discussing and, I mean, we will see in the future if it’s achievable or not.

     

    Q: (Gaëtan Vigneron – RTBF) Question for Franz. There is always a technical aspect in a relationship but there is a also a human one. What did you try to do to build a respectful relationship with Honda with the kind of harmony that was maybe a little bit missing in the past years with another team?

    FT: The Toro Rosso team from its nature is a very friendly team with Italian mentality. I must say that we never had any frictions from the very beginning onwards we had a good cooperation. In addition to this, we organised some workshops for our engineers and employees who are working together with the Honda people, to understand the culture, to understand the way of thinking, because the cultures between Europe and Japan are different. I must say that they found a really good way of working together without any problems and I am also convinced that this will continue in this way. From the technical side, as I mentioned before, we had a couple of technical meetings in December where we discussed different topics and where both sides started immediately to work on this and we are still quite close, cooperating together because we want to develop the car as well as the power unit also during the season. From this point of view I must say Toro Rosso is in the best situation we have ever been – because we are now much more involved in the complete design process, regarding the car and how to fit in the power unit, how to design the cooling system, the exhaust system, where to put the electric boxes and so on. I think, especially for next year, this will be a big advantage from the complete car design point of view.

     

    Franz, are there Honda engineers based in Faenza?

    FT: No, the Honda engineers are based… some of them are based in Milton Keynes, because Honda has there as well an R&D department, but most of them are in Sakura and our engineers are flying to Sakura, to Japan when there is a special programme on the dyno or wherever because we are now much more involved also in the dyno runnings. We started already in November/December with the gearbox, and engine and gearbox tests and gearshifts and all this kind of stuff and we also are currently running a programme in Sakura.

     

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines, RaceFans.net) Bob, you said earlier on that this is a work in progress, this Liberty presentation. To all three of you, what is the deadline needed before it’s really firmed up and proposals are made and accepted and regulations, because we only have two and a half years left before the current agreements expire?

    BF: I am hoping that most of it will be done this year, perhaps the financials will take a bit longer but I would have thought that the engine regulations would have to be out reasonably quickly. It’s more to do with the engine manufacturers than it is us. We’re a customer team so we’re not really involved in that, Dieter, but I’m sure those would have to be done this year to give everybody the right opportunity and I would have thought that early next year – this time – we should be looking at chassis regs and anything else that’s surrounding that; cost controls or whatever, should be in place as well.

    MA: They give us a deadline for the end of May, I think. I hope that this deadline is going to be respected. It’s a bit early somehow but it’s far if you’re looking at the situation from another point of view, a technical point of view. Concerning the engine, we, Mercedes, Renault and Honda sent a letter a month ago explaining in detail our position. Now, it’s quite clear.

    FT: I think the power unit regulation has to be finalised soon, May, June, otherwise I don’t think it’s possible for new manufacturers to come into Formula One because time is running away, ’21 is tomorrow and I think that Liberty Media is aware of this and the rest we will see.

     

    Q: (Julien Billiotte – AutoHebdo) I’ll try my luck with a question to Maurizio: Maurizio how would Ferrari react if you were to lose your historic right to veto any regulation change under Liberty Media’s new governance plans?

    MA: We’ll let you know as soon as we go deeper into the conversations. You can see a smile on our face or not.

    BF: Veto the question.

     

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines, RaceFans.net) Maurizio, Bob has said that he would like to see the engine regulations firmed up this year then the chassis in a year’s time and the money thereafter. From a Ferrari perspective, can one actually split it, given that to Ferrari all three are very very important elements which would be basically decide your way forward?

    MA: All the elements are important because they are somehow linked together so soon we will find an agreement if any, related to the various topics that are into the proposals and then we can go.

    BF: Just to clarify Dieter, it would be nice to have everything done in one go but I’m giving you the timelines that might be realistic rather than (those that) are absolutely necessary.

     

    Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Maurizio, about the sporting situation now, I would like to ask you what makes you more proud about this season?

    MA: As I said at the beginning, we have only had two races now. The season is very very long so as I said before, the car behaviour changes from one track to another. I can see here, for example, Mercedes and Red Bull are quite strong but we are not here, as I said before, to surrender. You came later, I suppose. You were not here.

     

    Q: (Yang Guang – China Radio International) My question is about the circuit; there were a few slides in the morning practice, so how would you assess the condition of the Shanghai Circuit and what are your strategies for the following sessions in terms of the weather conditions?

    MA: Talking about the strategy, can you ask this question to Horner and Toto and then you let me know? Talking about the track, yeah, it’s a fantastic track, it’s very different versus Australia and Bahrain where we competed. I think it’s great to be here because we feel that Chinese people really support Formula One and I think that in the future and I hope that in the near future they are supporting further because the infrastructure here is great.

     

    Q: And Bob, your strategy going forward for the rest of the sessions?

    BF: If you could control the wind, that would be the strategy! I think that it’s a wind related issue today, it’s very strong and gusting so it’s causing a few issues for the drivers but the track is fantastic and it’s a great facility. We just look forward to being able to optimise the set-ups.

    FT: There’s not much to add. Yeah, it’s a fantastic infrastructure here, it’s a really nice racetrack, we always like to come here. Unfortunately the weather is not as beautiful as it could be because it’s a little bit cold and the wind is blowing a lot which has a big impact on the behaviour and the balance of the car and the strategy is to do as many laps as possible because our drivers need to learn the track and they will do some long runs today in the afternoon and then we will see.

    MA: I would like to say something concerning Bahrain. I would like to thank our doctor, our team doctor, the medical staff of the FIA and also the authorities in Bahrain, they immediately granted to us the best doctors in Bahrain to do the surgery and they were assisting us 24 hours (a day) literally, so thanks to all of them.

  • 2017 Italian Grand Prix: Friday Press Conference – Part 2

    2017 Italian Grand Prix: Friday Press Conference – Part 2

    PART TWO: TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Robert FERNLEY (Force India), Claire WILLIAMS (Williams) Gene HAAS (Haas)

    Q: Bob, let’s start with you. We’ve seen the Pérez-Ocon situation escalating from a rivalry to something perhaps more damaging. Does the team feel that you’ve managed it well up to this point – and what can you really realistically do to impose instructions in future situations without favouritism?

    RF: I didn’t think I’d get that question! Our team manages things. The outside judges rather than the inside. From an internal point of view we’re working very closely with the drivers. We’re very blessed to have two very talented and equally very competitive drivers. They’re at different stages of their careers. You will expect, as is often the case in that sport, where you’ve got an elbows-out for a little while, that’s happened. I think it probably reached a crescendo in Spa. I think both of them realise they’ve probably not done themselves any good in terms of their reputation or their careers, and Vijay I’m sure has certainly made sure he tells them that form that point of view. What we need to do is to regroup, which we have done. They’ve been individually talked to. They’ve sat down together. I feel very strongly that they’re intelligent and very, very good team players. They’ve just lost their way a bit – and I don’t expect any problems going forwards.

    Q: Obviously there’s a great opportunity for you this weekend for some big points given that both Red Bulls are going to be starting from the back of the grid. You could be fifth and sixth on Sunday – so you have to execute. Right?

    RF: I think the lady next door to me is looking for that! Absolutely. We’ll both be fighting. It’s a Mercedes track. There’s no question it benefits our power unit and we are going to have to optimise that position and we don’t want anybody making in-roads on that fourth position. We want to consolidate it and that will require both our drivers to deliver.

    Q: Quick final question on this. It’s no secret that both of your drivers are on the wishlists of competitor teams for next season – in some cases the same competitor team. How determined are you to retain them both in 2018?

    RF: I think from our side we are fully committed to retaining them both and that will be our objective. There’s no question of that. But, y’know, driver markets are driver markets and it’s quite right and proper that their managers, and in particular Checo’s manager, is out looking at other programmes. He’s got to keep us on our toes. If he didn’t do that, he wouldn’t be doing his job, and we’ve got to make sure that we close that off and retain him for next year and keep the pairing. It’s a phenomenally exciting pairing. Might be difficult to control a little bit – but I’d like to have that problem.

    Q: Gene, already ahead on points compared to last season with eight races still to go so is it time already to take the next step and what kind of investment does that need to go up to that level?

    Gene HAAS: Well, I’m not comfortable with the points lead we have because I think in any given race we could drop back a position or two in the Constructors’ series because we’re all so close. If anything, I feel a little bit on needles because our biggest problem is execution, minimising mistakes, that seems to be our worst (indistinct) ourselves. We’ve had some component failures we’ve executed poorly and I think we’ve left 15 or more points on the table, even at this point. That’s really where we need to perform is just running a race team with less mistakes, more consistency and that’s what’s going to earn us our points. I think both of our drivers are very very capable racers. I think that they’re much much better racers than they are at practice and qualifying. I know Kevin has shown the ability to sometimes get two to three positions just at the start of the race so he’s an aggressive driver. I think Romain’s more reserved, he knows that you have to finish the race to get the points, so I think the combination of these two drivers bodes well for us in the race but we do need to finish the race.

    Q: Now the Ferrari chairman, Sergio Marchionne, said he would like a team to help develop Ferrari’s junior drivers like Giovanazzi and Leclerc. You seem to have gone the opposite way in driver choices for this year and next, as you’ve just highlighted. Do you rule out working with Ferrari on juniors in the future?

    GH: No, I don’t think we rule it out but from a business model it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. There’s no secret that it costs $60m to put a car on the track for the season and if someone gives you a driver and not just from Ferrari, from anybody, and they’re going to pay you five or six million dollars, there’s $55m deficit there somewhere, so it doesn’t really make sense to want to run let’s say a partner or a paid driver for compensation. I think our point of view has always been that we need to obtain points and that’s how we generate moving forward and making money, so that’s our business model. I think Ferrari respects that and based on that, if there’s some mutual agreement that we could come to we probably would be more open to that.

    Q: Claire, obviously this season’s not gone according to plan and the car just clearly isn’t fast enough is the core of it. The 2018 car will be the first obviously under Paddy Lowe’s technical stewardship, what’s he doing to step things up?

    Claire WILLIAMS: Yeah, as you would expect someone of Paddy’s calibre has a plan and ever since he joined us back in March this year he’s been undertaking a full analysis of the team back at the factory but also the race team operations on the ground trackside in order to understand where the weaknesses lie. We’ve gone through that as a board and now we’re looking at how we allocate resources moving forward into 2018 so that we can address those weaknesses. I think a lot of our weaknesses appeared at the midpoint in last year’s season and we can’t go into another season having the same issues that we’ve had so we have full trust in Paddy but also we’ve brought in a number of other senior personnel to work alongside, so Dirk de Beer heads our aerodynamic department now as well, comes from Ferrari this year to us, and some other senior engineers who are hopefully going to turn things around for us. But as I said, we can’t have another year like this.

    Q: You got a bonus year out of Felipe, is there another year in him or are you casting the net wider for a teammate for Lance Stroll for next year?

    CW: Yeah, Felipe has done a fantastic job like you say, it’s been a bonus year for us. He very kindly came back and he’s really delivered for us. Obviously the past couple of races have been tough for him with his medical issue but we’re through that now  and we’re looking forward to him delivering for the rest of the year and we really just have to wait and see. I think I’ve made it really clear that the team at the moment are focusing on the Constructors’ championship, we need to make sure that we consolidate our P5. I don’t think we’re going to close the gap to Bob, unfortunately, but there’s a lot of teams behind us that would love to overtake us and take that P5 and we can’t afford that, so for us the focus really has to be on track performance at the moment rather than diluting that effort with thoughts about driver line-up so there’s still eight races to go, there’s plenty of time to be thinking about next year.

     

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Inaudible) Question to everybody: on Thursday, there was the launch of the new Formula Two car and it’s pretty similar to a Formula One car. On this occasion, Ross Brawn and Charlie Whiting were saying that the plan for the next years FIA and Formula One is to encourage Formula One teams to work closely with Formula Two teams. Do you think that makes sense from your point of view?

    BF: Well, I think historically we’ve tried to do that anyway. It’s not just a case of working closer with the teams. Usually you have some sort of driver link and that’s the bit that brings the two together so I don’t see any changes to that. Where you can, you support it but to have a direct link between the Formula One team and the Formula Two team is not easy. There are certain people who are doing it very well but all teams can’t embrace it because of the costs.

    CW: Yeah, I probably echo what Bob says really. Obviously we’re all looking at drivers in that championship and if there’s ways in which we can work with teams from that perspective then fine but I think from our perspective as a team at the moment we have our own issues that we need to be concentrating our full efforts on rather than diluting that down again with maybe other projects such as working with a Formula Two team.

    GH: We have an association with several F2 drivers and quite frankly it’s a learning experience but going forward, I think we could see ourselves working closely with the teams as development drivers. That would be a great way of bringing up talent which obviously we need. It would be a great way of maybe bringing up some teams, too.

    Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action and Speedsport) There’s been a lot of talk about what direction Formula One should take in the future. Auto manufacturers are interested in Formula E. Where, as representatives of independent teams, do you think F1 should go, bearing in mind road car relevance and also that it has to remain entertaining?

    GH: Well, certainly the battery revolution in cars is among us. I think we have to pay attention to these new drivetrain developments because it’s the future. I wouldn’t be surprised if we do see either more mainstream car companies get involved in this new sport of Formula E. How it relates to Formula One, what we can do, I think… we’re kind of the minnows here so we can’t really drive that technology but certainly today’s engine is somewhat of a hybrid technology, very very similar to the hybrid cars out there. There’s a lot of technology that goes into these cars so I think it’s an exciting new venture. Quite frankly, I don’t think I would mind being in it myself if I understood it better but we have our hands full of Formula One so I think it’s great.

    CW: I think from our perspective and as a business model, looking at it from that perspective I think there are some concerns we would have as an independent team, where Formula One could eventually be heading if we don’t take ownership of that direction now. Obviously we’ve got the manufacturers in our sport who are spending huge amounts of money and then independent teams in the middle that can’t ever dream of achieving that kind of expenditure in Formula One and that delta between our expenditure is creating the situations that we have at the moment in our business, certainly, where we are looking ahead at every year and really trying to make sure that we secure budgets in order just to be sustainable in this sport and that needs to change. There’s a huge amount of money that washes around Formula One and there should be enough for ten teams to be able to compete competitively amongst each other without being four seconds apart on the grid. So from my perspective, I’d really like to see Formula One move in a positive direction from a financial perspective, cost controls and budget caps, and I think that would bring about the entertainment that we need to see remain in Formula One but improving Formula One as well. I think we all want to see Formula One grow and I think the new owners have a handle on that. I think I’m personally really looking forward to seeing what they’re going to bring about from 2018 onwards. From that perspective I think they’ve done some great or brought about some great initiatives this year alone but I think there’s probably more to come and I think we need to grow the sport collaboratively as a whole with everybody’s best interests at heart rather than just a few.

    BF: Yeah, I completely agree with Claire. Force India in particular has been very vocal about the disparity between the top teams and the rest of the grid and you can’t have… we’re almost getting into a two tier championship at the moment where the top three teams are significantly far away from the fourth team and below. And to be able to say well we need to compete… the only way you can compete on that is adding 200m to your budget is quite ridiculous and we need to get that under control.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Taking what the three of you have just said variously in reply to a question, it appears as though Liberty are intent on introducing a budget cap of about $150m by the end of 2020. This will have certain exceptions like engines etc but is $150m or $200m all in; is it actually a realistic figure, can it be policed and what would it do for your individual prospects as race teams compared to the big three or four?

    GH: Well, that would actually be an increase for us so we would fall under that budget cap at the moment. I think the bigger problem though is the bigger teams… I was over at Ferrari yesterday and they have a huge R&D department as I’m sure Mercedes do too and the question is where do these teams go and what they do and that’s even more of a question because they’re the ones that really bring the DNA of Formula One to the track. Formula One is considered to be the ultimate sport and after being in it for a while, I find that’s the most fascinating aspect of it is this technology that they develop and the extent and passion with which a company like Ferrari puts into developing these things. Having a budget cap and suddenly saying that you’re going to have to shelve 500 people is going to be extremely difficult and that’s where the new owners are going to run into some big obstacles when they simply say ‘ah well, here’s your new marching rules.’ If it’s contrary to where a company’s put 50 years into that’s just not going to work so that’s the dilemma they have is, trying to radically change something that’s been around for so long and it’s so firmly put into concrete. You just can’t change it overnight and I’m glad that I don’t have to be part of that decision at the moment.

    CW: There are some points that Gene has made that I would share. I think that it would be very difficult – or will be very difficult – if a cost cap comes in to that degree, $150m for teams like Ferrari and Mercedes and Red Bull to bring down their operations but in the past we’ve operated on those kinds of budgets and I think to say that those teams are the teams that bring the DNA to this sport is just incorrect. I think that teams like Williams are the very fabric of this sport  that we operate in and teams like Williams and Force India, the independents that have been in this sport for 40 years and delivered a huge amount of technology that have had benefits to other industries as a result, need to be protected as well. So from my perspective of course we would be absolutely behind the cost cap whatever that may be but from my perspective equally, I would want to see it come in a lot sooner than that.

    BF: We would want it to come in as soon as possible. The 150m is above our budget but I’d much rather be able to say that Force India was capable of bridging the deficit of 30m than 200m which is where it is at the moment, and I think it’s very important, I think, for the sport to have five or six teams that are capable of achieving a podium on merit. At the moment, that’s not possible. Even the top fourth, fifth and sixth teams are only capable of getting it on opportunity at this point and we need to be able to change that round to make the sport the spectacle that it is and to give the competition there. Teams like Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull will always have the advantage in terms of the fact that drivers’ salaries will be out of that budget cap and they will have the money to spend on the better drivers, but it means that we’re going to be to be looking at talented drivers which means we’re bringing through drivers and drivers become one of the key elements then going forward which to me is very very important.

    Q: (Ysef Harding – Xiro Xone News) Gene, the work that your foundation has done, the Gene Haas Foundation which has provided scholarships for young people and their communities, I was curious to know, are you planning to expand or have plans to expand that scholarship programme into your team, to where those young people would be interested in aerospace or engineering or want to get a position in F1?

    GH: Well, the foundation primarily funds the projects in relationship to community projects of teaching young people about manufacturing with an emphasis on machining. Whether a person decides to build race cars or rocket ships or simply work on next generation cars is fully up to them and I try not to… I don’t spend any of our foundation money particularly on racing. We are working in collaboration with Dallara and Ferrari on trying to set up a school that teaches, like, say, five axis machining so that’s probably as close as we’ve got into that so it’s mainly there to teach young people about manufacturing in today’s world and I can look at the racing as being a subset of that but not a primary goal to teach kids about racing. That’s the way we’re running it and that’s probably the way it will continue.

    Q: (Peter Hartig – BMF1) This has nothing to do with economy: Gene, at the magazine, we noticed that you tried the F1 experience so I have two questions for you: how was it to sit to ride on the back of a V10, beautiful noisy V10? And by the way, how is the back of your neck?

    GH: You know, I’ll tell you what, it’s exactly what they say: it’s an F1 experience. I think pulling out of the garage and the acceleration, going through gears, it just throws you in the back and then you come into turn one and your whole body goes to the… you know, slams into the front of the car. I never experienced that and then it feels like you’re pulling 5G side load going through the turns and quite frankly, I started to feel a little queasy doing that. It’s a heck of an experience, I would highly recommend it if you’re a thrill seeker but being an F1 driver is not easy. I don’t think I would ever want to be able to do that because to do that for 50 laps, that must just take the life out of you. It’s exciting, it’s a real experience and they did a great job, from everything from bringing you into the experience with the suit, the helmet, bolting you into the car, it’s all very very nicely done. I say I was pretty much exhausted by the time I got out of the car. It didn’t bother my neck at all. It didn’t bother it at all.

  • 2017 Azerbaijan GP: Friday Press Conference – Part 1

    2017 Azerbaijan GP: Friday Press Conference – Part 1

    PART ONE: TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Cyril ABITEBOUL (Renault), Eric BOULLIER (McLaren), Robert FERNLEY (Force India)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Q: Eric, if I could start with you, we saw another engine failure for Fernando Alonso this afternoon… you’re shaking your head.

    Eric BOULLIER: Yes, it wasn’t an engine failure. It was a gearbox failure.

    Q: A gearbox failure, but regarding that thorny subject of Honda. The regularity of the criticism from McLaren senior management suggests that the situation is now irretrievable. Is there anything that can be done to repair the relationship?

    EB: Well, first of all, your question is a suggestion, as you said, which is not exactly the truth or the case. Both organisations are working very, very hard to get to where we want to be. The level of friction, let’s say, if there is any, is a little bit exacerbated by the media. It is true that we have to deliver what we need to do, we have to be where we want to be but both organisations are working hard to deliver and I don’t think there is such a drama like in your questions.

    Q: But Eric, both you and Zak Brown have said it’s not good enough what Honda are doing. So what have Honda got to do to satisfy you, McLaren?

    EB: Well, we have to compete these guys, not to be in the back of the grid. As a partner we expect obviously a certain level of performance, not commitment, because they have that in terms of resources, it’s just a level of performance and today we need another step, a big step.

    Q: And have Honda given any indication as to when the next big step will come?

    EB: Yes, they have some plan and obviously they will be able to respect them.

    Q: OK, let’s talk drivers then. How does the state of flux, if I can call it that, leave you regarding driver for 2018?

    EB: Well, we don’t have any contract with Fernando. Fernando has been very clear. He likes the team, he would like to stay with us, but we need to be competitive. So there is also… say, after summer he will take his decision, so we know the agenda, the calendar for us, what we have to do and Alonso knows what he has to do as well.

    And Stoffel? 

    EB: Stoffel is a long-term contract with McLaren, so there is not any concern for the future.

    Q: Final question for now. How do you assess the performance of the car this weekend in Baku?

    EB: Well, the global performance is very easy, you just see the lap time. We are very slow this weekend; we were expecting to be slow. Then, if you want to be more in detail, we all have GPS traces of each, this is shared data between all the teams so then you can work more about where you need to improve your car in terms of performance.

    Q: Bob, that accident involving Sergio Perez in that first practice session: what are the ramifications of that crash, is there much damage to the car? 

    Robert FERNLEY: The damage wasn’t quite as bad as we thought. The credit goes to the team really for that. They were very well prepared and we were able to effect what were considerable repairs in a very short period of time, so a more than credible effort by the team.

    Q: Let’s cast our minds two weeks, to the Canadian Grand Prix. Quite a lot of controversy after the race regarding team orders, so can you give us your version of events about those closing laps in Montreal? 

    RF: Well, we don’t run team orders to race, which we did. If you look at the difference in tyre performance it’s very, very small. If you at Checo’s history of being able to pass other drivers, it’s incredibly high, and he felt he had the3 opportunity to do so. From our side, there was a suggestion to let us have a turnaround, but he felt quite confident and we were happy to back that and support that, and we will continue to do so.

    Q: Was there a feeling in the team afterwards that somehow Sergio was wrong?

    RF: No, I don’t think so. You can speculate many, many things in terms of what ifs, and hindsight is wonderful, but in reality we were dealing with a Red Bull and we mustn’t underestimate it. A Force India trying to pass a Red Bull isn’t the easiest of things. And we had Ferraris coming back and whether we had pitted or not pitted there is a second a lap difference on optimum, optimum. I think we did the best we could and I have had no recriminations from the team whatsoever and we will continue to follow that path and evaluate things on a race-by-race basis.

    Q: Vijay Mallya said after the race that there would be some new rules of engagement from Baku onwards. What are those rules? 

    RF: No I don’t think he said that. He said he would look at the rules of engagement and we discussed it at the management meetings, which we normally do, and what I am telling you now I think are Vijay’s sentiments entirely.

    Q: Cyril, let’s also start with the on-track action as well. We saw an accident involving Jolyon Palmer today. What is the situation with Jolyon regarding his future? What does he have to do to keep his seat at Renault? 

    Cyril ABITEBOUL: I think it’s a bit unfair to link today and the future. Today we saw a lot of drivers going a bit outside of the track – a lot, and I mean a lot. Clearly, indeed, Jo has been one of those at a Turn that unfortunately doesn’t forgive, unlike other turns. Which means there is a bit of damage on the car but it’s not huge. Not really different to what Checo did this morning. If you want to link that to the bigger picture for Jo, our situation is very clear: he has a contract with us; we are completely committed to helping him get through the period, which is a tough period, that’s obvious. He has no ultimatum, but having said that he has to deliver, like every single member of the team. But I think what will help him is that frankly we take him out of the spotlight under which he is constantly, in particular in starting the first day, Friday, and all the media focus, all the media attention, is not necessarily helping. Obviously you have to do what you have to do, and ask the questions, which you feel are the right ones. But that doesn’t help. That’s part of the job, part of the pressure that every Formula One driver has to go through. He has to live with that. We are trying our best to protect him but at the same time to do the best as a team to explain to him what we are expecting and we had that type of conversation with him yesterday – go through the metrics and try to define the targets short to medium terms so that he can improve. So that’s the situation really.

    Q: And can you just clarify the situation with Robert Kubica. He tested with the team just prior to the Canadian Grand Prix. Why did the test come about and is he going to be testing in FP1 ahead of the Italian Grand Prix? 

    CA: Easy answer on the last one – no, absolutely not. I don’t know where this is coming from and I can completely wipe that one out. Also I would to make it clear that I guess the questions are unconnected – the question regarding Jo and the question regarding Robert. Robert has been a family member of the Enstone team, and Eric on my right knows what I mean. He has been very close and very loyal. The team in Enstone, which is a very small group of people, actually have been very loyal to a number of drivers. In particular Robert made a huge impression on people who’ve been around, Alan Permane, Bob Bell, Ricardo on the Viry side. People feel very loyal and feel they owe something to Robert for making something big in their life and there was this opportunity that we give to him, that we could afford to him to drive again, because it was actually a marketing event that got cancelled, so we had a car available at the track and we offered that opportunity to him. Robert is going through some form of programme to try to understand what he can do. He has been driving a number of cars, Formula E, GP3, F2, LMP2, you name it, so I think he wants to understand what he can do as part of his sort of rehabilitation programme. We’ll see. There is nothing else that is planned for the time being, apart from a marketing event at Goodwood, where he will be driving the same car, E20, in front of Lord March’s house.

    Q: Just looking at performance, you said recently there are no magic bullets in Formula One. How should we translate that comment?

    CA: Yeah, I think I was trying to make reference and clarify as situation regarding engine upgrades and actually it’s not so easy to be clear in that respect. Just to make it clear, I think there was some speculation, some expectation that we do on the engine side this year the same thing that we did last year, with a major upgrade that was very visible to everyone, particular our customers and I think there was this sort of expectation that we were about to do the same. No, unfortunately it’s not happening. But I’m not saying that because it’s not happening that there won’t be any improvement. There is improvement. For instance, this weekend, we have two tenths of an upgrade in the engine. We were not expecting to make huge publicity on that but I feel that I have to make that clarification. And that upgrade is coming despite the fact that we are not changing the engine. That’s why it’s important to disconnect the different aspects. It would be the same thing on the chassis side. We are having a sort of arms race. All teams are bringing big upgrades, we are doing the same but same thing as on the engine, there won’t be a golden bullet.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Ben Edwards – Channel 4) Bob, can I just ask quick question about the accident this morning for Sergio. We saw the week come off but it certainly didn’t look like the tether failed because it didn’t look like that was involved in that – so can you just explain what happened with the wheel coming off?

    RF: It’s not something we’ve seen before. As you rightly say, the entire wheel came off the hub. We need to look into it to see. The tethers were fine. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen that. In fact Eric and I were talking about it coming up – he hadn’t seen anything like it either. We’ll just have to have a look at what that is and make sure if there needs to be any changes across the board for Formula One.

    Q: (Ben Edwards – Channel 4) Eric, quick question about Stoffel’s season so far. Obviously, it’s not been an ideal season for him – it’s always tough being up against Fernando – but can you talk us through his season and what has been his struggles and what he’s going through?

    EB: First of all, he’s had a lot of issues with his cars since the beginning of the season. Not only the engine but also the car. A lot of little glitches y’know that stop him, let’s say, doing complete runs during free practices and various qualifyings. I think his confidence level then went a little bit lower – that’s why a couple of times in qualifying he was not ready to deliver on the first lap and that cost him actually a Q2 because there was a yellow flag or something else. I think it’s just for him to find his place in the team to make sure he can voice his needs to setup the car the way he likes to drive it. Formula One is also a bit different when you talk about driving style so you need to maybe both need to move toward each other. We are now since a couple of races addressing this seriously with a working group around him – his engineers first but some others, trying to address this and get his confidence back.

    Q: (Gunel Safarova – BBC Azerbaijan) So you say today three accidents happened. It’s interesting, why do you think these accidents happened so much. At the moment there is speculation this road in Baku is very dangerous and it has very dangerous turns. Do you think it’s because of this?

    CA: We’ve seen a lot of accidents and also our drivers escaping from accidents. Frankly I think we should put a bit more walls to create a bit more penalty and incentivise the drives to stay on track. I think there is a combination. I understand that it is not easy on some corners actually to see with the sun in the drivers’ eyes, struggling to see the apex. That’s one, another thing to take into consideration, without wanting to start a debate, it’s maybe the grip from tyres which is maybe not where it should be for a track like that and the sort of braking energy that you need to dissipate. So that might be an explanation – maybe more than last year in particular with the shift in compounds that we’ve seen this season. That might be one explanation also.

    Eric or Bob, do you have anything to add?

    EB: Cyril answered mostly. The only reason why you have got these cars going into the escape road is just because of the grip and the braking energy. Track is also very green today, obviously a lot of dust everywhere, so this is even more difficult to generate some energy in the tyres.

    Q: Bob, Pérez, why did he crash, what did he say when he got back to the garage?

    RF: I don’t think it was anything to do with them. He was trying to find the limit and found it! I agree with Eric and Cyril. It’s about tyres – and obviously the track was green. Tyres are probably a little bit hard compound. And maybe next year we’ll start going softer.

  • 2017 Spanish GP: Friday Press Conference – Part 1

    2017 Spanish GP: Friday Press Conference – Part 1

    PART ONE: TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Cyril ABITEBOUL (Renault), Robert FERNLEY (Force India), Toto WOLFF (Mercedes)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Q: Today is the FIA Volunteers’ Day and there will be a ceremony later this afternoon on the pit straight to honour their contribution to motor sport. Perhaps a word from you all on the work of the volunteers?

    Toto WOLFF: Well, we wouldn’t be able to go racing without the volunteers and it’s something that isn’t so visible to the public that with the many devoted and engaged people, all around the world on the racetracks, they enable us to put on a show, so it’s definitely a good little exercise to do and honour them.

    Cyril ABITEBOUL: Nothing much to add. Motor sport is a bit strange in that it’s just a few that get elected to race or even be in the garage but it’s a sport that involves a lot of people, whether in the garage, mechanics, at the factory, but also around the track and taking part with the federations around the world. Yeah, it’s a great opportunity to honour their ongoing commitment.

    Robert FERNLEY: Yeah, without doubt they are the unsung heroes of motor racing across the board, not just for Formula One. We must remember that they do great work outside Formula One, which we’re very focused on. I think people forget that weekend-in, weekend-out they’re there, so great honour.

    Q: Thank you. Moving back to you Cyril. Good qualifying pace so far this season, but perhaps not unlocking all the race results you might have hoped for. Why is that?

    CA: Well, part of that is it’s still a year where we are still in a construction phase. So in talking about construction it’s easier to qualify and extract maximum performance off a given package on one lap, on a short run, which is what we are doing consistently since the start of the season. We know also that we have fragile reliability and that’s really our area of focus. It is hitting us regularly, during races and also during Fridays, in the preparation of the race typically. Usually we have a good group of people who is managing or setting up the car properly for qualifying but when it comes to really managing the car and fixing the issues for a longer run, that’s really down to how reliable we have been over the weekend. So that’s really something that is hitting, which is biting on regular occasions, so that is the area of focus for the time being. We also have a great qualifier in Nico. He’s also clearly leading the way on race pace. Jo has not been very favourite in the conditions… he’s had on many occasions adverse conditions in his weekend. The only weekend he had a clean weekend, which was in Bahrain, he managed to be in Q3. So that is what we are trying to repeat because we think that the car also has a better pace on Sundays, so that’s the target for this weekend.

    Q: From which race onwards are you hoping to unlock the full potential of this 2017 Renault engine?

    CA: The full potential of the engine is something that will take a number of races with the existing hardware. You know that constant development, that constant improvement… based on the existing hardware there is more to come in performance and that’s really down to how quickly we can fix the reliability issues. I guess that will be down to the introduction of power unit number three. We may or may not change the hardware to extract more power but irrespective of the hardware there will be more power coming that’s for sure. So it’s all down to the engine introduction plan.

    Q: You mentioned Jolyon Palmer there, obviously he has had a few difficulties. What are you saying to him behind the scenes and what do you foresee for him for the rest of the season?

    CA: Well, the main thing we have done is that we’ve been through what has happened since the start of the season, including the winter test, when we were in Barcelona and he already had difficult conditions to deal with. So, limited mileage over the winter, a number of reliability issues in preparation for the first four races, which has not been helpful, and clearly he has a very talented team-mate, which is clearly showing what the car is capable of. But having said, Nico is not a magician, and that’s what I’m telling him. He has shown that on occasion he has definitely the pace to match his team-mate, so it is on that we are focusing. And we are making sure that he now has a clean weekend so that he can build his confidence, that we can rebuild his confidence in himself.

    Q: Robert, double points in every race so far, you’ve got to be happy with the way your 2017 season has started and with both of your drivers appearing to be well and truly on it?

    RF: Yeah, from our point of view, after the testing in Barcelona we knew we had a slight performance deficit and it was always going to be down to making sure that we extracted the optimum from the races and the team, the drivers, fantastic job, absolutely superb.

    Q: So the big question is can you keep it going? You’re up against some fairly tough opposition in this midfield, not least Cyril. Of course you’ve got Williams to think about, Toro Rosso as well. How important is the update pack you’ve brought here this weekend and what has it given you so far?

    RF: I think like all teams we’re looking for direction more than physically upgrading at the moment. It’s the direction that we need to be able to develop for the rest of the season. I think what we have seen so far is very promising and we’ll take it through going forward for the next races. Hopefully Renault’s problems will remain large ones and we can keep going!

    Q: Toto, first of all a word on this dramatic looking, updated car that you’ve brought here this weekend. Did it perform according to expectations during the practice sessions?

    TW: Yes, so far we are happy with the correlation and the results of the two Friday sessions and the car certainly looks very sophisticated. But it’s the interaction of all those bits that overall should make us achieve a performance gain. But Friday is pretty early days in the weekend. Tomorrow afternoon you’re going to see whether there is a real effect.

    Q: Valtteri Bottas won his first race last time out. You’ve had an interest in him for many years, what did you feel personally to see him winning a Formula One grand prix?

    TW: I’ve known Valtteri for 10 years so it’s clear that achieving his target to win a race is something special but in my position it’s about the team’s interests and having a Mercedes winner is great. Having a Mercedes challenger for the world championship or even winning a world championship and I’m behind both of them and we’ll be cheering whoever wins.

    Q: It was important that he won, with an all-Ferrari front row for that race in Russia. It could have been costly for you in the world championship, when Lewis was clearly having an off day. What did the debrief reveal?

    TW: Valtteri had a very good day because he was able to exploit P3, which is probably the best starting position in Sochi and used the slipstream down to Turn One and from thereon controlled the race. Considering that a four-time world champion was close behind him in those last laps, he did a very good job. As for Lewis, he was in traffic. We were a bit marginal with the cooling and that’s why he had a car that was not able to deliver maximum performance at all times. We could see that there were glimpses of performance but if you run into hot air and the car is heating up too much there’s not a lot you can do. From there it’s a difficult situation for the driver and the team and there wasn’t a lot we could do.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Peter Windsor– Motorsport Network) Toto, what about Lewis’ problems in sector three? We heard talk of diff, traction that wasn’t that happy with. What were you able to look at after Russia? I presume there was nothing broken on the car or anything like that, but can you give us more insight into what the problem was for him?

    TW: The interaction between the chassis, the suspension and the tyres is new ground for every team. And you need to understand how you make each of those various tyre compounds function. We tried to fix out, we tried to cure a problem that was created in the interaction of those two components by giving different diff settings or by trying to switch the brake balance back and forth. Just to give it a go or give it a try. It is a more fundamental issue. You need to have a car that is stable in the window, that has the basic performance and then translate that into qualifying performance and race performance and if you add to the equation a new compound or various new compounds it becomes a difficult exercise and that is one of the key topics we are looking at the moment.

    Q: (Graham Harris – Motorsport Monday) The FIA has mandated that all driver numbers and driver names are clearly displayed on cars from this race onwards. Looking at it this morning it seems that some teams have embraced it wholly and included it in their new colour schemes and that others have perhaps paid lip service to it. Could all three of you give your opinion on it and whatever you think it’s a good move?

    RF: I think it’s a good move from the FIA, probably overdue in all fairness. I think that perhaps some time out, when all the commercial agreements that we currently have, that’s across all the teams, come to an end they should standardize where the numbers go and make sure everything is clear for everybody going forward. At this point I think you have to do the best you can with whatever you have from a commercial agreement and I think all of the teams have tried their very best to embrace it.

    TW: Bob just summarized it pretty well. It’s trial and error. We played around with various designs. Some of us like the look of it, some of us don’t. We took a little bit off after P1 and just have the number now. But with all aesthetics, it’s mixed feelings.

    CA: Exactly the same. It’s a good move from the FIA. It’s something that maybe should have happened earlier and hopefully they will make sure to standardize. Just like in any other sport, where you know where to find the name and number of any player on the soccer field or anything. That’s the sort of thing where you want to have a standard position, so as mentioned as soon as the sponsorship contracts are falling out you want to make sure to seize the opportunity, that window, to impose what it is should be. Formula One. Formula One should be at the top of the sport in terms of presentation, the standard of presentation, so that’s what should happen sooner rather than later.

    RF: Just to add to that, I think it’s the number that is more important element, because now that the drivers have got numbers throughout their career I think the promoters would ideally like to see the number prominent rather than worrying too much about the same, so I think that would be the right move going forward.

    Q: (Sven Haidinger – motorsport-total.com) Toto, the Mercedes car is a little bit difficult in terms of the set-up to get it into the right window. Are you missing Nico Rosberg a little bit in terms of that, because Lewis has taken the set-up a couple of time from him and he’s one of the most experienced guys in the team or has been?

    TW: Certainly if you have the experience of Nico who has been in the team for a long time it is always helpful, but Valtteri has filled those shoes pretty well. He’s similar to Nico, an engineering-minded driver, and it’s more in those early stages of the season to understand the basic product, the car, the architecture of the car, suspension, kinematics, so I wouldn’t see it as a deficit.

    Q: (Sam Collins – Racecar Engineering) It looks like the UK is heading towards a so-called hard Brexit and that could have serious implications for the Formula One teams based in the UK, especially for the ones with engine suppliers who are based outside the UK, such as Cyril and his customers. With no single and no freedom of movement of EU citizens into and out of the UK, what implications do you forecast it having for you, what contingency plans have you put in place – that in respect of customs reflecting the lead times and recruitment going forward for the 2019 season?

    CA: Thank you for the question! We will have to see, because there were already a number of forecasts when Brexit happened that a number of things would happen which have not happened so I don’t think it’s for me to comment on what’s going to happen or not. The main elements will be currency and it has had frankly a positive impact on all of the UK-based teams so in that respect that’s good news for us strangely. We have to see long-term how that evolves because that is not a situation that is sustainable. Then we will have to look at the movement of staff, because clearly we need to attract talent from everywhere around the world and we need to make that the UK remains a place that is welcoming talents from wherever they are. We have lots of movement of staff between France and the UK. That’s something we will look at carefully. When it comes to transfer or goods that is something that is not bothering us, in the sense that the engine, if that’s what you are referring to, are actually leased, the ownership is not passed on to the UK entity and that’s the same with all our customers, so VAT should be neutral in that respect. Obviously we have to be careful but when it comes to be contingency plans, no, we don’t really have a plan as we are building new buildings in Enstone in the UK, we don’t really have a plan to move that we are currently building somewhere else. We are still assuming that people will be reasonable and we trust the UK to protect their industry and motorsport is an important industry for the UK.

    TW: Cyril has given us a 360˚ view. There’s nothing to add to that. We are monitoring it. Hopefully it will turn out well. I like to work in the UK and I’d like to continue to work there.

    RF: Unfortunately I’m probably a little bit older than these two and I remember when we used to do it before we had the EU, so it’s not an issues and we still do an awful lot of races today where we still go through an awful lot of compliance issues so I don’t really see it as an issue at all.

    Q: (Alan Baldwin – Reuters) A question for Bob really. Some projected figures came out during the week about FOM payouts to teams for 2017. There are no great surprises but yet again your team, despite finishing fourth, seems to be getting less than half than the top three and less than McLaren even. Just some comments on how you see things panning out with the new owners and whether you see any progress being made on redistribution in the future?

    RF: I think my position on this is pretty clear. I have been very much a strong voice against these type of things for the last couple of years. But I think what we have to do now is support Liberty and the new owners as they are making noises and definitely looking into trying to address both costs and income distribution. Let’s give them an opportunity, the key thing is to support them going forward. The disparities are not acceptable as far as we are concerned, but as I say I think time will tell.

    Q: (Sergio Alvarez – One Magazine) Question for Toto: do you believe the changes in your technical direction may have hindered your understanding of the car? How are you managing the transition in the technical department from Paddy to James Allison?

    TW: There are figureheads that are present in the media: some more, some less, that represent the team – but it’s an organisation of 1,000 people – almost 1,000 people – that run a team and especially in the area of tyres, race delivery, race track engineering, the situation is unchanged. We have a great team that is there, that has been in place for many years, that is looking after these components – and I’m extremely happy with how they’ve tackled the situation until now.

    Q: (Sef Harding – Xiro Xone News) This is for all three of you, since Fernando Alonso’s announcement to go to the Indy 500 there’s now a debate created between IndyCar and the comparison to F1 and the differences in terms of show, presentation, and as you Mr Fernley said earlier, the presentation, would you be willing to work in depth with the new owners to make a better show for the viewing audience as well as the fans in attendance that come from all over the world to watch the sport in terms of opening up the paddocks more, making it more accessible for the drivers, making it more accessible for the pits. We saw that they bought down a two-seater car and are giving tours now. Would you be willing to do the same for viewing fans that are coming to the race?

    RF: Having done both IndyCars and Formula One I can speak from a reasonable amount of experience on that. IndyCars is a fantastic show, especially the Indy 500, there’s no question of that. Can we get more access? I think we can. I think we can learn a little bit from IndyCars but overall we are Formula One and we’ve got to keep that identity as well. I think that Liberty understand that. I think they’re working to getting it more inclusive but, on the other hand, keeping it where it needs to be – which is slightly exclusive as well. So it’s a balancing act and I’m sure they’ll do a great job. They have all the expertise to be able to look at that.

    Toto?

    TW: Yes, the Indy 500 is one of the great races and the concept is completely different to what we have. The oval, per se, gives different access and it’s a one-a-year event. If you look at the IndyCar series overall, they’re far away from where we are. Having said that, I think Fernando going to Indy is a great opportunity for him, it’s an opportunity to create some good news around the team again, and they need that, and it has given Formula One more exposure in the US, so overall I think it is a good exercise.

    Cyril?

    CA: Yeah, I would agree that there is definitely lots to learn from other sports. To a certain degree we tend to, y’know, we’re not necessarily all very old but we still spend quite a lot of time in Formula One, so having some people showing us what can done outside – whether it’s new owners, new management but also F1 drivers getting experience outside F1 and returning to Formula One, I think it’s great. We need to constantly benchmark. We are in a competition – not just in Formula One but Formula One is in a competition against other sports properties – whether motorsports or other forms of sports – because that’s where all sponsors, all carmakers, all fans will look. They are benchmarking us, even if they don’t realise they benchmark: they always have multiple choices when it comes to looking at a programme, buying tickets… they cannot follow all the sports so we have to make sure to remain at the top of the offer. And that’s great, to finally have the opportunity of a fresh breathe of new air coming and influencing us – but as mentioned by Bob, we need to keep our identity. I think this exercise will kick off under the influence of all these new sorts of people: what is the core identity of Formula One? That will be an exciting exercise to do, starting with, for instance, engine topics.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Primary question to Toto and then a follow-up question to the other two. Toto, there’s a very strong rumour, or suggestions, that Mercedes-Benz is going to offer some form of technical assistance to Honda. Would you care to comment on that please. And then to the other two, should such a concept of one winning engine manufacturer helping another one, should that be allowed in Formula One.

    TW: At that stage I wouldn’t want to comment.

    You’re not excluding it then?

    TW: I’m not commenting.

    Cyril?

    CA: I cannot comment on a no comment.

    Bob?

    RF: I’ll comment! As a team that’s not only paid for its engines but contributed to the development of them I would certainly be very negative towards sharing that technology with another team that it a competitor of ours.

    Q: (Ralf Bach – Autobild Motorsport) A question to Toto. Is there a possibility or, let me say, how big is the possibility that next year drivers, by example Fernando Alonso or Stoffel Vandoorne, driving a Mercedes engine without moving to your team?

    TW: What are the options? They are driving a Honda engine like it is today and it looks like this is the current situation or different engines. I think it’s important for Formula One… Honda is important for Formula One. It’s a massive and very successful company and I have no doubt they will eventually be where they expect themselves to be. So, I don’t think they are going to drive a Mercedes engine.

    Q: (Mike Doodson – Auto Action) This is for Toto. Bit more lighthearted. You and your fellow Austrian Niki Lauda seem to be the TV face of Mercedes AMG. You’ve known each other a long time. I wonder if ever you’ve ever had any disagreements with him on strategy or whatever – if you could let us in on any of the little disagreements you might have had in the course of your association.

    TW: Well, we’ve been doing that for quite a while. We had a certain period at the beginning of our relationship where we were both thrown into the team, where we needed to find a way of making decisions in a committee and not alone like we’ve both done our whole lives. But since then our relationship has contributed in a good way, I believe. He’s a completely different personality. For me, he’s the personification of pressure – and pressure’s good sometimes. He certainly has a lot of experience and has been around for many years and I enjoy working with him. Niki says he has no friends – but when we won one of the last races, we were on a flight together and in the plane he had an emotional moment and said he hasn’t got any friends – but he has a half-friend now. So I consider myself our-performing some others. He’s somebody that I value and enjoy being around. Disagreements? Permanent disagreements for the benefits of the company. We are able to come into discussions with two different standpoints and walk out with one – and that’s good.

    Q: (Jon McEvoy – The Daily Mail) Toto, just building on what Dieter said, in this new open world of disclosing things to the media, which Liberty Media say that they’re in favour of. Can you really not elaborate, in the name of openness, about what you’re doing with Honda? The work that I’m sure many thousands or millions of fans in Formula One would wish to know, which in a sense, strikes me as quite straightforward, to be upfront about the work that you guys might be doing with them in developing their engines.

    TW: I understand your standpoint. We are not doing anything for Honda. That is the current status quo. So, unless that situation changes, I don’t want to contribute to rumours out there, that are false and I think are damaging for Honda and create hardened standpoints from teams or from other stakeholders. We’ll see what happens

  • 2017 Chinese Grand Prix: Friday Press Conference

    2017 Chinese Grand Prix: Friday Press Conference

    TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Cyril ABITEBOUL (Renault), Monisha KALTENBORN (Sauber), Robert FERNLEY (Force India), Franz TOST (Toro Rosso), Guenther STEINER (Haas)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Cyril, clearly you’ve made a lot of progress with your power unit over the winter,but it hasn’t all been plain sailing. Can you give us an insight into where it still needs a little bit of work and when you expect to have some solutions in place?

    Cyril ABITEBOUL: Well, I think it’s fair to say we had a pretty good 2016 season from a power unit perspective, but we’ve made a bit of a brave decision to actually re-start from scratch again, because frankly in Formula One if you don’t move forward you just die. So we had no choice but to accept to take some risks by, again, starting with a whole new architecture, which we had to do from a performance perspective and we saw that a bit of short-term pain for a longer-term gain. So we are in that period of a bit of pain because we have some weakness related to the, I would say, the health of that power unit, but which on the positive sign is really delivering good promise and good results from a performance perspective. So there is much more to come but that will only come when the reliability is here and that will come in the very soon future.

    Can you be a bit more specific about when that’s going to come. When can we expect you to be firing on all cylinders effectively?

    CA: We don’t want to go too much into the specifics, because when you start to give planning, everyone is now expecting and in particular we have very demanding customers and they are right to be demanding customers, but we want to continue to control our destiny and our programme. What I can say is that we are making sure reliability is under control and is as transparent as possible for the customer teams. We will have some fixes in the next few races and there will be some performance upgrades with the introduction. But the problem is that with the new regulations, with fewer power units used during the season, obviously you need to sync up the performance, reliability upgrades and the introduction of new power units.

    There was a recent meeting in Paris to discuss the future engine regulations in Formula One. What can you tell us about that meeting? How productive was it?

    CA: It was a good meeting. It was a productive meeting, very functional, chaired by the FIA in Place de la Concorde, but with the attendance of current engine manufacturers, plus a number of people interested in becoming engine manufacturers in the future, plus also to get an answer of Ross – Ross Brawn. So it was good, a good meeting which has allowed us to share the diagnosis of the current engine regulation, what we think it was good, what we think is less good and what could be done in order to improve, and the associated process and timing. So I don’t think it’s my duty to communicate upon the result of that meeting. But in general, I believe, and that’s good, that it is a positive sign for where Formula One is going which is in my opinion is a bit more constructive and forward looking than it has been recently.

    Monisha, that was some debut by Antonio Giovinazzi in Melbourne. How impressed were you?

    Monisha KALTENBORN: Well, we were all very impressed, considering how quickly it happened. When we came to Melbourne with Pascal, there was no indication at all that we’d end up in this situation, because Pascal, being a very ambitious driver, really wanted to driver but when he realized he does have a responsibility to the team and if he is not 100 per cent fit he really needs to say that. We more or less overnight had to make this call and then to see Antonio, who drove the first test for us in Barcelona for, but that’s of course not in any way comparable with the car, what it is now, he still came in there, did a great session, did a good race, no major issues or dramas, so we’re very impressed by him.

    What can you tell us about Pascal’s condition and when will he be back?

    MK: Well, from a medical perspective he was declared fine to race, already at the tests. The rest is a question of his fitness to the extent that he wants to be able to deliver 100 per cent during the entire race. We’ve heard also now in between from doctors and all that, it is very challenging for the drivers. We heard that from the drivers themselves. He’s working flat out on his fitness. It is very difficult to say, because the body is not that logical or analytical in its development, on what day it’s going to be there but his target and our target is to have him as soon as possible in the car, ideally at the next race, but if not, it will the next one. But clear is that he is our second driver and that’s not going to change.

    We’ve just heard from Cyril about the engine meeting that took place in Paris last week. As a privateer team, in what direction would you like to see the engine regulations go?

    MK: Well, for a private team it’s extremely important for the costs to come down again. We had reached with the earlier engines a point where we were talking about $8m engines and it was meant to be coming down further and now we just went the totally opposite way. So we want them to come down to an affordable level. But more importantly there should be a certain parity amongst the powertrains. We wouldn’t want that the engine should be the main denominator or differentiator in performance. So what’s very important is the parity and the costs.

    Q: Bob, coming on to you, the team was fourth last year, first of the privateers teams, if you like. Can you give us some insight into how difficult it has been to prepare for these new rules in 2017.

    Robert FERNLEY: Well it’s not actually been hugely different than normal. We obviously look at the following year’s car very early on anyway. We had a very clear development programme for the ’16 car which the technical team delivered perfectly and, obviously, resulted with the fourth place – but we were also well ahead for the ’17 car. So I think, obviously there is a significant cost involved, simply because there is no carryover in the new regulations but like everything it’s an interesting challenge. We’re starting with a clean sheet of paper and you’d like to think that your technical team can build a car that can do exactly the same again.

    Q: You’ve already raced this year’s car once. There’s quite a large gap from you to the front, how to you assess the pecking order at the minute?

    RF: I don’t think there’s any question or doubt about that. You’ve got the three top teams that are spending significantly more than the rest of the field and I think that’s the difference.

    Q: Is fourth in the Constructors’ Championship a realistic goal for you guys this year?

    RF: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think we’ll be fighting, it will be very tough because there’s some very good competition around but that’s probably going to be one of the most exciting positions that’s going to be fought over for the whole season.

    Q: Guenther. Melbourne. Positives and negatives for the team. How do you reflect on that race.

    Guenther STEINER: The positives, for sure you try to think on the positives but then the negatives always come up. I think qualifying with Romain qualifying sixth on good speed, no luck or nothing, that was good. Kevin wasn’t so good because he struggled in all the practice sessions with one problem or another and he just wasn’t delivered but after qualifying we were pretty happy and pretty positive and then in the race we had the failure, the water leak and the turbo failure consequentially, and you go home empty-handed. You go away knowing that the car is there. We just need now always to get always the potential fulfilled and the potential out of the car in each race track. So, I think in the end it’s positive, even with a little bit of a sour taste.

    Q: It’s a very tight midfield this year. Do you think the team has the development capacity to keep at the front of it?

    GS: I don’t know. I don’t know what the other people are planning to do. It’s always trying to shoot a moving target here. So, I think I know what we are going to do. We are going to introduce developments. We have a good plan in place but I don’t know if the others have a better plan or if their updates are better. That I don’t know. Looking back in the past, I think our quantity and what we want to do is equal to the other midfield teams. For sure it’s nothing compared with the big three but let’s hope the quality we bring to the race track in development and updates is to be in the race with them.

    Q: Franz, great start for the team in Melbourne. How much of a surprise was it to get both cars in the points given your lack of reliability during winter testing.

    Franz TOST: Winter testing we were suffering a little bit in the first test with reliability issues but fortunately we could sort out most of the topics for the second test already. Therefore I was not so surprised by our performance – but of course it was good to have two cars in Q3 and then at the finish with both cars in the points. This is always a good start.

    Q: You’ve got the most experienced driver line-up in the team’s history, you’ve got a stable technical team. What do you think you can achieve this year?

    FT: The target is the fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship – but as my friends here around, they have nearly the same target and we will see. I think that we have a very competitive package, we have a very good car, we have to experienced drivers and the team is also making progress, we have also some development steps during the year and it will became a hard fight between Renault, Force India, Haas and ourselves.

    Q: Do you think you can challenge Red Bull Racing?

    FT: No. Red Bull Racing is not our target. Red Bull Racing is in another league. I am happy if we challenge successfully the teams which I just before mentioned.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Jia Hui Huang – Guangdong Television & Radio sports channel) To all of you. Someone says listening to F1 drivers is wrong, it’s bad for F1 racing. As we’ve seen in the first race the drivers are happy because they can push harder – but the fans are not. They are not satisfied. It’s boring. No overtaking. Standard one stop. What do you think. F1 should listen to who?

    GS: I don’t fully agree with the comments, that the new cars are boring and everything negative. I’d rather see the glass half-full than half-empty. I think the race in Melbourne was by no means boring, in my opinion. We had a different winner than last year. I think that the fight between Ferrari and Mercedes and Red Bull will be very close. We have got an interesting midfield, there will be fights, the overtaking was not very good but I would not jump to a conclusion yet that this will be the whole year. Like this, it looks like it’s difficult but other elements will come in to overtake, so I wouldn’t say that all the fans are negative about it. There’s a lot of enthusiastic people out there that think the new cars are good – so I’m pretty… I don’t see it like this.

    Franz, do you have anything to add?

    FT: I agree with Guenther. For me, the race in Melbourne was quite an interesting race because it was a close race. There were many cars within a few tenths of a second and the overtaking manoeuvres in Melboure are always difficult, it was always in the past the case. We must wait now the first three races to get a clearer picture – but the cars are looking much better, much more aggressive and I think the direction was OK. The rest we will see during the season.

    Cyril, anything to add?

    CA: No, nothing much to add. I believe it’s a little bit too early to judge. We need to give a chance to the product. It’s an interesting formula in many aspects. I think strategy will play a different role, qualifying will play a different role. You will have in this new formula to execute everything perfectly well, so I think it puts the onus on the teams here at track to make sure you get also to the right setup, so everything is perfectly executed. It’s a different challenge, an interested challenge, certainly it is to live from inside. Obviously we also need to care about the fan out there, so answering your question about who we should listen to. We should also listen to the fans – but that’s one of the things I believe Liberty and FOM in its new format, which is also to look at surveys, trying to understand what the fan really wants. Not think for the fan but listen to the fan for themselves.

    Bob?

    RF: From our side, sitting on the pitwall, we had two drivers that did two incredible overtaking manoeuvres. Certainly it got my attention on both occasions. I think they were exceptional manoeuvres and, from a strategy point of view it’s actually quite interesting because it’s bought a new dynamic into it. We now have both the undercut and the overcut process and I think it’s going to be one of those things that’s going to prove very interesting as we move into the year.

    Monisha, anything to add?

    MK: Well, it’s all been said. You have to wait and see. It’s just the first race, it’s a very unique race and that’s always been the case. When these rules were bought in, we all knew what the negative sides would be and that the positives side was mainly to have more attractive cars, and I do think most of the fans actually like that. So we’ve achieved one target. And the other issues are to do overall with the competition. We should just take it from here and try to find other things, other rules that we can also target more at the other issues you raise. It’s an ongoing process but I think it’s kicked off very positively.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) To the four independents or privateer teams and then a separate follow-up to Cyril. Could you see yourselves, given that there’s no clear guarantee of engine parity going forward regardless of regulation changes, could you see yourselves clear to retaining the current engine formula provided the price is dropped? And then to Cyril, given that the manufacturers have spent most of the money already on this particular engine formula, does it really make sense to consider dumping it just when it’s on the cusp of being reliable and highly competitive?

    MK: Well, as a private team, we understand that from the engine manufacturer’s perspective you have to represent certain technologies and that doesn’t go against our businesses or our business models as such. Where it’s gone terribly wrong is on the costs. We certainly want a movement that is irrespective of the technology which is being used. The other aspect we  – like all other teams, irrespective of if you’re private or not – have to consider is what it’s done to the show and that’s where a lot of criticism is coming from –  all the discussions around the sound – and so  as a private team, these are more important issues to us and we have to find a balance overall that what is necessary for manufacturers to stay in there, what do they want to showcase in here… but it has to be making the competition a good one, so that we all actually have certain chances in there; it has to be affordable and the fans should like it, because at the end of the day we’re doing this for the fans.

    GS: I think, on the cost, sometimes what we were thinking is that the engine which is developed now it’s never finished being developed but it’s at a good level, so I think the cost should come down or you freeze the engine. Sometimes, keeping something you know – and like it was done with the V8s, to freeze the engine spec –  that would make it cheaper, if we go for the cheap and a very high technology. So now, jumping to a potentially cheap version of some kind of engine, but starting development from new, could be more expensive than keeping this engine with the high technology just to freeze  or to reduce investment, so that’s another idea which needs to be discussed, between the engine manufacturers, but I’m sure they will come up with some ideas and that will be one of the things I guess somebody will come up with, if we keep this. The technology in this engine is amazing for everybody involved in engines, this is an amazing technology, so now we go backwards and maybe invest more money to develop something which is actually not as sophisticated as this. So I think it needs to be evaluated as well, if maybe from a certain point on. All their engines are the same, we freeze the engine like we did with the V8s, that would be a possibility. But again, in the engine group, we as independents have not got a lot of influence so we can just voice our opinion outside of the group and say maybe that’s an option. So I hope they weigh up that option as well because I don’t know, just to go to a potentially cheaper engine, if that’s the right way, and reduce the technology. As Monisha said, there may be an issue with the noise but it will never be perfect whatever we do so there is some give and take and maybe we could live with that.

    RF: I think there is a little bit of work which could perhaps be done to address some of the issues, particularly the noise and simplify the base technology, but I think I agree with everybody else. I think that the principle of the current engine shouldn’t just be abandoned, a lot of work has gone into it but I think it could be simplified a little bit. I think a lot of the things that we’re doing perhaps go beyond what even the most sophisticated of fans is understanding, so we could come back a little bit, get the cost right, obviously get the power and the noise right and move forward but you don’t have to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

    FT: I nearly agree with what’s been said so far. For me the pillar for the new engine is the parity – there must be a chance that there is parity between the different manufacturers because without it they can’t contribute anything to the show and they do something. It cannot be that some cars are far ahead. We will see now what’s going on during the rest of the season. The second pillar is the costs. The current engine is simply far too expensive. From the technology side, it’s a fantastic engine, it’s extraordinary technology but it’s therefore also very very expensive. And the third point is the noise;  we need to bring in some music and these are the criterias and I think, regarding the parity and the costs, this is now in the hands of the people who make the regulations and if the development is restricted from the beginning onwards with very strong regulations then I think we will achieve the goals with the parity and the costs and the sound, it should be able to find a solution that the fans are happy with, the music of this new engine.

    Q: So let’s get the view of a manufacturer now? Cyril?

    CA: I feel a bit under the spotlight. I think one thing is that we cannot be stubborn, or we cannot be deaf to what obviously we’ve been constantly hearing since we introduced those new engine regulations. I think fundamentally there were very good things introduced with that new engine formula. With the previous V8s, we believe that clearly Formula One had lost contact with the direction that automotive was taking so something had to be done. Maybe we’ve been a step too far, we’ve been a bit moving from something that was a bit too old-fashioned to something that is maybe too modern, too complex, too sophisticated, too expensive. We need to be a bit careful about solutions that seem to be easy like freezing current engines because if we freeze the current engine we will freeze something that is extremely expensive and costs will not go down. Development costs for manufacturers may go down but supply costs to the teams will not go down simply because the bill for material of the engine is extremely expensive because of its sophistication. So I think that again that it seems there is a common view about the diagnosis of the current regulations and what we would need in order to build from there, without starting again from scratch, over and over again, but I think the devil will be in the detail and it’s not going to be that easy to find a solution that satisfies everyone and achieves everything, so I think it will be about prioritising and that’s where I hope that the new process in partnership between the FIA and FOM with Ross Brawn – who has a fantastic understanding of all the complexity involved – will provide a good leadership for the discussion. I think everyone agrees that there should be some element of electrification. We don’t necessarily see some road relevance or contribution to the show to an element like MGU-H, so that this orientation for the future, I think the whole debate would be on the architecture of the internal combustion engine which will be an interesting debate and some things that I guess will keep us busy for the next few months.

    Q: What would you like to see, how many cylinders?

    CA: There is what I like and there is what we need. I don’t think that Formula One can afford to turn its back on some things that are relevant to the manufacturer, given the current business model of Formula One. Formula One could completely change to a different business model and go for something that is really different  and not road-relevant but that would be a brave manoeuvre. As far as I’m concerned, I started with the sound of the V10 and that’s something that I will never forget obviously, but that’s just me. The new generation, the generation that we need to attract – because it’s not just about the current fans of Formula One, we also need to think about the fans that we do not have – those fans have never heard the sound of a V10 and maybe for those fans, getting back to a V10 or V8, is not so relevant. So it’s a complex debate and an interesting debate and I hope it’s going to be done in a constructive and also documented manner and again that’s where I believe all the surveys that are going on, all that will also go on in the course of this year will be instructive for the direction that we need to take.

  • 2016 Formula 1 Mexican Grand Prix: Friday Press Conference

    2016 Formula 1 Mexican Grand Prix: Friday Press Conference

    TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Dave RYAN (Manor), Franz TOST (Toro Rosso), Eric BOULLIER (McLaren), Robert FERNLEY (Force India), Mike O’DRISCOLL (Williams)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Bob, if we could start with you, the news broke recently that Nico Hulkenberg is off to Renault. Does his departure weaken the team going forward?

    Robert FERNLEY: No, not necessarily. Nico will certainly be missed because he’s been a great part of Force India and the growing of Force India over the last few years, but we’ll just have to make sure that we replace him with as good as we possibly can.

    Well, a lot of drivers have been linked to your team for 2017, how close are you to making that final choice?

    RF: First of all, I’m not close at all. It’s Vijay’s decision and we’ll start those discussions probably when we get back next week.

    So have you got a deadline in mind as to when you want to have it nailed down?

    RF: No, I don’t think so. I think we’ll take our time, have a look at what offers are on the table, Vijay will make his decision and then we’ll announce it.

    Sergio said in the press conference yesterday that he’s staying at Force India because of the opportunity that the new cars next year will bring. Has the team got the resources and the capability to deliver on those expectations?

    RF: Yes, I think so. What is exciting for us for 2017 is that it’s the first time we are on a reasonably level playing field. We’re not quite the same as the big teams, the big manufacturing teams, but you’ve got restricted aero programmes, it’s the first new generation car that we will do using a 60% model and I think we’ve shown already this year what we can do once we moved up to 60%, so I’m very optimistic that the team will be very competitive in 2017.

    Thank you. Dave, you’ve been in your job for a year now, what were your goals then and have you realised them?

    Dave RYAN: Well, when I arrived it was obviously a team in a bit of a holding pattern but with big ambitions. It became fairly clear to me early on that we needed to attract some different skill sets and some good people, which I’m pleased to say we have. So yeah, we are definitely heading in the right direction. We do need to improve in all areas still, but I think we have come a long way in the past year.

    So looking at the longer term, what can the Manor team become?

    DR: Oh for sure we want to become a strong midfield team. If you look at where we were last year and where we now sit, we’ve made a huge improvement. We need to keep making improvements and our goal is to be a serious and strong midfield team.

    How integral are your current drivers to that ambition?

    DR: Well, the drivers we’ve got we’re very, very happy with, they’re a great couple of lads, but going forward who knows.

    Thanks, Dave. Coming to you Mike: this is the first time you’ve been in an FIA press conference as it’s usually a role filled by Claire Williams for the team. She hasn’t been at any races recently. Why is that and are we likely to see her before the end of the season?

    Mike O’DRISCOLL: I certainly hope so. Frank, as you know, was taken ill at the Monza race. He’s been a fixture in the paddock for so many decades now it’s strange not to have him with us. He’s had a tough time in hospital. He has contracted pneumonia. He is making a recovery, a slow steady recovery. We hope to see him back at Grove very soon. We all know how determined he is. We expect Claire to be back at a race… she has wanted to stay close to home, close to Frank, but in this modern world you are only ever a phone call away, so we stay connected and she’s part of everything that happens on a minute-by-minute, day-by-day basis. We hope to see her by the end of the year and hopefully that will be Abu Dhabi and this will be maybe my first [press conference] but it might be my last as well, so thanks for having me!

    Pleasure to have you! Williams have had a difficult season in which you’ve slipped backwards. From your perspective, as CEO, why is that?

    MO’D: Yeah, two very good seasons in ’14 and ’15 and this year has been more difficult. First of all I’d like to give a lot of credit to Force India. I think they have done a superb job this year in bringing the fight to us and making the battle for fourth place more interesting than we would have liked, maybe. I think it’s also fair to say that the development of this year’s car hasn’t gone as well as we would have like – all of the upgrades we brought haven’t been as effective as we would have wished. I also think it’s fair to say that we made an early decision in the season to focus on the 2017 development. We can play Monday morning quarterback and decide now to double guess – was it too early, too late – but we stand by the decision we made and we haven’t given up the fight for fourth place and we intend to get it back in the remaining three races.

    And just a final question from me: we haven’t had your thoughts on the takeover over Formula One by Liberty Media. I would be interesting to get your thoughts on that?

    MO’D: Yeah, first of all, I think Formula One is just a terrific global sport and it’s no surprise that it has attracted interest from bidders around the world, from some of the large companies and it’s a tribute to the work that Bernie and his team have done over the years in building Formula One to the sport it is. Liberty are a global heavyweight in entertainment, digital, media and telecoms and I’ve no doubt they can grow it and take it to new heights and that two working together are a very effective combination.

    Franz, you announced last weekend that Dany Kvyat has signed again for 2017. How does he make your team stronger?

    Franz TOST: First of all, Danill Kvyat is a very high-skilled driver. As we know from the past, he won the GP3 European championship; he was this year in China on the podium. Therefore, we are convinced of his talent. Secondly, his experience because next year will be his [fourth] season in Formula One and especially with the new regulations his experience will help us. And third, each party knows each other now very well. That means the co-operation also regarding next year’s new car will help us hopefully to operate quite successfully.

    While we’re on the subject of next year, you’ve got two relatively experienced drivers in Kvyat and Sainz, you’re going to have an up-to-date engine from Renault, you’ve managed to retain all the key technical staff in the team during the course of this year. Given all that stability how does that change your ambitions for 2017?

    FT: First of all we must know how good the car will be, how good the complete package will be, because it’s difficult to estimate nowadays where we will be, I think no team can do this. But I think we have all the ingredients together to come up with a very competitive package, because the technical staff, under the lead of James Key, have in the last years done a fantastic good job. As you mentioned, with Renault we have a new engine partner and their power unit is quite strong and I hope this will also be the case next year. We have two experienced drivers, which was never the case before at Toro Rosso, and also the team itself is improving. I expect a lot from the team and I hope that everything works into the direction what we think will be the case.

    Thank you Franz. Eric, thanks for waiting, I’d like to continue exploring the theme of next year with you as well, because it looks likely that McLaren will finish sixth this year and given the amount of work that’s going on in both Woking and in Japan at the moment, what is the minimum that acceptable for McLaren in 2017?

    Eric BOULLIER: Doing better than ’16. Obviously we don’t have any numbers in terms of ranking in the championship, or targets like this. There is, like you said, still a huge amount of work to be done in Woking and in Japan, so we’ll see next year what we have as a package. We’ll see how fast or quick we can develop the car next year and then we will draw a line about where we want to be. But we just want to be on the move now. We were ninth last year in the championship, sixth is very likely this year obviously. We just want to better next year.

    So ninth, sixth, third in 2017?

    EB: No comment!

    My words, not yours! Now, Jenson Button in Monza announced that he is going to take a sabbatical next year but he is going to retain very close links to the team. In your position as Race Director can you tell us how he will work with the race team next year?

    EB: Well, there are many ways for him to bring, let’s say, his experience and feedback and guidance as well. It’s good when they are in car, but outside the car as well, especially a driver with a lot of experience, can bring some good advice. He will obviously be a part of the simulator team, which is important to correlate with the car. He will be attending a few grands prix as well, so his vision or let’s say his understanding about the racing next year from outside the car will be interesting for the team. In many ways, his great experience will be a good contribution for us next year.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Joe Saward – Auto X) You’re all from different backgrounds as team principals, or racing directors, whatever your official title is. They don’t have a school for team principals: what is it you need to be a Formula One team principal?

    Bob, let’s start with you.

    RF: A reasonably thick skin, I think. I don’t know actually Joe, you’re very right in saying there’s no school for it. It’s something you have to build with experience. I don’t think anything comes easily. You have to have a knowledge of all elements of racing – so it’s commercial, technical, hospitality, every aspect of it. I think unless you have that overall awareness of what’s going on in Formula One at all times, it’s a job that will elude you.

    Franz?

    FT: First of all, you should know and be aware about the most important pillars in motorsport in general, and especially in Formula One because to run a Formula One team, you cannot compare with a normal company. Formula One has their own rules. Especially it takes time to build-up a team, to find the correct people, that they work together. As you know, you hardly have technical problems, you have only problems with people who are working together or not working together. You have to find a way that this is the case. Then, on the economic side, to find sponsors, to convince companies that Formula One is the best possible platform for marketing reasons. And to bring in, let me say, the satisfaction in the team: that the people are motivated; that they like this job and to convince them that this is a very special work – because there are not so many Formula One teams, that they are lucky to go to 21 races for example, to see different countries and so on.

    Mike, interesting to get your take on this as you have experience of the wider car industry

    MO’D: I wouldn’t disagree with the comments you’ve already heard but I’d say that, as with any organisation, it’s about people and it’s about leadership and it’s about motivation. It’s about the ability to organise. And great instincts. And if all of that’s founded on really good knowledge of Formula One and motorsport, I think you’ll succeed.

    Eric, do you have anything to add?

    EB: Most of what they say I would agree to – but I think first you need to like racing. If you don’t like racing I would never turn up in the paddock in my life, y’know? Obviously if you like racing then it depends on where your pass is going. I guess to be a racing director or a team principal you need then yes, you need to lead, you need to understand who you’re working with, you need some commercial skills, some political skills, some… I don’t know, most of it you try to get.

    Dave?

    DR: First of all, if you talk about team principals, if you go back to Frank Williams and Ken Tyrrell, people like that, Ron Dennis, those team principals, they owned the team, they did everything. It’s changed now. Not one of us here owns the team; we all work for other people and, for me, it’s all about understanding your role within the organisation. We had different people with different skillsets and we work to those skillsets. In terms of a team principal, I think it’s very different today to how it used to be and it’s really just putting the right people in the right places to do the best job they can.

    Q: (Silvia Arias – Parabrisas) Monsieur Boullier, with Jost Capito arriving next year, what will be your position in the team?

    EB: Well, if I may correct, first he already arrived because he started on the 1st of September. My position exactly the same, racing director, his position is to be CEO, which is to different roles within the company. One is obviously being in charge of the business and more factory-based and the other is in charge of the racing. So no change. There is a racing director and a CEO in Manor, the same in Williams, there was the same in Lotus where I was before, so…

    Q: (Seff Harding – Zero Zone News) This question is for Dave Ryan. You have a very talented pool of drivers at Manor. Does having such a talented pool of drivers make it difficult to choose from. And the second question, you have one that has won the Indy 500 this season, and has that caught the eye of the higher-ups at Manor?

    DR: Well, first of all, we do have a pool of very good drivers at Manor. Pascal and Esteban are fantastic talents, we’re very lucky to have them, they’ve been great for the team, they’ve pushed each other along and pushed us along as well. Together I think we’re doing a pretty good job. Alex, winning the Indy 500 was fantastic for him and he’s great to have on board as well.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) To all of you. Next year will be the third year in a row where a team has run last year’s spec engines. Originally it was to help Manor-Marussia in their situation and this year with Toro Rosso because they were engine-less. But next year Sauber will be running this year’s Ferrari engines. In view of the engine agreement that was struck in May, is it really necessary to have a regulation permitting this or should that regulation be closed, that we only have one tier of engines?

    Bob, why don’t you start?

    RF: I think I’d like to see one tier of engines mainly because it keeps everybody very competitive – but you have to probably look at the reasons individual teams have had to go down those routes. Only those teams can give you the answers on there. We have issues in Formula One in terms of obviously the distribution of payments and things like that. Some of it can be financial, some of it’s performance-based, some of it’s availability-based. I think you have to look at the whole thing – but if we could move forward on a better programme it would be much better if all the engines were current.

    Franz, what’s your take on this?

    FT: I don’t know all the reasons and background stories why Sauber decided to go with this year’s engine. I wouldn’t like to be in this situation because it’s a big disadvantage on the performance side to run with last year’s engine. From the regulation side, I think it should be kept open because a one year old engine is most-often cheaper than the newest specification. Therefore the regulation should allow it. From the performance side the team anyway is disadvantaged.

    Eric, how about you, Honda doesn’t yet supply another team, what’s your take on this?

    EB: There will be a time, I guess, when they will supply another team in the future but I guess, ideally we all want to have a new spec engine. Obviously performance very similar – but I think like everybody said before me, there is some various conditions like availability, finance or this kind of thing which will make a difference today. I guess in the future we are going to tend to have all the same spec.

    Dave?

    DR: I would imagine any team would like to have the latest-spec engine. So if you take that into account and the team chooses to use an older-spec engine then there’s obviously commercial aspects you’ve got to take into account. So, leaving it open at the moment I think is fine.

    Mike?

    MO’D: I’m not against a team using a prior-spec engine, they would have their good reasons, commercial reasons, for doing so – but it’s symptomatic of a much bigger problem which is revenue distribution in the sport. There needs to be much greater equality.

    Q: (Thomas Gorton – Dazed) This is for all of you. Who do you think will be running the sport next year – and who would you like to be running the sport next year?

    Eric, would you start us please?

    EB: Good question, because we are not in charge of the sport, we are obviously not behind the doors in the boardrooms and obviously we are all, from the comments I’ve read in the press, happy that Liberty is onboard. Bernie is still in charge and still running the show, so I guess it’s going to be a mix or all of them all.

    Mike, we’ve had your thoughts on Liberty, so Franz, how about you?

    FT: I think the taking-over process takes time. It’s not from one day to the next day. I assume the next year and also the year after it will be a combination of Bernie and Liberty together and afterwards then we will do.

    Dave?

    DR: We’re just happy to be here. So that’s the first thing. I think with Liberty coming on board it obviously opens the door for discussions on how to change things for the better or just to be different perhaps. We’re just happy to be here, whoever’s running it.

    And Bob.

    RF: I think obviously we’re excited to see Liberty come on board. They have a tremendous expertise in sports marketing which is quite unique to America, and having obviously lived and raced in America for a number of years, I recognise that as some of the best in the world. What we also must remember is Formula One is a unique product. It has been created as a unique product by Bernie. We need Bernie to help that transition into the new ownership and I think it’s very, very important for the new owners to look very carefully at this unique product that is F1 and maybe integrate the sports marketing into F1 and not try to integrate Formula One into an American sports marketing programme.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Franz, next year you’ll have the same engines as the main Red Bull team, obviously the same tyres, you’ve got two very very strong drivers and that leads us to believe that particularly with your strong technical team that you could actually be a challenge to the main team. Will there be anything such as Red Bull team orders internally? Will you have to give way to the Red Bull team if you should be running them close?

    FT: As you know, this is not the philosophy of Red Bull. Nevertheless, Red Bull Technology is one of the strongest technical teams in Formula One. It would be nice if we could be close to them but I don’t think that we will be in front of them or that we will fight against them. It would be nice  but Red Bull will not call us back, for sure not.

    Q: (Seff Harding – Xero Xone News) To follow up on the earlier question, in terms of marketing for Liberty Media, in the United States do you feel that a larger platform in terms of packaging to devices, to social media would be necessary to help expand the visibility of Formula One, because it doesn’t work in certain markets outside of the US?

    MO’D: I think for sure, if I understand the question correctly, that there’s a great opportunity to expand the sport in the Americas, in North America and the USA specifically. I think it would need a greater critical mass of races, either on the East and West Coast as well. The digital component is key for reaching a younger audience globally. I don’t think that’s North America specific.

    FT: Yeah, we all know that Liberty Media is the best company to bring in all these tools which Formula One needs in future, the digital media, the social media and I’m convinced that their marketing strategy will find a way to bring Formula One forward, because we have some deficiencies and how they will do it we will then see, which strategy they will come up with.

    DR: I think there’s general agreement that we need to appeal to a bigger audience, perhaps a different audience as well. However we do that, it will apply to America, everywhere.

    BF: I think the digital and the social media market is going to be very important but we’ve also got to make sure that we can monetise that, and that’s going to be one of the challenges that Liberty will face.

    EB: As far as Formula One is concerned, we agree that the US market is still very young, to be honest. We can do much more in America and North America. But Formula One is a global series and maybe the only global platform in the world as a sport, so we need to stay global. That means that we have plenty of room to develop the sport side, the business side and consequently, social media is key in any marketing tool box and before we can monetise, we maybe need to use this tool just to promote Formula One for the youngsters if we can do it in term of rights and then see the future. But again it’s global, it’s not only US.

    Q: (Victor Macin – ESPN.com) Bob, what kind of driver are you looking for to replace Nico Hulkenberg ? Is he German, is he Mexican maybe?

    BF: As I mentioned earlier, I think the decision for that will come next week or the week after or even the week after that. It will be Vijay’s decision and I think it would be wrong for us to pre-empt anything along the driver line at this time.

    Q: (Victor Macin – ESPN.com) And to Dave, are you worried about the rumours that Pascal Wehrlein will leave the team?

    DR: Well, as I said earlier, Pascal’s a great talent and we’d love to keep him, but it’s Mercedes’ decision as to where he ends up.

    Q: (Silva Arias – Parabrisas) Can you please tell me, from one to ten, how you score your team regarding their performance this year, concerning what you expected at the beginning of this season and what is going on now, at the end of the season?

    BF: Well, I think given the fact that we’re challenging for the highest position that the team has ever had, I think I have to give them a ten. I don’t think there’s anything less than that.

    EB: Well, I think, if I remember, Ron Dennis said five out of ten, so I have to stick to my boss.

    MO’D: Report card for the year? I think it would be a five or a six out of ten, quite honestly.

    FT: Six.

    DR: Difficult one. I’d say about four or five for us. We set ourselves some pretty big targets and by and large we’ve achieved them but we’ve got to make a big improvement again for next year to be where we need to be. We’ve done a good job but going forward we need to do more so to put a number on it for me is pretty difficult but maybe that’s about it.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Mr Ecclestone recently said he would like to see Formula One more exciting which some took to mean more dangerous. He was talking about walls around the circuits and whatever else. Your drivers were fairly dismissive about this yesterday. Being the people who pay the bills if they hit the walls, how do you feel about it?

    FT: There must not be walls around, because it’s expensive if the cars crash in there. No. But we should get rid of all these penalties and all this nonsense, if a driver touches another driver, that he gets done up or whatever. But we need interesting races and if they crash into each other, they crash into each other,  this is what people always want to see. Formula One is also entertainment. And currently, we take too much care about all the safety issues and so on. Formula One is dangerous, we know this, but currently at the race track, if you look, nothing happens any more. Some friends said to me ‘I don’t watch Formula One any more because there are the two Mercedes in front. If they don’t crash on the first lap, the race is gone. I can sleep somewhere else, not in front of the TV.’ This is absolutely wrong. First of all, we need to come up with a parity between the different teams. The ideal case would be two or three teams would fight for the championship until the last race, Constructors’ championship as well as Drivers’, not as the last years when everything is decided with a couple of races to go, before the end. Then if drivers fight against each other and if they crash against each other and something happens, then they should not go to the stewards and get a penalty for this. People want to see real racing, people want to see that something is happening. This is not the case any more, currently.

    EB: I agree with Franz on at least one point: we want to have close racing which is why the fans like… which is why we like racing as well, and I think it’s going to come after every change of regulations, especially the last one with the power units. Obviously there is a lot of disparity between the cars and the performance but if you’re back to 2012 and 2013, I think if I remember, in the first ten races there were nine different winners. And then everybody was complaining that it was not good enough. So I obviously don’t think a wall will bring a solution and it’s expensive to build as well. I think it’s just making sure we can bring the regulations to a point where we can give a chance to every team to be competitive and if you have all the cars, all the drivers competitive, then you can have very good and close racing.

    BF: In all the things that Bernie says there is a message there and I think that message is that we need to get a little bit more excitement into the racing itself. I think there are ways that we can deal with cars going off, track limits and things like that and give opportunities for drivers behind by de-rating or whatever. That technology is available. I think we could do a lot more to get it more exciting without endangering the drivers in any way, or without making the tracks so they are F1-specific because we’ve also got think that a lot of these tracks are also doing MotoGP as well, so whatever we do has to fit in with those as well. So I think yes, there are things we can do but I think Bernie’s message is let’s get it a little bit more exciting.

    MO’D: Yeah, the big point’s really excitement, isn’t it? We need good, close racing, compelling racing. As you’ve heard from everyone here, we all want to see that.

    DR: Well we do need close racing, for sure, but if we had a fairer distribution of funds, our cars would be closer together, that would be a start. But I think what Franz says is absolutely right. The drivers are over regulated on the track, some of the recent decisions and points and reprimands and so… personally, I think they are just too far. The drivers are discouraged from actively racing and some of the incidents that have been penalised I just don’t get, it’s just racing and you’re just not allowed to do it now. The blue flag situation is also frustrating and I’m not so sure that the blue flag adds much to the racing. For sure it aids the lead cars but it really disrupts the racing for the guys at the back and we’re all part of it. So I think, for me, we need to look carefully at how the sport is regulated when it comes to racing, would be a  great help, and if the drivers were allowed to be themselves. There’s not many drivers who aren’t more than the corporate figurehead of the company. They’re not allowed to express opinions, or they are discouraged from it. I can understand that side of it but it would be nice if we had a few more personalities. Lewis gets criticised for what he does. Well, why? He’s just out there doing his thing and if we had a few more drivers doing that sort of thing I think it would add to the sport

  • 2016 Formula 1 Malaysian Grand Prix: Friday Press Conference

    2016 Formula 1 Malaysian Grand Prix: Friday Press Conference

    TEAM REPRESENTATIVES:

    Franz TOST (Toro Rosso)

    Robert FERNLEY (Force India)

    David RYAN (Manor)

    Eric BOULLIER (McLaren)

     

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    A question to all of you, we asked the other team principals the same question in Singapore, your thoughts on the arrival of Liberty Media in Formula One, what it means for the sport, and in particular what it means for the smaller and medium-sized teams?

    Robert FERNLEY: I met Chase Carey for the first time, I found him extremely approachable and willing to listen, but I think it’s far too early to make any predictions of where things are going to go or even opinions on that. I think they need time to be able to look at where they are going and what plans they have for Formula One and then once they make their announcements on the direction they want to go I think then maybe we can make some comments but it’s too early to judge at this point.

    David?

    David RYAN: Well, I’ve never met the guy, so I can’t really comment from that point of view. I know what I’ve read, which is the same as the rest of you. Really, it’s a case of waiting. I’m sure that he didn’t buy into it not to make any changes and I wait to see what happens and see how it all pans out, but I’m sure it’s all good news.

    And Franz, your thoughts, particularly with reference to the medium-sized and smaller teams?

    Franz TOST: First of all, congratulations to Liberty Media for this fantastic deal, because Formula One in the meantime is a very well known trademark all over the world, thanks to Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley – they have done a fantastic job over the last 40 years. I assume that Liberty Media, as they belong to a very financially strong group, have a quite clear programme and plan of what they want to do with Formula One. Personally, I hope that Formula One will become much more interesting in America, that we will hopefully have three races over there – one on the east coast, one in Austin and one on the west coast – and I expect that especially on the media side they will work on our weak platform, the digital media and social media, and then for the smaller teams, from 2021 onwards, the money is being distributed in a much fairer way and equal to the teams and last but not least, together with the FIA, they will find a way to reduce costs in Formula One.

    OK. Eric, obviously McLaren is not a smaller team, but your thoughts on the above?

    Eric BOULLIER: Well, at McLaren we are very positive about the arrival of Liberty. They are used managing big business, connecting fans to media, so we believe it’s good for Formula One. At the same time, I think they will take their time to understand the business, where they want to bring the business, the show, the entertainment, to which level. We will see what they suggest and plan.

    OK. Moving on Eric, tell us about the strategy around the updated Honda power unit this weekend and looking forward to next weekend in Suzuka. It seems to perform quite well today in the back of Fernando Alonso’s car, what’s decision on Jenson Button and where is this power unit improved?

    EB: It’s mainly reliability-driven, so it’s a reinforced block and a few things on the engine. There is a possibility to exploit the PU a little bit better, but it’s not definitely right… not just pure power on top. So it’s mainly reliability-driven. I think we are happy with today, we did a lot of miles with no issue at all, so it’s just a green light for the future, for the end of the season. And as far as Jenson is concerned, when the mileage of his PUs reach the limit we will swap the engine.

    That won’t be this weekend.

    EB: No, not this weekend.

    Thank you. Robert coming to you, Williams’ Rob Smedley recently said that his team should not get too hung up on its battle with Force India for fourth in the Constructors’ Championship, but what’s your team’s stance? Are you diverting resource to continue to develop this car to make sure you get that P4 finish?

    RF: No, not at all. Our focus in terms of the design side is on the ’17 car and has been for some while. But I think there is more to come out of the ’16 package from a track engineering point of view and we continue to get performance out of it every week and as long as that happens we can hopefully take the battle to Williams all the way.

    Thank you. Coming to you Dave, Esteban Ocon was here yesterday, saying in the Drivers’ Press Conference that it’s been quite tough to come into Formula One halfway through the season. So how do you, as the boss, assess his performance relative Wehrlein’s, given that Haryanto outqualified Wehrlein several times?  

    DR: I think Esteban is quite right. To arrive part way through the season into a team that has been developing along with Pascal is a big ask. We haven’t helped the situation because he hasn’t had the best of reliability up until now. But the kid’s fantastic. He’s got a fantastic attitude, he’s got huge potential and together with him and Pascal it’s a great driving line-up.

    Q: Franz, we heard again here yesterday in the drivers’ conference Dany Kvyat saying he’s rediscovered his love for Formula One after the performance, the drive in Singapore last time out. How good a performance do you feel it was and is there still time for him to retain his seat for next year?

    Franz TOST: He showed in Singapore a very good performance and it’s good to hear that he still loves Formula One, especially if he is driving for Toro Rosso. Daniil Kvyat is a high-skill driver, you know this because there’s a reason behind that he won the GP3 European Championship, and the way how he won it. He lost it a little bit in the last months but fortunately he is coming back. I hope that he will also do for the rest of the season good races that he shows his talent and his potential – and then we will see what happens in the future.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Kate Walker – motorsport.com) I’ve got a question for all of you please. One of the things that we have heard about the change in ownership is the potential introduction of a franchise system. I was wondering both what your individual opinions were and, if they differ from your owner or boards opinion, what the official stance was on the potential of a franchise operation?

    Robert?

    RF: I think… I mean the devil is always in the detail Kate, and I think we have to wait again and see what they’re proposing in terms of how the franchise is going to work up or whether it’s either going to be a full franchise program. But I think something that is giving Formula One stability, more importantly I think something that is anchoring the teams into Formula One, because it takes four or five years to build a team and whilst owners do come and go, the teams tend to be the same teams being transferred. I think it would be very, very good for the teams to have that stability and that security going forward. If the owner comes in and they perform well, then hopefully he or she can make a profit. If they don’t, then they take a small loss. It’s part of the trading. But I think it is a different view for Formula One and one that we should look at very positively.

    David?

    DR: Actually I think Bob put it very well and I support that view. I’ve heard lots of different approaches they’re going to take but until we get something firmly on the table, I can’t really comment. Bob’s view is correct.

    Franz?

    FT: I think it’s quite early days to discuss this and to think about this. We will see then, it’s a decision of Red Bull whether they buy shares on it or not and for the rest we will see.

    And Eric.

    EB: It’s difficult to have a strong opinion at this stage, y’know? Just based on the word ‘franchise’. We need to see the details of what they want to achieve. We don’t have yet the full picture, so I can’t have a strong opinion on this obviously. I think yes, what Bob said is true. If everything is happier in a better world everybody will be happy. Today I don’t know what’s going on, what’s going to happen yet.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Bob, it’s a year virtually to the day since you and Sauber registered a complaint with the EU Commission in Brussels. First of all I’d like to know some progress to date in the past year but before we do that, I’m now advised from Brussels that you and Sauber are possibly looking at filing some complaint in the US as well, an anti-trust complaint. If you could comment on that as well please and give us some idea of the progress. And then the other three, have you received requests for information from the commissioner in connection with this particular case.

    RF: Yes, let’s… probably start from the beginning I think Dieter is the easiest one. Yes, we have put the complaint, that’s common knowledge, I think about a year ago, it has gone through due process and I can confirm it has gone to next level in terms of a request for further information from the EU. Who those have been sent to, I don’t know. From our point of view, because we’re in legal process with them, we can’t say anything about what we’re doing – but I can confirm it is at that stage from an EU point of view. With regard to your question on the US legal matters, I think, you know, it’s not appropriate for us to discuss something where we’re getting legal advice. It’s probably a bit speculative – but for sure everything is still on the table from our side. We are very, very committed to challenging what we believe is a very anti-competitive system with these bi-lateral agreements. Whatever it takes to deliver that, we will certainly look at.

    And the second part of the question, to the other three, have you been requested any information from the EU? Eric?

    EB: No.

    Franz?

    FT: No

    David?

    DR: Not that I’m aware of.

    Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action and Speedsport) Gentlemen, the provisional calendar for next year is another 21 races. The new owners of Formula One are on record saying they want to add more races. At what point do you have to start rotating crew and would you have to add staff or is there enough back at home to do that?

    EB: I think we are at the limit already so if there would be more races, we would have to have a rotating system with staff people. And no, we don’t have reserve people back in the factory so that means we would have to hire some people.

    FT: That’s the same. I think that 20/21 races is quite a good number and if additional races come onto the calendar we also would have to think of a rotating system to bring in more people, because otherwise it’s difficult to handle everything but if we have more races, we also have more income and therefore it shouldn’t be a problem. In the end, there must be a profit for the teams otherwise it doesn’t make sense.

    DR: I go back to the days when we had 14 races and that was too many so… Twenty-one feels like it’s too many but if they’re talking 25 races…  Dan, I guess it depends what the package is. Maybe they are two-day events, maybe it’s a different format. Again, until we know what they really are asking for or what they’re thinking of, it may be that it works or not. We just have to wait and see.

    RF: Same as Eric. We would need to increase the personnel significantly to be able to bring in reserves.

    Q: (Chris Lyons – AP) Bob, in Singapore Sergio said that he felt sure that his contract would be organised by the time we got to Malaysia. Now he’s saying if it doesn’t happen by Japan, he’s going to look elsewhere. Can you give us some insight into what the hold-up is? Is it the commercial aspect, sponsorship aspect of the contract or is there something else?

    RF: No, there’s nothing else. The driver contracts have been completed for quite some time, as you know. Vijay announced that some time ago and it’s literally dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on the commercial side and if it takes a week, that’s wonderful, if it takes a couple of weeks, so be it. It’ll happen, we’re very confident that Checo will be with us next year. I don’t think we ever deviated from that.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Eric, there’s a report in Autosport this week that Honda are expanding their facilities in the UK in preparation or possible preparation for a second team. The way that I understand it McLaren needs to approve this. Is it something that McLaren’s in favour of? Would McLaren like to see a second team and what sort of level of development are we at given that you’re partners?

    EB: Well, we had a position in the past, obviously, where we both agree with Honda that it would be better to focus on us, on one team. As you know, the regulations have changed as well. In the future there will be some obligation for an engine manufacturer, and I think that at some stage it’s going to be interesting for maybe Honda and the McLaren-Honda package as well to have another team but we don’t know when, so we see this as them just making themselves ready with the possibility in the future that it can happen but so far we are still one team and focused on McLaren.

    Q: (Chris Lyons – AP) Just to follow up to that question to the other three: it’s clearly too late for 2017 but would you be interested in a Honda supply and how soon could that happen?

    FT: We have a Renault contract.

    DR: I think we’ve got the best engine on the grid in our car at the moment so we’re fairly OK with that.

    RF: We’re also committed through to 2020 with our engine supplier and have a very strong relationship with Mercedes.

  • 2015 Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix: Friday Press Conference

    2015 Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix: Friday Press Conference

    TEAM REPRESENTATIVES:

    Robert FERNLEY (Force India)

    Matthew CARTER (Lotus)

    Paul HEMBERY (Pirelli)

    Christian HORNER (Red Bull Racing)

    Maurizio ARRIVABENE (Ferrari)

    Eric BOULLIER (McLaren)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Maurizio, if we could start with you. Obviously you’ve been here many times before as a partner of Ferrari. You’ve lived the moments of victory in front of the tifosi with Schumacher, Barrichello, Alonso etc. Tell me about the sense of responsibility you feel today as the boss of the Ferrari Formula One team at the Italian Grand Prix ?

    Maurizio ARRIVABENE: You’re right, it’s a big story, because you feel Monza, Milan, all the region here on your shoulder. Yesterday, we were out of the track to meet the tifosi and you know looking at the enthusiasm of them, looking at the high of them, the way they were screaming, were thinking myself, Sebastian and also Kimi, we were thinking ‘OK, we have to do something for them’ and your pressure and your emotion is going up to the sky. You want to give them something and you want to see in their eye a big smile. But you are also conscious about what you can do here. So if I… I feel my responsibility here in Monza is huge, especially yesterday when we were nearby the tifosi and we were looking at them and their enthusiasm, I hope that the heart, the big heart that normally they took here after the race can be the equivalent of a token and it goes straight in our engine. What can I say more than that!

    The Italian Grand Prix is the only race along with the British Grand Prix that has been on the F1 calendar every year since the start of F1. We hear all the time that the race is potentially under threat. Can Ferrari allow the possibility of there being no Italian Grand Prix? Are you playing any role in this process?

    MA: Playing a role is a big word. I mean we are not negotiating with Bernie. It’s not our job, it’s not our responsibility. Having said so, I think the grand prix of Italy is Monza and I want to be very clear on that. The only picture that I saw in Maranello of Enzo Ferrari at a track actually was here at Monza and I said many, many times something very clear: there is a core of Formula One that in my opinion is represented by Monza, Spa Francorchamps, Hockenheim, Silverstone and Monaco. This is the core of Formula One and I think we have to preserve it. Because every person that is losing his own culture, he’s losing the roots, he’s not anymore a person – I mean if we are talking about human beings. But also for these kind of things. If we are losing the core in my opinion then we are losing the show, so I think we can do everything that is in our possibility to defend a grand prix and the clear statement is the following: the grand prix of Italy is Monza. The second sentence is that we need to preserve the core of Formula One. I have nothing against all the other grands prix, because it is an international show but even a show has a core and the core for Formula One is the number of grands prix that I mentioned before. This is my personal opinion and it’s also I think our opinion as Ferrari.

    OK, thank you very much. Eric, coming to you: the performance curve is clearly upwards from a fairly low baseline at the start of the season but is the curve moving upwards fast enough for you?

    Eric BOULLIER: No. Obviously we would like to be a little higher up in the hierarchy and maybe fighting for more points regularly. There is obviously the last… Spa and here would be difficult for us but we knew this coming here. We see some positives as well, because reliability is a bit better and we keep developing the car as fast as we can.

    It’s no secret that you have quandary again over drivers for next season. What plans do you have for Jenson Button, Kevin Magnussen and Stoffel Vandoorne. How many of those three do you expect to be racing in Formula One next year and which one of those three will be in a McLaren?

    EB: Obviously we expect the four of them to race. As far as we are concerned, at McLaren we have only two cars, so there will be only two race seats. We have two world champions today and we do intend to keep them, so far. Nevertheless it’s a luxury problem to have four good drivers and we will do obviously… Kevin and Stoffel are very good drivers, both of them we expect to race Formula One but if we can’t fit or accommodate them at home we will do our best to make sure they can race next year.

    Matthew, what did the podium at Spa mean to the team last time out and how much were you able to celebrate given all the stuff that was going on after the race?

    Matthew CARTER: The podium meant an awful lot to the team and it really is testament to the guys back at Enstone and the guys that work week in, week out and the quality that know we’ve got down at Lotus. It was obviously was bittersweet because of everything else that was going on and I don’t particularly want to talk about that at this stage but certainly for the team it was a real shot in the arm and it’s really helped us and hopefully it’s a stepping stone to go forward.

    It’s no secret that the ownership situation at your team has moved on a little in recent weeks. What can you tell us today about the future ownership and direction of this team?

    MC: It’s difficult for me to say too much. Obviously my job is to run the team and to look after the team as it stands. The ownership and the shareholding of that team are down to our current shareholders and our potential future shareholders. All I can tell you is that negotiations with a certain car manufacturer have been ongoing for a number of months and as far as I’m aware we’re just trying to run the team as best we can with the tools we’ve got.

    Thank you. Coming to you Robert, obviously there’s a draft calendar at the moment for next year with 21 races on it and discussions are ongoing about various areas of that, but the summer shutdown appears to be a talking point amongst your peer group. Can you tell us your thoughts on how important that is and how it would be not to have it?

    Robert FERNLEY: I think it’s also very important to support the commercial rights holder. We understand the challenges it faces to put a global sport on and we have to make efforts to accommodate races where we can. But I think also that has to be done around the teams. We run a very tight ship. Most of the teams run a tight ship. The travelling staff need to have that summer break and if we don’t do that we’re going to burn them out or we’re going to have to bring in a second crew. Either way it’s not good for Formula One or the costs of the independent teams. The other thing I think as well is that from a media point of view there is a certain amount of anticipation that comes after the summer break for the second half of the season and I think we shouldn’t forget the importance of that from the expectation of fans and the eagerness of fans to get into the second half. So I think the summer break ad a whole, from my point of view and from Force India’s point of view, should be retained at all cost.

    It’s been a strong middle part of the season for Force India – strong points, good qualifying performances – and you’ve just re-signed Nico Hulkenberg. How important is that piece of the jigsaw for the future?

    RF: I think it’s very important for us to try to keep stability and I expect we’ll do that. Vijay is working very hard now to finish off the second contract with Checo and hopefully we’ll get some news on that for Singapore. With the continuity and the stability of rules into 2016 hopefully we can carry the performance through.

    Paul, we saw a lot of long run practice today, some pretty big mileages notched up in free practice two. Can you tell us about what was learned in terms of where race strategy is?

    Paul HEMBERY: Well, it’s pretty much going to be a one-stop race; we’ve known that coming into the weekend. That I guess is what the teams have been focusing on and 1.2 difference between the two compounds and as I say one-stop race unless of course we get some rain.

    Spa was the first time for a while that you’ve had some tyre failures. We saw yesterday’s report but what more can you tell us about recommendations to the teams and what went into that report?

    PH: The first thing I’d like to underline is the outstanding collaboration we’ve had from particularly Ferrari, Maurizio’s team, Toto and the Mercedes team. We’ve had a good sharing of information. And that’s been very positive as well, the involvement of the FIA. I think that’s something that sometimes gets lost in the media that behind the scenes there is a lot of collaboration that goes on and we thank everybody for that. Going forward I think it’s important to underline that we feel we need to have a little bit more collaboration directly with the drivers and we’ve already discussed that with a number of the teams and we have an agreement that there should be a clearer exchange between us all so that we’re all aiming for the same things going forward and that opens up what we feel needs to be a very serious testing programme in the future. If we are going to carry on in 2017 there are very dramatic changes to the tyre sizes involved and that needs a proper testing programme. In years gone by tyre suppliers in Formula One have been able to test for 100,000km every season and we’re currently unable to use any Formula One car whatsoever to do testing. We are working with the teams behind the scenes and I believe that going forward we will find a solution that will allow us all to be a lot more comfortable going forward.

    Q: Coming to you Christian, obviously not a straightforward afternoon for Red Bull Racing. Can you tell us what was going on, some of the problems you had?

    Christian HORNER: Yeah, we’ve had a couple of issues. We had a hydraulic issue on Daniel Ricciardo’s car, which was caused by the DRS system, so that just was a wing change that sorted that out, and we had a gearbox issue on Dany Kvyat’s car that needed some attention after the first session – so it’s certainly been a busy time for the guys downstairs so far.

    Q: Red Bull’s owner Dietrich Mateschitz has said he’ll quit Formula One if Red Bull doesn’t have a competitive engine. It’s no secret you’re pushing behind the scenes to get either a Ferrari or a Mercedes engine – what kind of relationship can you promise them if you succeed?

    CH: Well. Sitting here today we still have a contract with Renault. To my knowledge I’ve not had any discussion with Ferrari – unless Maurizio can tell me differently. But we’ve got an agreement with Renault as I say, we’ve got conditions within that agreement that aren’t privy to this group here and time will tell in terms of what their future holds for them. So hopefully something will be forthcoming in the near future.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Question to Matthew. Matthew, it’s no secret there have been certain financial issues surrounding your team. A couple of days after Silverstone for example, winding up applications whatever, but from here on in you face enormous expenses in terms of running costs, freight to flyaway races etcetera. Can you guarantee us that you will in fact be at Singapore. Has, for example, your sea-freight container left for Singapore and when did it leave?

    MC: I can guarantee you that we’ll be at Singapore. The sea-freight container… one of our sea-freight containers has left, our airfreight will leave next week. We will be in Singapore. As far as the first part of your question is concerned, yes, we’ve had… the financial issues are all over the press, everyone is aware of them. We’re working as hard as we can behind the scenes to get them sorted out. None of them have become terminal, obviously. We’re still here, we’re still racing and we will continue to do that. The negotiations that were referred to earlier on are going on behind the scenes. I’m hopeful that’s going to secure our future one way or the other going forward – and when I say one way or the other it just means we have more than one option going forward to secure the future of the team. As far as the race of the races this season, we have a budget in place and we will operate to that budget and will be at all the races.

    Q: (Barna Zsoldos – Nemzeti Sport) Question for Maurizio, Christian and Eric. Sitting on the pitwall during the race, what was your best and worst decision, best and worst moments and most memorable and maybe most embarrassing moments so far?

    CH: Christ! I’ve been sitting on there for ten years now so there’s been a few. Most memorable moments, probably 2010 when we managed to go into the last race in Abu Dhabi and there were obviously four drivers in contention for the Championship and we managed to call it right on that day – so that was certainly a memorable moment. There’s been quite a few over the years but difficult to hightlight too many today.

    Maurizio?

    MA: In eight months I don’t have a lot of stories to tell you…

    What was your best decision?

    MA: My best decision, or my best thought, it was in Malaysia when we won the race. The first thought was ‘oh my God, it’s too early.’ In terms of embarrassment, I have two choices: one was Austria, the other was Canada when we don’t have a very good race in front of Mr Marchionne. I mean, pick one of the two, it’s the same.

    Eric?

    EB: Best race would be Abu Dhabi with the Kimi win, obviously. The worst one would be Germany 2013 where Grosjean was on his way to win and couldn’t because of a safety car. Embarrassing moment… I have plenty now.

    Q: (Miguel Sanz – Marca) Question for Eric. Which one of the seven remaining circuits, apart from Singapore suits well your car?

    EB: Maybe Sochi. There is… it’s not as bad as Spa or here. It should be a bit better in every track. Singapore should suit us much better than the other ones, but more or less the other ones are fine.

    Q: (Peter Farkas – Auto Motor) A question about the tyre situation today. Paul, could you confirm if the values that have been circulating in the press regarding pressures like 21 front and 19.5 rear have been correct. And have there been any other recommendations regarding cambers? And the same question to a couple of team bosses, especially Christian and Maurizio: are you satisfied with these values and how did it effect your performance today?

    PH: Yeah, the values are based on information given to us by the various teams. Of course, not every team is the same so you have to take analysis based over the whole field. Based on what we’ve seen today, we haven’t seen any issues of blistering which might be one of the concerns if you raise the pressures. So, from what we’ve seen, it appears to be working for the vast majority of people.

    Christian?

    CH: I’m not actually sure what the pressures are: they seem to go up and down like a fiddler’s elbow. I think Pirelli have reacted well to the situation last weekend, Maurizio’s obviously far more informed than I am in that respect. Hopefully there won’t be any issues here this weekend. Certainly in the long runs we’ve had in practice, that we’ve mainly focussed on today, everything’s been 100 per cent normal.

    Maurizio?

    MA: For us, I said yesterday, we said everything. We have clear and constructive conversation and explanation from Pirelli. Today have another constructive meeting and we are going to meet each other even more often to better communicate between ourselves. I’m perfectly satisfied regarding the pressure. We’ve got that information very clearly from Pirelli and we are perfectly fine with that.

    Q: (Alan Baldwin – Reuters) Paul, just to follow up that earlier question, could you actually give us the tyre pressures that have been recommended by you. As Christian says, they seem to have been going up and down like a fiddler’s elbow. And, are they just a recommendation is there any action to enforce a particular pressure?

    PH: Well, from P1 they’ve been 21, 19.5 on the rear. So, that’s what they are, that’s what they’ll be for the weekend.

    Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action / Speedsport magazines) Christian, I realise your big engine upgrade is coming for Russia – but for the new units coming in this weekend, what has Renault told you? Do you have some tweaks in them?

    CH: No, they’re pretty much the same specification we’ve had so far. At the moment no tokens have been used. When the upgraded engine will appear is TBC. There’s nothing actually confirmed yet. We’ll wait to here in due course, no doubt.

    Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Maurizio, I heard that last night Kimi set a record for signing autographs with the tifosi for half an hour. Did you push him or where did that eagerness come from?

    MA: No. I was simply talking with him in my way – no, I’m joking now. We had several conversations and I said I know that you are a very cool guy and most probably because you are cool, they like you but at least if we meet the guys – the tifosi – you have to sign and at least move your hand and say hallo and possibly to smile. And he stuck to these instructions and I was thinking, is there something wrong here? I was happy, of course, but then I was thinking that maybe he’s becoming superstitious and he’s doing this and tomorrow it’s raining and also on Sunday. And I was hoping about that. He’s becoming a good guy and I was pleased about that, even if I’m still thinking and when I’m thinking, I said it can’t be Kimi, it was a sosia (doppelganger) or somebody else.

    Q: (Fernando Ramos – Racing Magazines) Paul, you talk about the need of proper track testing in the future. Is this a condition for Pirelli to stay in F1 or if teams and the Federation and everybody don’t see common sense, can Pirelli afford to stay in F1 for five years without proper testing in the future?

    PH: With the proposed changes that have been more or less confirmed with all the teams now with the dimensions of the tyres – going to wider tyres – then yes, it has to be a condition for staying in. You can’t make such a dramatic change without testing.

    Q: (Fabrizio Corgnati – Diario del Web) Maurizio, based on the data that you learned today in free practice, what are your realistic goals for the race?

    MA: There needs to be an awful lot to look at Mercedes. I think – being serious – we saw, as expected, Mercedes are very very strong in shape but our pace was not bad. It’s too early to promise something but we try to do our best, especially because it’s our home Grand Prix, but again, we have a lot of competitors but Mercedes is still far away from us at the moment.

    Q: (Graham Kill – Grand Prix Times) For everyone, apart from Paul: we heard the latest team, Williams, confirming an unchanged driver line-up for next season. There’s a bit of a perception out there that the drivers’ market has become a bit more conservative and teams are more reluctant these days to change drivers. Do you agree that that’s the case and if so, do you have reasons for it, perhaps the testing ban or something else?

    RF: Yeah, I don’t think there’s any reason to assume that you’re not going to move drivers and change drivers. I think you’re always looking for stability and if you have drivers that are performing well, you want to retain them. And equally, if they move on and the opportunity comes to bring somebody new through, certainly in the independent teams, you’re going to take that opportunity.

    MC: I think we’re probably in a slightly different position in that we have two drivers under contract. The only reason that we haven’t announced our driver line-up for next year is that we’re waiting to see what pans out in the next few weeks/month or so. So absolutely no reason to change, both drivers under contract but I think there’s probably wider issues to play at Lotus at the moment.

    Q: Eric, you’ve kind of half answered it already.

    EB: Yes, I did it.

    MA: We confirmed Kimi after Hungary. Again, he’s a World Champion, he’s the last World Champion with Ferrari. We don’t have to forget that. And the second reason was for stability with the team, it’s quite a new team and we would like to keep the stability in the team and to have a clear goal for everybody. I have nothing to add. And you see also, yes, he is very very good in PR so he’s becoming another Kimi. Vettel, I don’t need to say a word about Seb.

    CH: Well, changing drivers in any team is quite a big thing. The drivers are pretty fundamental components and I think that if ever you’re going to change, you want to change for the better. So in answer to your other question, our driver line-up… Ricciardo was on a long term contract as is Dany Kvyat who obviously, from our perspective, has options that we have to exercise at certain points in time. Now Red Bull has always invested in youth and brought in some really young talent and it’s great to see Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Junior doing such a wonderful job this year and again, through GP2 and other categories, Red Bull continues to be investing in young talent so we’ve got quite a large talent pool but of course you always want to put your best foot forward.

    Q: (Louis Dekker – NOS.NL) Maurizio, I saw a lot of yellow T-shirts at Ascari with the text Lello and that’s an Italian driver in GP2, Marciello, so the question is who will be the next Formula One driver from Italy and when?

    MA: There is no time. The yellow rumour at the moment in Italy is Valentino Rossi. The yellow. Lello is a driver and all the drivers in the Ferrari Academy have to prove their talent before (they get) a contract in Formula One. I’m pleased that Lello has a lot of fans or supporters. Supporters count a lot but at the end he needs to prove his talent. This is for everybody in life. You want to go there, deserve it. We are pleased with him but the season isn’t finished yet. Sorry people, I was hearing yellow and I was thinking Valentino.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Paul, obviously there’s an awful lot of PR fall-out after the incidents at Spa-Francorchamps and then this week we had some rather warm words coming out of the commercial rights holder. We can think of millions of reasons why but the fact of the matter is that it’s virtually unprecedented. We know that you’re locked in a battle with an opposition tyre company for the contract going forward. Were there any thoughts on the part of Pirelli’s management and board to withdraw from Formula One after the fall-out?

    PH: No, I think the fall-out was rather exaggerated. As I said earlier, we’ve been working extremely well behind the scenes with Maurizio and his team and also with Toto and a number of the other Formula One teams and the FIA so I think a lot of it’s more in the media rather than a practical situation. We’re obviously discussing at the moment going forward and there are a number of areas that we need changing to enable that to happen. I’ve already mentioned testing, we also want to make sure that we’re all singing off the same hymn sheet so the teams, ourselves and the drivers all know what we’re aiming for and we’ll all agree with what we’re doing, that there’s a common sense of purpose, so that’s really where we’re at.

    Q: (Alan Baldwin – Reuters) Maurizio, is there news on James Allison’s contract? Has he signed a new long term contract with Ferrari?

    MA: I already said so, I already confirmed that in Belgium. Yeah. He’s got a long term contract with us.

    Q: (Peter Farkas – Auto Motor) Maurizio, could you please confirm that Ferrari has upgraded its engine for Monza and by how much?

    MA: The super engine, the famous super engine. We’ve spent a couple of tokens here but we have a little improvement but we are far from this super engine that has been mentioned, a lot of time. I can confirm that we have spent a couple of tokens but I don’t confirm that we have a super engine here. We have a Ferrari engine, this is enough.

  • Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco 2015: Thursday Press Conference

    Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco 2015: Thursday Press Conference

    TEAM REPRESENTATIVES:

    Paul HEMBERY (Pirelli)

    Cyril ABITEBOUL (Renault Sport F1)

    Franz TOST (Toro Rosso)

    Robert FERNLEY (Force India)

    Toto WOLFF (Mercedes)

    Christian HORNER (Red Bull Racing)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Let’s start with a general question to all of you. What did you think of what came out of last week’s F1 Strategy Group, some of the proposals that have been put forward for 2017 and if we could start, perhaps, with Christian?

    Christian HORNER: Well, as you know, we’re not supposed to talk about the content of these meetings and referring to the press release it was a very positive meeting and lots of good things talked about for 2017. There was obviously a large amount of discussion about the future and about current issues. I think there is positive work going on regarding the 2017 chassis. There were debates about refueling, whether that should be reintroduced or not. Differing opinions on that. It was a constructive meeting. I wouldn’t say that we nailed down a whole load of decisions out of it, but certainly a lot of discussion about the relevant topics at this point in time.

    Toto?

    Toto WOLFF: There’s not a lot to add to what Christian said. It was a good meeting in relation to the 2017 regs. We all agree that we want to reintroduce quicker cars, get the lap times down by five to six seconds. Make it more of a driver formula, maybe get rid of the electronic start procedures, go back to more conventional clutches. Refuelling was discussed, with many various opinions. But we all agreed that this is what should be happening, so it was good.

    Robert?

    Robert FERNLEY: I must have been at a different meeting. I don’t think it was a good meeting at all. After 18 months I think we failed totally to agree on any form of cost control. There’s absolutely no way there is going to be any equitable distribution of income. Power units are going to remain the same. And whilst I agree that there were some good discussions on 2017, the fundamentals of Formula One weren’t addressed at all.

    Paul?

    Paul HEMBERY: Yeah, I guess there were a couple of points that came out that relate to tyres. One was regarding the choice of compounds made by the teams and we’re working in that regard with Charlie [Whiting] and the FIA to come up with a proposal that meets that requirements, that gives us a level of safety in the choices made and also to provide something interesting for the fans. That’s ongoing but it looks positive, what we’ve seen so far. Then 2017, obviously we don’t know whether we will be here or not but the idea of going to wider, 420 width tyres, was something we feel is a good idea.

    Franz?

    Franz TOST: I wasn’t involved in the meeting; therefore it’s difficult to evaluate the contents. What I miss is the discussion how we can come down with the costs and how we will find a way to create an interesting – apart from the technical side for the future – but we will see then the 2017 regulation is being discussed and then we will see what will come the result.

    And Cyril, what did you glean from it about 2017?

    Cyril ABITEBOUL: Well, 2017 seems a bit far away. But we’ll get back to that a bit later. I think it was an interesting meeting, as always. Formula One is a very sophisticated and complex environment, so it’s very difficult to agree on one single set of measures that can address the issues. I think to a certain degree everyone agrees on what has to be done, what has to be delivered by Formula One in the future. So I think it’s good that we share a vision. It’s very much how we get from where we are today to that vision that is now the topic for discussion.

    OK, I’m sure that others will come back this point later in the session, but let’s just move on to individual questions. Franz if we could start with you. Obviously today the running was a bit truncated by the weather but in the first session and the beginning of the second, it looked like your two drivers, Verstappen and Sainz, were up to speed very quickly, with Verstappen setting the second fastest time this morning. How impressed were you with what they did?

    FT: I think we have the ingredients together that both cars have to be in qualifying three and we have to finish in the points. We have a good car, a competitive car. Both drivers do a very good job. The team is also improving. Therefore I don’t see why we should not score a lot of points, so I’m quite optimistic.

    Well, the car obviously looked good in Spain as well. Is the car more consistent? Because that is certainly is something you needed coming from last year, right?

    FT: The car is more consistent. The car is more controllable, especially under braking and in acceleration. The car is easier to drive as was the case in the years before and as a result of this of course the drivers have a good chance to get the most out of the car without making any mistakes.

    Paul, coming to you, we didn’t get the chance to see the revised supersoft tyres today, they stayed in their blankets in the second half of FP2. Obviously they are going to be run at the next few races. A bit frustrated by that and how do you expect it go here over the next couple of days?

    PH: Well, it was probably more frustration for the teams. The only thing we gained was the resurfacing. It doesn’t seem to have changed very much. It’s a very low-impact circuit from our point of view, so we don’t envisage any issues.

    Going back to the meeting last week. One of the things that was proposed was that the teams should be able to tell you which two tyre compounds they want you to bring for them for grand prix weekends. How do you feel about that suggestion and also the whole notion of making the cars, as Toto said, five to six seconds a lap faster?

    PH: Well, it touches on what I’ve already mentioned that we’ve taken on board those comments and we’re working on a solution with the FIA that meets that requirement but also guarantees that we have a level of security over the choices made but also giving the sport itself some interesting elements. So, we’re confident and I think from initial discussions we’re on a good road to finding a solution for that. Going quicker? It depends on how you achieve that. Wider tyres would certainly help that. From a tyremakers point of view you’d want to know how you can contest that. We have limitations on testing today and if the cars are going to change dramatically you wouldn’t really want to end up in Jerez in February, in the winter trying to find out if it’s going to be workable solution or not. The principal is fine, there needs to be a little bit of work I’m sure done on the practicalities.

    Thank you. Robert, you were one of the ones proposing this free tyre choice idea, what do you like about the concept?

    RF: I like the fact that it brings the decision-making down to the teams and I think it will bring variability in terms of the racing tactics of what goes on and I’m really pleased that Pirelli have embraced the idea and are coming up with a solution that will give them the safety as well as the team a little bit more choice.

    On a Force India-specific note, what’s the latest on your revised 2015 package? What’s the forecast on when it’s going to be out and the latest forecast on the performance gain it’s going to give you?

    RF: Well, they’re encouraged by performance gain, I think that’s [what] I’m getting through from the engineers. Hopefully it’s still on target for us for Austria. I would like to think we could do it for the race but it’s most likely going to be the test.

    Cyril, coming to you and going back to the Strategy Group meeting, one of the things that was voted was not to have a fifth engine this season, what’s your reaction to that?

    CA: Obviously I regret it, because that’s something that would have facilitated a bit the situation of our two customer teams given the different reliability issues we’ve had so far this season. Having said that, we knew the rules, it’s four engines for everyone, so that’s what we have to comply with. The only comment I would make is that we don’t that as something that is a huge penalty. I know there is a lot of frustration but ten places penalty – maybe I should not say that because maybe the FIA will make it worse in the future – but ten places penalty in tracks when you can overtake, assuming you have the power, the right set-up and so on, basically a car that out of place at the start can quite easily make it during the race, which are long races. So, I’m sorry for my customer teams but I don’t think it’s a big game changer to the championship.

    Monaco is always an important race for Renault on a number of levels, what sort of shape are you in this weekend?

    CA: Honestly, we want an easy weekend. We want a trouble-free weekend. I’m not going to say that we have more power, more performance because it would be an unfair misrepresentation. Right now what we want to have under control is the particular reliability crisis that we suffered for the start of the season and then be back to resume the performance plan that we had on the shelf for the remainder of the season.

    Toto, obviously Nico got some momentum into his championship with the win in Spain last time out. Lewis Hamilton said he’s very keen to take pole and win here after two years of being on the wrong side of things from Nico. How does the rivalry look from inside the team? How’s this heading towards Saturday’s final runs in Q3 and the race on Sunday?

    TW: The rivalry has always been intense on track and we’ve seen it from the start of the day. They were both out there in anger, pretty competitive lap times straight from the beginning. And it’s good for the team because it pushes the team, it pushes the two to new levels, competing against each other, so for Thursday, we can be pretty satisfied.

    Obviously the news this weekend is the new contract with Lewis Hamilton. Why did you chose to declare… to announce that it is a three year term and are the values that are circulating around in the media vaguely accurate as to the value of the contract?

    TW: You know the discussions around the contract have been out there for quite a while. We had the terms already a couple of weeks ago and declaring that it was a three year term seemed reasonable to us, in order to show that it’s a long term relationship and stability is important for us. On the figures out there, I can’t really comment. The only thing I can say is that there have been lots of nonsense out there as well.

    Christian, congratulations first of all on your marriage. Here in Monaco, Daniel Ricciardo has said that this weekend should see Red Bull Racing’s best result of the season. Do you share his optimism?

    CH: Well, first of all thank you, I’m technically on honeymoon with all of you! Daniel Ricciardo, he’s always excelled at this circuit, always in the lower categories as well. Of course the power unit plays a smaller role at this circuit of all the circuits that we go to in the year, so hopefully, as Cyril’s pointed out, if we can have a reliable troublefree weekend… already in free practice, both drivers have fared pretty decently so far.

    There’s been some pressure from your director, Dr Marko, on Daniil Kvyat recently. What’s your view on what Kvyat’s done so far and what he needs to do?

    CH: I think… Helmut’s comments… I’ll come back to that in a minute. He’s always called things as they are and I think that Daniil Kvyat’s had a tough run so far. Things haven’t gone cleanly on his side of the garage, he’s had some good races and he’s had some times that he’s struggled with. But he’s young, he’s developing all the time. We can see a great deal of potential in him, you can see it even in that last wet run at the end of P2. He’s going to mature and develop. Helmut’s always had a habit of calling things as they are. I recall going back to Mark Webber’s time… After this race in 2010 we went to Turkey. As we know, Mark and Helmut didn’t always see eye to eye and they (Mark and Sebastian) had that crash in Turkey. We ended up back in my office and it was an opportunity, I said to Mark, to get everything out, address your issues with Helmut. And I said to Helmut before the meeting, whatever he says, take it on the chin and agree. And so Mark went through all the issues that he had, told him what had pissed him off about Helmut, blah, blah blah, and Helmut took it on board and said ‘yes, OK, I agree, OK’ and then he said ‘anyway, the next race in Valencia is very important to us and you’ve always been shit in Valencia!’ And Mark, thankfully, saw the funny side but it explains some of the straight talking that Helmut tends to have.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Louis Dekker – NOS) Question for Mr Tost, Mr Horner and Mr Wolff. How do you rate P2 this morning by a driver who never drove here before? How should we evaluate it?

    CH: I thought it was super. For a guy that can’t rent a hire car yet, I mean it’s enormously impressive. 17 years of age… I think the two Toro Rosso drivers actually have done a wonderful job this year and, you know, I think it’s one of the positive stories in Formula One at the moment is those two young rookies that Red Bull have given a chance. They’re here on merit and it shows that the junior programme is most definitely working.

    And Toto? You were in a bit of a tug-of-love with Red Bull over his services. Are you beginning to regret you missed out?

    TW: No, I think it was clear that what Vestappen was offered was a deal he had to go for. You can see that, in the right car, with the right team-mate, they push each other. It’s two of the best boys, young boys, out there. And clearly for Max, finishing P2 on a track he has never been to, in these conditions, is good – but as Christian said, I wouldn’t underestimate Carlos’ performances either. I think it shows, if you have two team-mates who compete on a similar level, they push each other and the rivalry is very good – but obviously Franz will know much more about it.

    Franz, do you want to add a bit more?

    FT: Yeah, we all know that Max is very, very high-skilled driver, therefore Red Bull took him into the programme and bought him into Toro Rosso, and what I was impressed, how he achieved this really, really good time in P1. He went out in the morning and from run to run he improved his lap time without making any mistake. No locking, nothing. His car control and his feedback during the run was really, really extraordinary. I’m really, really happy he is in the team and I’m convinced he will show some other great runs – hopefully in qualifying, because this counts – and also in the race. I think that we will have some success with him also this year – and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him – earlier or later – within the first five.

    Q: (Pierre Van Vliet – F1i Magazine) Question for Cyril. What is the deadline for Renault to decide about its future in Formula One, knowing that your current contract runs to the end of 2016, if I’m right?

    CA: Yeah, we have contracts that run with those two gentlemen until the end of 2016. I guess the deadline is 31st December 2016. No, joke apart. We have no deadline, no rush. I think right now the deadline and the big target is to get engine under control, both from reliability and performance perspectives. Once this is done we can secure some longer-term stuff. And I’m sure right now this is a concern for our customer – will we be capable of dealing with the regulation, with dealing with the trouble that we have right now? So, I think this is a concern for them, this is a concern also for us, so this is what we have to address in priority before thinking about anything else.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Christian, I’d like to come back to something you said, and also something you said Toto, namely that you can’t really discuss the Strategy Group and you can’t really talk about things. Autosport and F1 Racing have just started a fan survey, they’ve had 25,000 responses in 24 hours – which tells me that there’s an awful lot of fans out there that actually want to be heard. Yet, this 21st Century sport with 500million followers is actually living up to 15thCentury Masonic Society levels of secrecy. Is this really the way to go forward?

    Toto, do you want to start?

    CH: Are you in the Masons?

    TW: What are the Masons?

    CH: I couldn’t tell you that…

    TW:  You know, whatever we discuss in the Strategy Group, bizarrely ends up in the media ten minutes later – or even earlier – during the discussions. Sometimes we need to make up our mind in there and discuss. We don’t have always the same opinion but it’s a matter of pushing the sport forward. And for the sake of the sport. And whatever solutions we come up with, it’s all shit. We are discussing making the cars faster, five or six seconds, wider tyres, more spectacular cars, more g-forces, the things we have mentioned before and the topic of refuelling. The only thing I can read after the meeting is that refuelling doesn’t make any sense. Interestingly, you asked the drivers yesterday on the very same podium and they all love it. So I think we must stop talking the sport down. I’ve mentioned that a couple of times in here. And one of the rules we have established – and Bob is new to the group so maybe we have to reemphasise this is that we shouldn’t talk the sport down. We should push the sport up. We need all of you, plus us, to re-emphasise on the good points, on the attractive bits of the sport and try to make it better. It’s not always an easy exercise.

    Robert?

    RF: Well, to a certain degree I agree with Toto. I think that the problem I have is that I don’t think the Strategy Group is fit for purpose and we should be looking at something where we have a clear programme that delivers results. We’ve have 18 months or two years of Strategy Group work with nothing coming out of it. I think we need to look at the system in a better way. In days gone by, with Max and Bernie in charge, there would be none of that. We would know exactly where we’re going. I don’t think you should have the teams making decisions on where Formula One should go. The teams should be told where Formula One is going.

    OK. Maybe offer that one to you Christian – because you did say, didn’t you, at one point before the meeting that it should be taken out of the teams?

    CH: Well yeah. I mean it’s rather predictable. Bob’s going to ask for more money, Toto’s going to not want to change anything and we want to change engines. So every team has got its own agenda and it’s going to fight its own corner. I think that the sport is governed by the FIA and it’s promoted by FOM. It’s those guys that need to get together and say ‘what do we want Formula One to be?’ Yes, we want it to go quicker, we want cars to be more aggressive to drive – but you’re never going to keep everybody happy. I think that Bernie and Jean need to get together and say “this is what we want the product to be, this is how it needs to be governed,” and then give us the entry form and see if we want to enter or not. Because I think putting it in the team’s environment to try and agree a set of regulations – you’re never going to get everybody on the same piece of paper.

    Cyril, you were nodding…

    CA: I think it’s right – except the bit on the engine – I fully agree with what Christian just said, obviously. I think it needs a very strong leadership with a very small group of people. I have to say that I was invited to that Strategy Group and I obviously enjoyed that for Renault because Renault is spending a lot of money in the sport. I mean we were as an observer. But one thing that struck me is that there is actually lot of people in this Strategy Group. One comment about the transparency – I don’t think this type of meeting would be broadcasted or communicated on in other sports, so I don’t think that we are that old-fashioned in that respect. And again, also people underestimate the complexity of Formula One and the knock-on effect of every single thing that you change. The things that you are doing something for one positive and actually the knock-on effects are huge. And sometimes I think it’s good that you trust us and Formula One Management in general, that we are doing the right things in general. We are in the same boat, we should not criticise each other.

    Franz – do you have anything to add to this?

    FT: Well, first of all I think the contents of a strategy meeting discussion should not be immediately published because it’s just a discussion. It’s not that anything has been decided so far and once a decision has been made, of course this has to be announced and therefore it’s not necessary to write and talk about everything what is being taken into consideration. I think that the Strategy Group itself, as Christian mentioned before, with this constellation, never will come up with a proper solution. It should be Bernie and Jean together, they should decide what we have to do. They even should not ask the teams because the teams never will come up with an agreement.

    And final word on this from Paul.

    PH: I think Christian and Franz put that very well. That in any sport it shouldn’t be the competitors that are involved in deciding changes. As Christian said, defining between the FIA and FOM how the sport is going to be, and then the teams can decide whether they want to adhere to those guidelines. So, I’m fully with the two points made by Franz and Christian.

    Q: (Jerome Pugmire – AP) Question for Franz. You seem to be… obviously you know all about Max’s potential but he even seemed to surprise you today with his drive. You say he could finish top five before the end of the season. How long to you think is realistic before he’s challenging for a podium?

    FT: Depends how many cars not finishing in front of us. The smaller, the better the chance he will be on the podium. We must be realistic. There are teams and cars in front of us. They have double of the budget than us. They have fantastic, good competitive package and it’s not easy to compete against them – but nevertheless we have two drivers and, as I have explained before, we have also a car which is quite competitive and once – maybe special whether conditions, maybe it’s raining or whatever – will help us to bring one of the drivers to the podium.

    Q: (Ian Parkes – Autosport) Just getting back to the previous question regarding the Strategy Group. Bearing in mind some of the comments that we’ve just heard, is it time now to disband that group because it’s had its day, it’s had its time, it’s had its opportunity and quite clearly it just isn’t working?

    RF: Well, I don’t think it every had its day. End of story.

    Toto?

    TW: You need… this is a professional sport. It’s a global platform. It needs to have a proper governance. And I think if we wish for dictatorship, I can see us sitting here in two years and complaining that it’s going in the wrong direction. It is always tricky to find the right government. You vote for one government, you wish for the other one to rule, and the other way around.

    CH: I think it’s difficult. It’s a forum where strategic things are discussed about the future. It’s not a decision-making forum. That should go either up to the Formula One Commission or down to the working groups. I think, you know, it’s difficult. If you pick up on Bob’s comments, then yeah, the only thing the Strategy Group has unanimously agreed on and implemented this year is the fact that the drivers should wear the same crash helmet for the entire season. Is that a success of the group? Not really. Is it a worthwhile forum? I think it is – but I think the structure of how regulations are implemented, that’s what we need to look at. As I say, I think the promoter, he’s promoting the show, he’s got to sell a product and that product’s got to be appealing to the fans. And he needs to be listening  to the 25,000 people writing in. The people around the world: what do they want? What do they want Formula One to be? And then as teams, as competitors, we have to abide by a set of regulations that the FIA should write. Sporting and technical. And at that point you have a choice: whether you want to be in or be out. But every year, the entry form comes out and we all sign on the dotted line.

    Franz.

    FT: Formula One is entertainment. What the fans want to see: they want to see entertaining races; they want to see overtaking manoeuvres and so on. If, for example, one, two, three cars or whatever are one-and-a-half, two seconds ahead of the rest of the field, this cannot be in the interests neither of the other teams not – and this is more important – of the fans. The fans want to see fights. If this is not the case. If this we cannot deliver, then let me say, the responsible people should sit around the table and say, “look, we have to chance the regulation in this way, that we can improve the show,” or whatever. This doesn’t happen because we are discussing too much and we have too many useless meetings.

    Paul – presumably you have data on the number of overtakes now compared to the times when there was refuelling, for example, in the background, that kind of stuff?

    PH: Yeah, of course. I think if you talk enough to enough people, you’re just going in circles. That’s always the case in most forms of business. So, there’s a clear need for direction and strategy. Coming from a sponsors point of view, we obviously would like to see what the plans are going forward to grow in markets where our business is important – so in Asia, in the USA, Latin America is always very important, even Russia. We look forward always to understanding the results of these meeting groups to see what impact it could have on the sport and the interests of the sport worldwide. So, as long as the direction of the sport is clear, we’re happy. But clear there is a number of people not so happy clear, we’re happy. But clear there is a number of people not so happy at the moment and they maybe need a change.

    Q: (Daniel Johnson – The Telegraph) Christian and Toto, on the subject of surveys, the drivers are launching their own through the GPDA. How do you view that? Do you take it as a sign that the strategy group seems to have not been able to agree much more than helmets not changing? That the drivers feel the need to step in to this space where they haven’t really before, especially not from a GPDA point of view?

    CH: Well, I’m not sure that it’s the drivers’ specialist area. The GPDA was essential set up as a safety group, to look at circuit safety, drivers’ safety, drivers’ protection. It’s great that they feel that they want to engage with the fans. I’m sure they’ll be willing to put a lot more time in and get out there and meet them.

    TW: I think that Alex was very innovative always and pushing this, and having the idea of a survey is a great thing. It’s going to give us additional input, maybe some interesting findings, that it’s not that easy to actually draw the right conclusions. But the drivers are the essential part of the show so for them to be involved and get engaged is a good thing.

    Q: (Joe van Burik – NU. NL) Question for the front row: there was no driving for 60 minutes in the second practice session because of the rain, this while many concerns are voiced about declining viewership and spectator numbers. Isn’t this a strange situation then?

    RF: I think it’s very unfortunate from the point of view of all the fans that are here and obviously for the TV companies but it’s also very difficult from a team point of view. There’s a high risk of incident in Monaco and it’s unlikely that we’re going to have any rain on Saturday or Sunday. I think you tend to push the limits a little bit too far sometimes. There’s nothing to learn, particularly, if it’s a dry Saturday and Sunday, in going out in the wet and there’s everything to lose, so while my sympathies are hugely there with the fans and the TV companies to fill the time, there is a reason why that’s done, because the drivers want to be out on every lap that they possibly can be, and as a team we want to be out on every lap so it’s not done in any way to be negative to the show.

    TW: Bob said pretty much everything. There is a risk of putting the car in the wall and that makes things complicated for the weekend. The forecast at the moment is much better than what we saw today and it’s Thursday afternoon. Maybe the real impact for spectators and fans starts Saturday.

    CH: Well, we’ve only got four engines so if we’ve had a few more engines maybe we’d do a few more laps. No, I think Bob’s point… you have to make a decision. The first thing is ask the spares guy how many spares we’ve got: not many, OK, so we’re not going to do many laps then in conditions like this, particularly as the forecast is hopefully to get better for the rest of the weekend. It’s a tactic towards your Grand Prix weekend unfortunately.

    Q: (Sebastian Scott – racedepartment.com) Paul, you don’t know if you’re going to be here in 2017. Would you welcome a tyre war with rival tyre manufacturers or even multiple tyre manufacturers, or would you prefer to offer teams four compounds a race?

    PH: Well, we don’t write the rules for Formula One. We’re involved in over 250 championships of which about 90 are open competition, so it depends what the sport wants and then you’ve got to understand the rules, what the cost implications would be so you can’t really have an answer until you know the parameters. At the moment the tender will be for a single supplier so 2017, I might be here or I might be sat on a boat having some champagne and watching it. Probably better to be sat on the boat actually. Yeah, it’s a phase that you go through with various championships so there would be a phase of where the FIA will evaluate the technical competences of people who want to supply and then there’s an aspect that is the important bit which is the commercial aspect with the promoter. So there’s a timetable set out and we will obviously know before the end of the year.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Toto, based on the numbers that are going around about Lewis’s stipend for the next three years, by my estimation he will be earning about five times as much as Dieter Zetsche for working ten per cent of the time. Will he really sell fifty times as many cars as your CEO?

    TW: Dieter, I can’t even comment on that question. This is a market and in that market you have a value or you don’t. Lewis is one of the best racing drivers out there, maybe the best at the moment and he has a huge value for the brand and fundamentally this is what drives his value and this is a classical win-win situation for the team and for himself.

    Q: (Ian Parkes – Autosport) Just following on to the question to Paul earlier about a tyre war; to the four team principals, is that something that would appeal to you, to have a choice of tyre manufacturer? Fernando Alonso spoke very strongly in favour of it, bearing in mind he recalls the Michelin-Bridgestone days of the early 2000s.

    FT: I just hope that no tyre war will come, that means no other tyre manufacturer, because this means that two teams will get the good tyres and the rest will just get this crap, because like it was before, when Michelin was in, it was Renault therefore Alonso has good memories and Bridgestone with Ferrari, therefore Michael was so successful, one of the reasons, yeah? If this comes back, it’s the same story: the two tyre manufacturers, two teams which get good tyres; three tyre manufacturers  three teams and the rest just get what the others don’t like. That means the complete competition would drive in a completely different direction. Then we would have, after now the power unit Formula One, we would have the tyre Formula One. Once the power units are stabilised, we open the next problem.

    CH: I think Franz summed it up splendidly, that one make tyre is equality for all of the teams. I think that in the times of tyre wars then of course effort does have to go behind your leading charge and it will drive costs up immeasurably as you have to develop your car around a specific tyre so I think it’s been one of the successes in having a sole tyre and I think that that’s one of the reasons for example that Red Bull has been able to achieve the success that it’s been able to achieve as an independent team, which we perhaps would never have been able to enjoy in the event that there was open competition with tyre manufacturers aligned to automotive manufacturers, which is of course is where their core income comes from.

    TW: We (Franz and I) are both Austrians therefore we use the same words.

    RF: Yeah, I think putting on the positive side of what Formula One has done well and I think the single tyre choice is one of the things that it has done very well and we shouldn’t change.

    Q: (Graham Harris – Motorsport Monday) Question for Cyril, Christian and possibly Franz: it’s now pretty obvious you’re not going to get any more than four engines. You’ve openly said that you’re going to expect to take more than four engines; when do you expect to take the first grid penalties? Will it be done strategically? And how will you handle it through the year?

    CH: I think it’s inevitable that we’re not going to do the rest of the season on one power unit so hopefully it will do another couple of races and then of course you try and introduce your additional engines strategically – you may not have the choice to do that. But we’ll deal with it as and when it arrives and of course if you replace the whole engine, that’s a different scenario to replacing just the combustion part of the engine for example, so different penalties for different elements of the engine that you have to replace.

    CA: Nothing to add, that’s exactly what we unfortunately have to take into account when we elaborate one plan when we elaborate an engine allocation plan. We try to mitigate the damage to our customer teams from a sporting perspective. It will happen, maybe twice per car unfortunately. Now we have to deal with  that just like an extra parameter, just like an extra constraint.

    FT: Everything has been explained by Christian and by Cyril. We wait and see how long the different parts are reliable and then we have to go for it anyway. I just hope that it’s not here for Monaco and for Budapest. The rest, I’m quite open.