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TEAM PRINCIPALS: Ross BRAWN
(Mercedes), Stefano DOMENICALI (Ferrari), Christian HORNER (Red Bull),
Martin WHITMARSH (McLaren)
Q: A question for you all. Was the result in Bahrain pretty much what you
expected or were there some surprises?
Martin WHITMARSH: We didn’t think we were going to be that slow. That was a
surprise.
Q: But you still finished in the top three.
MW: Yes, we still finished. I think you would have expected the four teams
represented here certainly to be at the top and they appear to be. Ferrari
and Red Bull look very quick. Other than that I don’t think there were any
great surprises.
Q: But in the correct order?
MW: Well, not from my viewpoint, but it was good for Ferrari. They have
obviously done a good job and Red Bull were very quick in qualifying,
startlingly quick. I think we underperformed fairly severely in qualifying.
We were a little bit more respectable in the race.
Q: Stefano, any surprises?
Stefano DOMENICALI: For us it was a fantastic result. To say we were
expecting the result at the beginning, I would lie to you. It was a
fantastic surprise but nevertheless we don’t have to forget that Red Bull
seems to be quicker. I think that we are all very close, so as I said in
Bahrain we took out the maximum result and considering the level of
performance of our main competitors Red Bull, Mercedes and McLaren on top of
the others, I think we should be very happy about the fact we were first and
second.
Q: Christian?
Christian HORNER: The biggest surprise for us I guess was on lap 33 when we
were suddenly running on seven cylinders. But up until that point the
weekend had gone very well. The problem with winter testing is that with the
way fuel loads are now, it is very difficult to predict pace. We stuck to
our own programme and it was only really I guess on the Saturday when the
fuel came out of the cars that is arguably the first time you get an idea
where you stand which was obviously encouraging. The performance of our car
in the race was also encouraging. It was just unfortunate that we didn’t
come away with a grand prix victory which was well within our grasp but
these things happen.
Q: Ross, were you pretty much where you expected?
Ross BRAWN: I think so. There were no major surprises. We are not quite
where we want to be and therefore the results were a little bit
disappointing. But we know what we have got to do. The season goes through
many phases. The first part of the season is everyone establishing where
they are and then reacting to where they find themselves, so we are reacting
at the moment.
Q: Another question to you all. Coming here to a very different type of
circuit, how does your performance here compare to Bahrain? For example,
Martin, I think you learned quite a lot from Bahrain which will be of use
here.
MW: Well, I hope so but I think we have got to be cautious. I think we have
had a reasonable day today. But it is only Friday and as Christian said we
are all looking to do a little bit of long running on heavy fuel and vary
the fuel loads. That makes it pretty impossible to know exactly where you
are. You have just got to follow your own programme but I think we had a
reasonable day, but unfortunately it doesn’t count for anything, so we will
see how we get on tomorrow.
Q: I think you suffered a little bit on the bumps in Bahrain?
MW: We did. I think we didn’t have the right downforce for that circuit and
we also really didn’t react sufficiently to the bumps in the new section of
that circuit. We could have done a better job. I don’t think necessarily
been as quick as Red Bull in qualifying but I think we could have been a
little bit closer.
Q: Stefano?
SD: Here today with the weather condition I think for all the teams they
have not done a complete programme as expected. We want to keep the same
line as we predicted this morning but the fact that the track was not wet
enough or not dry enough that was the reason why we didn’t go out in that
fraction. What Martin and Christian said is totally correct. We don’t know
exactly where we are. You see the gaps are so big that we know that it is
not only the performance on the same level of fuel, so we will know tomorrow
exactly where we will be in comparison to all the other competitors. The
only thing I can say is that at least what I saw this morning it seems that
Renault have done a good job with two cars there in the first 10 places. I
think we need to respect the job that they did. The season will bring us new
competitors the more we go ahead.
Q: Christian?
CH: We worked through a programme. Both drivers seemed pretty happy with the
car. Again difficult to gauge fully where you stand in competitiveness, but
it was a shame that a little bit of wet weather interfered with that
session. But generally pretty happy and we will see how we go tomorrow.
Q: Ross?
RB: It is very difficult to judge where you are as there are four seconds
difference between empty fuel and full tanks. I think everyone runs at both
levels to judge where they are on the first day. You have got to check out
the brakes, you have got to do some high fuel work. I think with Michael
(Schumacher) we made some progress today. I think possibly with Nico
(Rosberg) we went the wrong direction on some set-up changes and he wasn’t
so happy with the car at the end. I think generally we are extracting the
potential of the car which we know is not quite high enough yet but we had a
reasonable day.
Q: Martin, there was a story about the emphasis being very much on
qualifying. Is that more than ever?
MW: I think in the last few years in Formula One you have to qualify near
the front. It is very difficult to overtake and maybe typically there are
less stops. We are obviously on the same fuel load throughout the race, so
we will probably have a bit more emphasis. You have got to qualify well. I
think all the teams here and all the teams out there want to be as close to
the front of the race as you can be.
Q: Stefano, can Fernando Alonso restore the magic when Michael Schumacher
was at Ferrari?
SD: I think it is too early to say that. What we lived with Michael and with
Ross, it was a fantastic period but before saying something it is best to do
the result and then maybe after that celebrate. So feet on the ground as it
is too early. Fernando is a fantastic driver and he has all the potential to
do a fantastic job but we need to go ahead step by step.
Q; Christian, there has been a certain amount of confusion about the reason
for the problem with the lack of pace perhaps from lap 33 onwards in
Bahrain. Can you just explain what happened.
CH: Basically Sebastian immediately radioed in that he had had a big loss of
power. The first time he came past it was obvious that there was something
wrong. I think that anybody who was anywhere near the circuit could hear
that the engine was not running smoothly. Our first diagnostic was that the
exhaust had failed as to all intents and purposes that’s what it sounded
like. He was playing around with some of the mixtures available to him in
the cockpit and trying to adapt his driving style and at that stage we
thought that not only had a race victory been lost but that he was unlikely
to score any points. But he adapted brilliantly well and managed to limit
the damage and come home in fourth place which was a big effort and very
impressive drive from him given the circumstances. On further investigation
the problem was a spark plug that had failed. It is one of those things. Not
seen one like it before, certainly not in a Red Bull car and Renault have
been unable to fully explain the reasoning behind it. It looks like just one
of those rogues which unfortunately struck at just the wrong time.
Q: Ross, looking back a year ago here your own team was making a debut. What
an extraordinary year. Just reflect on the last year and the change.
RB: Yes, it is surprising how quickly you forget where you were a year ago
when you are dealing with the challenges of a new season. It was an
exceptional year for us. Certainly one of the highlights of my career. I
think we have entered into a new phase now with the team where we can be
more confident in our future planning and in our ideas and investment for
the future. Really, quite honestly an astonishing 12 months but what we did
last year very quickly disappears into insignificance in terms of what we
are trying to achieve this year and what we are trying to achieve for the
future, so it was very quickly forgotten. We are more focussed on performing
this season.
Q: And the fire still burns just as brightly.
RB: Oh yes, yes. For me personally a year off reminded me how much I enjoy
the business. I can still get out of bed in the morning and want to get into
the office. The plans we have for the future of the team have been quite
invigorating from my perspective.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Ralf Bach – R & B) Christian, I was very surprised last week by learning
from Ron Dennis about your real problems in the race in Bahrain with
Sebastian. He said your tank is simply too small.
CH: I guess the problem with age is that your hearing tends to fail you a
little bit and perhaps Ron didn’t hear the misfire that was there and
probably didn’t see the fact that the other car also finished the race
without any issues at all. It wasn’t anything to do with the size of the
fuel tank. As I say it was a spark plug issue and that was it.
Q: (Chris Lines – Associated Press) On that fuel issue. We have seen today
that Virgin has received permission from the FIA to increase the size of its
fuel tanks, so that it can finish races. A question to all guys, how close
are you running to the limit of fuel efficiency and on a race like this with
high fuel consumption do you expect to see any teams struggling or having to
drop their pace?
SD: We are in Formula One and we know that everything is related to
performance. The more fuel you put in the car, you have to consider that you
run a little bit slower pace. I think it is always a balance that you have
to consider as you don’t know exactly how the race will be. You may have a
safety car period which can be very long, so you need to make sure that you
burn the fuel when you can. You have a certain period when it is the
opposite and that you need to make sure that you are in the fastest pace
that you can. It is really a matter of finding the right balance in order
not to have any problem as you are referring and also no problem with the
reliability. It is just another challenge this year with these new
regulations which you have to consider very carefully.
CH: I think Stefano summed it up perfectly. You push the boundaries in all
areas. Fuel efficiency is important. Power is equally important but
obviously the amount of fuel you start the race with has an impact on lap
time, so it is down to the engine manufacturers. Their consumption is
something that they have been quite focussed on over the winter.
RB: I think it’s all really been said. There’s a formula which varies from
track to track of power/fuel starting weight and you run the engine in the
best form, both strategically and from a lap time perspective. So you may
chose to start with a bit less fuel and run the engine lean for a while
which gives less power or you may start with a plan to run the engine at the
optimum. I think it depends where you’ve qualified and how you intend to run
the race. I think all of the top teams, certainly, have had enough knowledge
from previous years to be able to judge the size of fuel tank (required) and
none of us have made them any bigger than they need to be. Bahrain is a hard
race in that respect; this is another hard race in that respect, so I think
we’re all on the limit at these races which is how it should be. The systems
are generally sophisticated enough that we shouldn’t run out of fuel – it
doesn’t mean to say we won’t, a mistake might be made but we’ve got pretty
good monitoring of the fuel usage of the car to manage it during the race.
You may see or hear on the radio that management is going on, when you’re in
traffic, when you’re held up by another car, you may chose to save some
fuel, so that you can run the engine at a more powerful setting when you get
a clear track. So it’s just part of the challenge of Formula One now.
MW: I don’t have much to add to that. I think the message is, though, that
even if your fuel tank is ample, big enough which I’m sure it is on most of
the cars, you will still run it to the limit, because that’s what you have
to do in Formula One. We can’t carry five or ten kilos of fuel around for
the entire race. We’re just giving ourselves a weight penalty, so we will,
as the others have said, take some risk to a degree, you will make some
assumptions about how a race is going to pan out and you will fuel
accordingly and during the race you will adjust what you’re doing to burn
the fuel appropriately. So if you’ve got those calculations wrong, then it’s
quite difficult. We will need a bit more data tomorrow to make a judgement
for the engineers before they go into Sunday because today we had limited
running in good conditions.
Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Question for Martin as
president of FOTA: I know that you have discussed with the other teams about
the lack of show in the first Grand Prix. What has been the result of these
discussions, is there something that you can do in the short term?
MW: I think most of us would say that we were disappointed by the spectacle
that was created in the race in Bahrain, but I think we’ve got to be careful
that we don’t jump into decisions on the basis of one race. You look at any
season, you will have races which can be entertaining, you will have other
races that are considerable less entertaining. I think there has been a very
open discussion amongst the teams, we’re aware that we’ve got to watch this
very closely. We’ve agreed to meet again in Malaysia, after we’ve had two
races and I’m sure we’ll talk openly about what the options are, whether we
need to do anything and if so what we need to do.
Q: (Mike Doodson) Christian, we’ve spoken about the comparatively monotonous
race that we had in Bahrain but I’m interested to know about the strategy
both of your team and of Ferrari. If Sebastian hadn’t had the problem, those
two Ferraris behind looked pretty racy to me. Do you think they might have
caught up and we might actually all be talking about what a splendid race it
had been with a big scrap at the end of it? Maybe Stefano would give us some
details about his strategy too.
CH: Yeah, I can’t talk for Ferrari’s strategy. I was hoping the last 16 or
17 laps were going to be quite boring but unfortunately it all changed quite
rapidly with the problem that we had. I think that if you look back twelve
months, there wasn’t a huge amount of overtaking again in Bahrain, even
under the previous regulations. Up until the first pit stop, after the first
pit stop, Sebastian was acutely aware that the Ferrari was going to be
difficult for them to overtake, and heading into that first event he was
quite conscious that he wanted to look after the tyres between managing the
tyres and the race from that point forward. I think he knew that he had a
bit in hand if he needed to respond. At the end of the day, we didn’t get to
see how strong the threat from Alonso was going to be over the last few
laps. Who knows how that would have panned out? Mark was in a different
situation. He qualified out of position and he spent the whole race looking
at either the back of a McLaren or a Mercedes gearbox and was just quite
clearly unable to pass but he had that situation twelve months ago, having
qualified out of position under the previous regulations and faced a similar
scenario where he spent a large percentage of the race looking at the back
of Piquet’s car. I think it’s difficult and it would be premature to say
that’s how future races are going to pan out but we will never know
ultimately what would have happened in Bahrain but we would have liked to
have thought that we had the Ferraris covered on that occasion.
SD: I think that on that point Christian said what I have to say. We were
trying, for sure, to attack in the case that Sebastian was in front but then
what if… I don’t know. If I can say one thing, I think it’s better to focus
on the positive things of this year, that is the fact that we have teams
that are very close. A lot of drivers can be champion and I think that, as
Formula One, we should promote our situation. I don’t understand why we
should speak about negative things after one race. I think that in the past
we have seen very boring races, very, very boring, if I may say. With
respect to Ross, the first couple of races last year, for us, were so boring
that you cannot believe it. I’m joking, of course, but you understand what I
mean. So before saying something, it’s better to wait. We don’t have to hide
the problem, we need to discuss it, as Martin has said, between us in order
to be pro-active about this thing, but I wouldn’t advocate any urgent
measure because maybe we will have a fantastic race here and then suddenly
this potential issue will disappear. I think that we need to be rational
about this. I don’t believe that to change something during the course of
the season will help people to understand what’s going on. I think that
fundamentally, what we should do together, is really to focus on the real
issue that to have no artificial addition to the sport. But at the end of
the day, it’s the car that is so efficient that it’s difficult for even a
fantastic driver to overtake another slow car. That’s the point that we need
to attack, all together, to make sure that we are able to solve it. All
other things like doing something artificial, I don’t think that will solve
the issue. For sure, from the spectacle point of view it’s fantastic to see
rain, safety cars, accidents, that’s the philosophy of a show but I don’t
advocate any urgent measures before a good period of analysis at least. Too
many times in Formula One we have done something too quickly, an emotional
push, so it’s better to stay cool.
RB: I completely agree with Stefano. I think it is important that we do wait
and reflect on what we have before we start making changes. Changes can
definitely be for the worst as well as for the better. Some tracks are not
conducive to overtaking. Bahrain, historically, has been a track where it’s
been very difficult to overtake, so I think we do need to wait and see and
get a few more samples of what’s going on before we see what we have.
CH: I echo the thoughts of the guys really. I think we saw more action in
the first session this morning than probably the whole weekend in Bahrain
and I just have a feeling that there’s going to be quite a lot going on in
this weekend’s race. I think there’s a misconception that there has to be
loads of overtaking in Formula One. Certainly since I was a kid watching
Formula One, I can’t remember any year that there’s been a huge amount of
overtaking but I think what needs to happen is that the drivers need to be
in a position to challenge, to race each other and inevitably if, in a worst
case scenario, a situation like Bahrain continues, I’m sure that
collectively we would look at measures to assist the drivers.
Q: (Ralf Bach – R & B) Ross, I understood 99 percent of the race in Bahrain;
maybe you can help me to understand the remaining one percent. Obviously
there is an advantage this year when a driver stops early, so it was logical
for me that Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull stopped the drivers who were in
front. But your strategy was different. I didn’t understand this, because
Nico was in front of Michael.
RB: I think the strategy is to stop as soon as you’ve got a gap in the
traffic behind you, so you’ve got to make sure that you can come out and use
the new tyres. We felt that we had enough margin with Nico to be able to
react because the time difference on the tyres was pretty finely balanced
with the gap we had with the car behind, so we could react when we needed
to. Nico got held up in the pits; if you watch what happened, Mark and
Jenson came in at a point when we wanted to release Nico, otherwise it
certainly would have been a very close situation with Lewis. So in that case
it didn’t work out for us but basically you were waiting to call that first
stop as soon as you’ve got a gap behind and you can use the tyres. Here,
it’s going to be a little bit different because the tyres take one or two
laps to warm up and therefore it’s not such a dramatic change when you go to
new tyres; it will take two or three laps for the cars can react. But I have
to be honest and say there’s not a lot of challenge in the strategy at the
moment. I think what may happen this weekend is that we may get some safety
cars which will make it much more interesting, but one of the things that we
have lost in my view is the challenge of the strategy because of the loss of
the fuel weights and other variables but those are things that we need to
study and see how we can perhaps bring back in.
Q: (Joris Fioriti – AFP) What options remain to improve the quality of the
show?
SD: I have already answered this question.
RB: I think that the fundamental is do you do something artificial or do you
try and evolve the cars in a different way or do you evolve the tracks in a
different way? There are lots of artificial means of changing things around.
The easiest is to put the fastest cars at the back but I don’t think that’s
Formula One. Things like that can be done. We will wait and see how these
next few races evolve and then decide if there is something that we can do
which keeps the spirit of Formula One.
MW: There is always that fundamental question about the purity of Formula
One versus the spectacle. I think that Formula One was grown and developed
as being the pinnacle of motor sport, the most technically advanced, the
best drivers, best teams. If you get a bunch of hooligans on track, you’re
probably going to have an easier, more spectacular set of events which would
occur. That’s not what Formula One has been. I think it would be wrong if
the teams weren’t carefully reviewing at every opportunity ways in which we
can perhaps improve the show, but I think most of us want to make sure that
we don’t, in pursuing the spectacle, we don’t detract from what Formula One
is, which is a pure form of motor racing.
CH: I very much agree with Martin’s comments. I think you have to look at
the bigger picture, what Formula One is. Being a purist, I think that if you
compare it with other sports, for example tennis at Wimbledon, used to be a
serve/volley game and arguably was boring, but they haven’t concreted the
courts there and people go back and watch every year because it crescendos
into something. I think that’s what we will see with this championship. I
think there will be twists and turns to it, we will have good races and
hectic races as we did last year and we will have more static races,
hopefully, from our point of view, a bit more like Silverstone, which was a
boring race for everybody else but obviously quite a good race for us. I
think the championship will go through many twists and turns during the
course of the year and I think the key point is not to panic, not to knee
jerk into a reaction which could ultimately be to the detriment of Formula
One and the show and the fans, which, at the end of the day, is the most
important aspect. I think we have to wait and see over the next few races,
how things pan out. |
