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PART TWO: TEAM
REPRESENTATIVES – Yusuke HASEGAWA (Honda), Paddy LOWE (Williams), Jody
EGGINTON (Toro Rosso)
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Jody, we’ll start with you. A solid weekend in Monaco for Carlos Sainz
with an equal career-best sixth place finish, he’s also scored points at
five races this season. A word on his development.
Jody EGGINTON: Yeah, Carlos is doing really good job for the team. He’s
developed tremendously since he joined Toro Rosso, he’s very objective in
his feedback and he’s putting together some really good events now and as
reward for that he’s picking up the points for us really. And he’s pushing
the team hard, as he develops as a driver, and playing a big part the
development of what we’re trying to do improve the car and improve as a
team. And we’re pushing him hard, and together we’re responding and he’s
responding and we’re beginning to see some really consistent and high level
results now. So, we’ve got high expectations for him and he has high
expectations for himself and we hope to be able to continue on this
trajectory and carry on as we are and put these good results together and it
will help us as a team to achieve our objective – which is to be in the top
five of the Constructors’ Championship – and he’s playing a big part in
that.
Q: What happened to him this morning?
JE: A hydraulics issue this morning. It left him stranded on track, we
couldn’t get the car back and it’s session-over. But again, he’s put a good
programme together with his engineers this afternoon and gone a good way to
recovering his weekend – which is another sign of his development, I think.
Q: It’s 3-3 in qualifying between him and Daniil Kvyat, so what’s been
preventing Kvyat from unlocking similarly-consistent race results?
JE: It’s a number of things really. We’ve had a couple of reliability issues
which have taken Dany out of points-scoring positions. China being one of
those. Also, we had a couple of bumpy first laps in a couple of grands prix.
Bahrain being one of those where he got shuffled down the field, and then
you’re in recovery mode and you’re having to try to get the car back into
the points, which is difficult. And then in Monaco… Monaco highlighted again
what makes Monaco, Monaco. He had a bad start, and then you’re on the back
foot, and then what followed, followed. But it’s a range of things really.
There’s a few things on the team side and a bit of unfortunate luck – but
the performance is in there and the target remains the same. We’ve got two
good drivers and we’re trying to yield maximum points from them to achieve
the team’s and the drivers’ targets – but he’s been less lucky than Carlos,
I’d say.
Q: Hasegawa-san, first of all, can you clear up the situation regarding the
engine update. I think it was originally scheduled for this Canadian Grand
Prix weekend. What’s the status?
Yusuke HASEGAWA: Actually, we don’t promise normally, although of course
every time I try to update the engine as soon as possible, so every time we
are ready, we will introduce it. Unfortunately, it has not happened here.
So, still we are trying hard in Japan, and so as soon as it is ready, we
will introduce it.
Q: Any prospect in the next race or two or is it too early to day?
YH: Too early to say. So, I don’t give up but I can’t promise.
Q: You will have seen the Zak Brown interview with Reuters this week. What
is Honda’s response to the points he made?
YH: I don’t respond. Yeah, of course we are talking together, even this
morning. It is obvious we are frustrated with the current situation and we
are disappointing with our team result, so there is no wonder there are some
complaining comments – but the things we can do is try our very best for the
team, and we are still aiming to go the same direction.
Q: Paddy, this has been a strong track for Williams over the years: podiums
and a Williams on the front two rows of the grid in three of the last four
years – so are expectations high for Lance Stroll – hometown boy – to get
his first World Championship points this weekend?
Paddy LOWE: Yeah, that would a fantastic result from him actually – but
don’t want to speak too early. We’ll just take one day at a time. He had a
great day today. It didn’t look so fantastic on the sheet – but he wasn’t
running the ultrasoft during P2 today – so he had a good, solid day
considering it’s a new circuit for him and he was just learning his way
through that – so we’re hopeful he can build on that tomorrow and, if we can
get him into Q3 ideally and then score points in the race, that would be a
perfect weekend for him.
Q: And the rationale for not running the ultra, just not to take risks?
PL: So he’s going to run two ultras in P3, so we wanted to give him a clear
run through on the ultra tomorrow.
Q: Jody was mentioning before about getting both cars home in the points and
the importance of that in the fight for fourth, fifth in the championship.
Is there concern with you that six races in you are beginning to lose touch
with Force India in the Constructors’ Championship due to all the double
points scores they have been racking up?
PL: yeah, that’s certainly a concern and it looks to be a challenge to
recover that. We had a major loss in Spain, because Felipe had actually been
in great shape in to Turn 12, but then had a puncture and in the end we
didn’t get any points in Spain when Force India got fourth and fifth on a
day when three of the leading six cars retired. That was a very bad day for
us from a points point of view. We are very much intent on trying to recover
that, but it will mean we will need to build to a position where we are
getting points with Felipe and also with Lance.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Andrew Benson - BBC) Hasegawa-san, just to follow up on the Zak Brown
question, he said that Honda appeared lost on the interview on Wednesday and
today he told the BBC that something needed to change at Honda in the future
to make you more competitive. Do you agree with those assessments? Are you
lost? Does something need to change and why do you think he would say that?
Obviously we see the results on track but there must be more behind it than
that?
YH: It is very difficult but it is very unfortunate that we can’t convince
them that we can do that. From the results point of view of course we need
much improvement, from the performance and the reliability point of view.
So, yeah, we will do everything. We need to do everything.
Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Paddy, they’re increasing talking about
some form of cost control in Formula One and it appears that Liberty are
very serious about introducing something like that. What would you, from a
technical perspective prefer, a straightforward cost cap or would you prefer
restrictive regulations that make a spending war almost impossible?
PL: I prefer a cost cap, or some sort of cost constraint. A constraint on
the input side. I think we had done a lot of experiments over the last 10 or
15 years by trying to control the output side. They haven’t been entirely
worthless those manouevres, for instance the elimination of routine track
testing has allowed us to not need whole test teams and cars to support
those and people to sort those. That has been effective. The control of
aerodynamic testing, restricting the number of wind tunnels you can use,
that’s all been good. But I think the problem with continuing down that road
is that if you really want to reduce the leverage of your spend, in terms of
lap time, significantly you end up having to make the cars too similar. You
end up with a lot of standardization and effectively dumb down the cars
themselves and the innovation with the cars and to be effective it would be
too detrimental to the product that we all enjoy as spectators. So I think
the only real way to solve it is to control the spending at the input end of
things, for which one of the solutions would be a cost cap.
Q: (Sandor van Es – Formula One Magazine) To Jody, about brakes. I guess
braking is one of the key points here in Canada. How do you adapt the car
from Monaco to here in terms of brakes. What is required to change?
JE: Monaco has its braking demands anyway but coming to a circuit such as
Canada there is a lot of work going on the background to define what our
cooling needs are, taking into consideration traffic etc. From our side, to
be honest, I think the guys have done a good job this year and we're fairly
comfortable on that side, but the key point is to make sure you’ve got
enough cooling being supplied and your wear rates are under control and that
you can operate in traffic. We’ve seen this year that it’s been sensitive to
this; for a couple of teams on a couple of occasions it’s been difficult,
but it’s just a case of making sure you’ve got cooling and that cooling is
efficient and you’re minimizing any aerodynamic losses associated with it.
If you can put that together then you shouldn't have any problems.
Q: (Ysef Harding – Xero Xone
News) Speaking with the new owners today they were talking about brand
building, especially in North America where many are not familiar with
Formula One. In cases where there needs to be some type of display for
people who are not familiar with the sport, would you be will with the new
owners to put on a display or demonstration so people can see the product,
see the sport, get close to the cars, see and understand what Formula One
is?
PL: Very much so and at Williams we are already collaborating with the new
owners on a number of projects of exactly that nature. That’s something we
are all very keen to support.
YH: I have no idea but to make this sport very familiar to the fans I think
we have to do everything. I didn’t hear about that idea, so I don’t know.
JE: I echo Paddy’s comments. I think it is important to take that approach
and work together with these people to promote the Formula One brand.
Q: (Silvia Arras - Parabrisas) Paddy, coming from Mercedes, this year for
you is a new challenge of course. Do you feel more relaxed, let’s say having
more time for a new project, a new challenge? What are you feelings about
this?
PL: It’s a very good question. People have said that I look more relaxed the
last few months. I don’t know why that is. When you are at the very front of
the grid there is an expectation that you should win every race and if you
miss a single one then people are asking questions and consider it to be a
disaster then of course that does bring a certain level of pressure, I have
to say! But I think I handle pressure pretty well, so it wasn’t a problem to
me. I think the pressure for me in my new job is very different, but it’s
still very present. We have a lot of work to do. It will be a long road; we
take one step at a time to try to move ourselves forward. It’s a different
kind of stress and maybe it appears differently on my face. But I’m enjoying
it whatever. I always enjoy this job, in whatever context. |
