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DRIVERS: David COULTHARD
(McLAREN), Michael SCHUMACHER (FERRARI) and Ralf SCHUMACHER (WILLIAMS)
TEAM PERSONNEL: Pierre DUPASQUIER(MICHELIN) and Hiroshi
YASUKAWA(BRIDGESTONE)
Q: Can you tell us how the new
circuit layout will affect the tyres?
Pierre DUPASQUIER: We have done some simulations and it will probably not
affect the tyre too much. It doesn't change our position on what should be
an appropriate tyre for the Grand Prix anyway, so we don't expect any
major modification of durability, consistency or graining or things like
that. Not too much.
Q: Last year the winning strategy was one stop, the second placed strategy
was two stop. Do you think it is going to affect strategy?
PD: I don't think it will affect the strategy. What will affect the
strategy is the selection of tyres and the decision will be made to be
very competitive and we will see after the first practice on Friday where
we stand according to strategy. Maybe two, three or four stops, I don't
know, something like that!
Q: Last weekend you had a bit of a hard time from the stones at Le Mans.
Do you expect a similar problem in Grand Prix racing?
PD: In Le Mans you probably find out that it was the front cars that had a
lot of punctures and some other cars had no punctures at all. The drivers
of the three first cars had been asked to stay on the road, which helps a
lot, and in addition they were two seconds a lap faster than the others.
Fortunately in a Grand Prix you don't expect to have so much rubbish of
carbon pieces and stones. They (Le Mans) said they would put round stones
in the gravel trap but they put sharp stones and as soon as they are on
the road the three first cars that hit the stones, they get punctures.
Q: The subject of special treatment between Williams and McLaren has come
up again. Are you under pressure to provide special tyres?
PD: No. We reserve our very special treatment to everybody and so far we
have not experienced any major trouble about it. Every time we did a
significant improvement at the front or the rear of the car, it has been
perceived as an improvement for both companies.
Q: Hiroshi-san. Do you expect any changes to the contracted teams next
year?
Hiroshi YASUKAWA: At this moment we are discussing with all the teams but
basically we are not going to change. I think we will be able to stay the
same but no-one knows for the future.
Q: New tyre regulations have been discussed where you may take one
specification tyre to each race. What are your thoughts on that?
HY: I think we have to consider the safety issues, cost issues and the
image of Formula One. If you want to change specification down to one, we
are very pleased cost-wise, we can reduce things in our costs. Now with
things like these new corners (at the Nürburgring) and the new course at
Hockenheim, and for the future, perhaps we are going to a new course, in
this case we don't have any spare tyres, this is a bit risky and we have
to avoid spoiling the Formula One race.
Q: Is that the concern you would have over the image of the company?
HY: Yep, and also, if we are spoiling the race this is a very bad image,
but also we have to be concerned about three major things in Formula One.
Now, Formula One is one of the top class sports all over the world. Thirty
years ago, the circuit was not so clean and of course some teams were, but
now everything is tidier, the motorhomes, everything is beautiful. But if
cars are going to start on worn out tyres, this is a very bad image and
also this brings in all sorts of safety issues too. At Bridgestone we
prefer keeping a good image, and this image has to work closely with a
team.
PD: Thirty years ago Formula One was not too bad! But I agree with what Mr
Yusakawa said, but the risk is if you screw up with your tyre selection,
then you have no race at all. There is no back up, no nothing. Safety
wise...if we were to have to change three or four times, that's alright,
we would get through the race, but it would be ridiculous, and sometimes
we would be stuffed after five or ten laps because if you get 40-42
degrees instead of 18 or 20 that were expected, then you are in trouble.
Also, development wise, we like to develop our knowledge. If we are
trapped with only one tyre, it is less development, you just gamble. We
understand the target, but we don't like it too much.
Q: Coming to the drivers. I don't know how many of you have seen the first
three corners, but if anyone has had a look, are there any comments?
David COULTHARD: I had a look around yesterday and there are some quite
low speed, tight corners. The second and third of those are more open, the
first one reminds me of Magny-Cours a bit, except it drops down on the
exit, but it is obviously a tight hairpin and it looks as if it might be
quite tricky because if you look at where the pitlane exits, it is coming
out as you cut in because the corner starts to turn slightly before the
braking zone. It obviously creates a little bit more viewing for the
spectators in that area but I don't think it will do anything particularly
for the racing because the straight is relatively short, and usually when
you have a hairpin you would think naturally that would create overtaking
opportunities but I think it will only be like in the past if somebody
makes a mistake off the last corner.
Q: And the start?
DC: It depends on so many factors. You look at Canada. You would have
expected there to have been an incident there but this year there wasn't
so we will have to wait and see.
Q: Michael. Have you had a look?
Michael SCHUMACHER: Not a proper one. I had a look from the helicopter,
and that is not valid because you don't see the drop of the circuit and so
on. I am going to go and look later.
Q: David. We have talked about the performance of the car on different
circuits. How will it do here. Would it be better if it rained?
DC: Obviously the rain factor depends very much on how competitive your
competitors' wet tyres are and we don't have much experience of that this
year, so I think we would prefer to go with the dries because that is
obviously what we have been doing most of the development on. We have two
tyres here that we have a lot of experience of, and we hope we will be
quite racy. Even the not so soft option should still be racy, even if we
can't get away with the first one. I wouldn't expect a big turnaround in
Ferrari's performance so we are probably still chasing them and chasing
Williams but we shall wait and see what happens. The new entry may create
something that suits our car.
Q: Hopefully a light-hearted comment: an elder racing driver has suggested
you are cannon fodder for Kimi Raikkonen and that you should go off to
Toyota. What's your feelings about that?
DC: Old drivers are old drivers, aren't they! I think I have made my
position quite clear. Actually I spoke to Ron in the week and I can't
remember the wording exactly, but I put it in my Scottish way. My position
with the team is clear, but the team are going to wait to make an
announcement once the other positions of other people are clear, or
something like that.
Q: Michael. Do you have a new engine here?
Michael SCHUMACHER: No, not that I know of. We develop consistently but we
don't have the new one yet.
Q: This is your home race. Do you still get a buzz about it, what's
special?
MS: It hasn't changed at all. It's always the same procedure. You feel
sort of comfortable to be here, you come a little bit earlier to the
country to see friends and the whole environment is familiar. Obviously
with the circuit change it's another new challenge to learn. I'm quite
happy from the point of view that the circuit owners have changed the
circuit to make it more interesting for us drivers, to have more
overtaking opportunities, even to increase spectator facilities. So all in
all I'm looking forward to coming here and doing well in front of our
fans.
Q: Now, in the football, are you going to support your team-mate or your
technical director in the first match, and are you going to come in early
to watch the second match?
MS: We have bi-directional telemetry, so I'm sort of aware all the time
what the scores are. As for which team I will support, I think I will stay
in the middle and watch the two teams and see what they do.
Q: Ralf, you've had a couple of engine worries over the last two or three
Grands Prix. Are you fairly confident those have been sorted out?
Ralf SCHUMACHER: Yes, it was a bit of a coincidence really. I don't see
any problem at all.
Q: Have you had reassurance from Mario Theissen?
RS: He doesn't need to reassure me. That's the reason why we have one of
the best engines in Formula One, that's why we have this consistent
development and we go to the limits. Certainly, if you go to the limits,
things like this do happen. But it's not a problem.
Q: You have been criticised for not overtaking your brother in Brazil and
others in Canada...
RS: First of all, many people have had problems overtaking Michael this
year, not only me. In Brazil, there was never a chance and as long as I'm
in the car I'm the one to decide when to overtake and when not to. If
there is not a chance I'm not going to do a stupid move and lose points. I
was never ever close enough in Brazil. Concerning Canada, when I had the
chance, we both... at least Kimi went straight over the kerb, so did I
because I couldn't go anywhere else and then I wasn't allowed to overtake
and then after that I didn't have the chance. That's the way it is. We
certainly weren't good enough out of corners, tractionwise I always lost
slightly, and we weren't quick enough on the straights as well to close up
and overtake. That was it. Whenever there's a chance, I will overtake.
When there isn't, I can't.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: Would Ralf and David comment on the World Council decision on June 26,
what the FIA should do about the Austrian Grand Prix?
DC: I don't have an opinion because I don't know what the format is for
what they are looking at and all the rest of it, so when we know that, we
will see what the result is and then I will know for the future.
Q: Ralf, how do you think you will go this weekend? Will the car be quite
strong this weekend?
RS: Well, we've never really had a bad car this year, so it's going to be
another reasonable race for us. Although I haven't seen the first corners,
they look a lot tighter, certainly it has become a bit slower, which
hasn't been really good for us, but we will see. Last year the car looked
reasonable, we have a better car this year, so it should be fine.
Concerning the weather, we will take it as it comes.
Q: Michael there was a period in Montreal where you had to push very, very
hard, and then later on Montoya appeared to be closing in on you. He was
saying afterwards that he thought you had blistered tyres. How close do
you think it would have been had he not blown up?
MS: He was actually right, I had blistered tyres but I had them in the
first stint as well. It isn't the best thing to have for performance, but
still they performed good enough to win and I think it's one thing to get
close, it's another thing to overtake. You see how difficult it was for
Ralf to overtake and I think it would have been same because, at the time,
when Montoya had done his pit stop, came out and did very good lap times,
I was stuck in traffic. The next lap, on the lap that he blew up, I did
exactly the same lap time as he did, so if you just watched that, it
probably shows that we would have been competitive enough to stay where we
were. It was a race, yes, but I don't think it would have been very easy
to overtake, because we had very good straightline speed and I wouldn't
have seen any opportunity really, unless you make a mistake or something
wrong happens. But in normal circumstances I think we were racing tightly.
Q: Again, a question about football to Michael and Ralf. Michael, are you
a little bit disappointed that you will miss the first part of the game
tomorrow and to Ralf, are you now a little bit interested in football and
the Germans tomorrow, because you haven't been before?
MS: Honestly, I would like to see the match but then we have reasons not
to do the first part of it, but I'm going to watch the rest. I think it's
the end which is the most important part to watch. I will keep my fingers
crossed while I'm driving.
RS: And I will wait until the final, until Germany is in the final. Then I
can watch.
Q: Michael, what is going to be the result tomorrow, what do you think?
MS: I think, honestly, from my point of view at least, if you look at this
championship this year, there have been so many surprises already. Anyone
who sort of feels he's able to predict what's going to happen could be
completely wrong, so I see no point in putting a target out because I
don't think it's realistic. I just cross my fingers and hope they do well.
Q: Michael, don't you get SMS on your steering wheel?
MS: Yes, that's what I said before. I shall be informed.
Q: This is for Ralf and David. The weather forecast for Sunday is rain. Do
you think that the tyre you are going to use here will permit you to
compete against the Bridgestone drivers?
DC: As I mentioned earlier, I don't think we've really established where
we are relative to Bridgestone in wet conditions. We've got a much better
idea in the dry. If it is wet, we will all find out, but I think, as I
mentioned before, I will be much more comfortable if it is a dry weekend.
I think that gives us a better chance of scoring good points.
RS: I'm relatively confident. We have had good tests. We have a sensible
tyre concerning temperature and track but since we haven't driven here in
the wet with the new tyre, it's difficult to say, but I've no doubt they
will work. |
