USA: Friday Five featuring David Richards

By Phil Huff (19/06/2004)
July 2 2004

Lucky Strike BAR Honda's team boss David Richards sat in on the Friday Five press conference, and covered all manner of controversial topics. Here's what he had to say...

A question about the regulations for 2006, which I believe that you’re going to discuss at a meeting on Monday week, where it’s being finalised? I don’t know what the situation is. Have those regulations been agreed on, do you agree with them because we were told you all agreed on them, and what’s the situation with that meeting. What are the contentious issues in those suggestions and are you worried the regulations may be railroaded through? What don’t you agree with?

I think the fact of the matter is that what has been put to us is a set of regulations for 2008, at the end of the current Concorde Agreement, and there can be no argument about that. It’s within the FIA’s remit to present regulations that they are going to run the championship with from 2008 onwards and it’s up to us to decide whether we are going to enter or not. As to whether any of those regulations can be brought forward or there’s any benefit to bring them forward, that’s a further debate, but I don’t see that’s going to happen overnight.

Two questions about the future of the team. How long does your contract as management last for and, similarly, what’s the situation with Honda at the moment?

Both are still having final discussions. The intention is that they’ve asked me to stay on for a longer period of time than my current agreement is and we’re just discussing that at the moment. And Honda, as they’ve obviously told you, are going to continue but, again, the terms of that will be announced by Honda themselves, not me. They’re both under discussions. It’s not an immediate issue, quite clearly, because my agreement doesn’t come to an end until the end of 2006 anyway and the Honda situation is ongoing.

On the question of a set of rules or whatever it is, the crux of the matter very clearly is the commercial deal and if there’s a commercial deal everything else will follow from that. Now it seems to me that Ferrari has a deal. I would like to know if you have agreed terms on a deal and if not, why not? And are there any sensible offers on the table?

I’ve certainly not had an offer made to me but I’ve had it presented to me in the form that I assume is going to be presented in the longer term as a renewed Concorde Agreement, just as a loose outline of it. But I’m pretty sure Eddie’s [Jordan] had the same instructions as well so I don’t think any of us have had any privileged position.

Tony George has advocated his desire to see another United States Grand Prix, possibly on the west coast or something, and he believes it could only benefit this event. How do you feel about that?

I think we have also got to look at how we get better penetration into American per se. Someone was telling a story at lunchtime about how little awareness there was of Formula One despite the fact that we are here this weekend and we were in Montreal last weekend. Will it help us to have an extra race in the west coast? Well, I am sure it will do but there is still an awful lot of work to do with what we are doing already and as far as extra events are concerned I have a slightly different view on this. I would rather do extra events and far less testing. I think extra events actually drive revenue and increase the value to everyone and testing does absolutely none of that. Forgive my ignorance of the technical rules of Formula One but your third car was obviously very quick today with Anthony Davidson second only to Rubens Barrichello. Is the third car required to meet the same technical regulations as the other two cars and if that is the case how impressed are you with his performance today given it is his first appearance at this track?

Well, the answer to the first question is yes, they have to comply at all times with the technical regulations as all the other cars. He does, however, as the third driver, have the benefit of additional sets of tyres, which the other drivers don’t and so fresh tyres do make a significant difference. But nonetheless Anthony has driven superbly all year and he is a really integral part of the team, not just on the Fridays but during testing throughout the season. I would say he is well deserving of a drive in Formula One in the near future.

What are your thoughts on having radio transmissions between the driver and the pit available to the television audiences and also to the fans in the stands who have scanners like they do in NASCAR?

Very happy with it. No problem whatsoever from my side. I think that the one-lap qualifying would have been significantly, or could be significantly improved if you have an interface from the television into the car on the slowing down lap and be able to talk to the driver and get the immediate reactions about his lap. I think we haven’t made the most of single-lap qualifying and the way it is presented.

You have signed off for the new qualifying format from Silverstone, can you give us an indication of how convinced you are that it was a positive move and the right move and are there any processes that have been put in place to ensure the last five minutes of the second session aren’t a huge confusion for fans and televisions audiences with purple sectors and green sectors and the guy on pole not being quickest in the second session?

I think we have consistently proven, as teams, that we should not be setting the agenda here and I don’t think we are actually doing things in a very rational way. In most businesses you consult the customer and you actually do your market research and you say ‘here are the options’ and I think the way to have gone about it personally would have been to come up with three or four options, whatever it might be, and go out there and see what the television audience and production teams want themselves to make the job work for them because we are constantly under criticism of that. But on this particular occasion I think, at the end of the day, it was a request from Bernie, who said ‘this is what I would like to do’ and he put the things forward. And quite frankly he is accountable for the television audience, he is accountable for people coming through the turnstiles, he is the promoter of the championship so I am afraid he got my vote on that basis. I don’t think it is the right thing to do, however.

Why didn’t you want to stage the first half of the qualifying on Friday afternoon so you could have upgraded the Friday, which is still pretty meaningless to everybody?

I don’t remember being asked one way or the other about that particular point. I think the fundamental point, however, is we are playing around with qualifying here but Tony made the reference to the whole notion of the way it was structured to create, you know, not in an artificial way as you do in other sports, but to create a set of circumstances where there would be a grid on Sunday that was different each race. What we have put in is a proposal going forward now for the latter part of the year which will produce the fastest drivers at the front of the grid and will be repetitious time after time in my opinion and it might produce interesting qualifying – I question that, I don’t think it will be very easy to televise – but will certainly produce duller racing as a result of it.