Willis says BAR must break winning duck

Jenson Button
By Josh Barnett + Karl King
January 22 2005

Geoff Willis says BAR must finally break their winner’s duck in 2005. BAR finished second in the constructors’ championship but it was consistency that got them this place instead of race wins. They were the only one of the five top teams not to win a race.

He told the press: "We really must start winning next year. We need to approach it in the same way we approached this year, which was by raising the performance of the team, the drivers and the car, to the point where we got on the podium. Then we went on to get another ten. We need to win on merit. Once we’ve done that, there’s a high likelihood we’ll win more on merit. That’s what gets you into the ballpark of fighting for a championship." Asked for the design philosophy behind the 007 chassis, Willis replied: "It’s an evolution, but it is quite a lot more sophisticated in every way – when you take the bodywork off, it’s very tightly packaged, very neat. I’ve been really impressed by what the design team have done this year. The car has a new Honda engine with a much lower centre of gravity, we have our second generation carbon fibre gearbox which is a lot lighter, new gearbox internals developed with Honda and some new design solutions which have given us a big advantage. It is very refined – we think it has some very impressive features on it. I think we can design a better car than Williams or McLaren, and technically in many areas our car is superior to the Ferrari. The area in which we’re playing catch-up is aero. We don’t have the resources Ferrari have and we’re building up our experience, but I think we’re getting closer."