INDIA in F1

Category: Formula 1

  • It’s business as usual but we are gunning for 10th place: Caterham’s Gerry Hughes

    TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Gerry HUGHES (Caterham), Rob WHITE (Renault Sport F1), James KEY (Toro Rosso), Pat SYMONDS (Williams), Adrian NEWEY (Red Bull Racing), Jonathan NEALE (McLaren)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Gerry, head of track operations at Caterham, could you fill us in on the details of the changes at Caterham in so far as it affects your department?

    Gerry HUGHES: Well, I think it’s fair to say that from a track operations perspective it’s business as usual. The new owners are here for the first time this weekend, to observe the trackside operation. We’ll show then what we do on a race weekend and as I said, it’s business as usual.

    So what are the objectives for the team for the rest of 2014 and looking ahead to 2015 in terms of resources and allocating them and that kind of thing?

    GH: Well, after a period of uncertainty with the new owners coming in, they’ve given us a direction and a remit and certainly our goal for the remainder of the season is to finish 10th in the championship. The design of the new car is going ahead and is on schedule, so we look forward to 2015, but certainly the remit from the new owners is to finish 10th in the championship.

    James, coming to you, obviously some good pace recently from Toro Rosso, but also some reliability concerns – retirements etc. And also of course the issue with Jean-Eric today.

    James KEY: If I could you tell you everything James I think we’d have our issues sorted. I think some of it to be honest is a little bit of bad luck we’ve had recently. I think the last three events for us have been problematic, before then it was OK towards the beginning of the season. We’ve had a couple of self-inflicted issues and we’ve had a couple of unexpected issues. Monaco, for example, was entirely unexpected, we traced the issues we had with the exhaust but they’d never happened before then or after. So that was a bit of a one-off and a great disappointment because we were strong there. Since then we’ve had a couple of niggles that have been self-inflicted – a bit of brake blanking which was maybe a bit too high and this sort of thing, little operational things occasionally. A bit of a surprise in Austria with the suspension issue, so it’s been a frustration for sure, because when you have a little bit of pace and can finish in the points you want to make the most of that. But we’re looking at everything very carefully. Clearly we want to make sure we can get through this rather rough patch of reliability and just get on with the rest of the season.

    Your drivers seem to be performing well and they’re well matched as well. How are you seeing their development?

    JK: I think it’s good actually. I think having both of them so close. Dan’s come in this year and has an old head on young shoulders. His learning curve is extremely steep. His feedback and so on has developed tremendously. He’s been really quite strong right from the outset, which we’ve been quote pleased with. And Jean-Eric is a great driver and he’s more focused this year than we’ve seen him this year. He recognises that there is a hot-shoe across the table, pushing him, so it’s a very healthy situation. They work well together and we’re enjoying the fact that we’ve got two guys who are pushing each other.

    Jonathan, there’s no escaping the fact, when you look at the championship table, that you’re the fourth-placed Mercedes-powered team. What’s the plan for turning it around and do you take some encouragement from what’s happened today in free practice?

    Jonathan NEALE: I don’t think we take much encouragement from free practice today. Just talking to colleagues here about how the track has been today, it’s been quite unpredictable out there, both this morning and this afternoon. We’ve got a lot of work to do internally to rebuild on the difficulties we have last year. It’s well known that we’re actively strengthening the team at the moment. Eric and I and Ron are working hard to make sure we return ourselves to the performance of where we should be as quickly as possible, but it’s a tough job. There’s no easy way through this. You have to remember that whichever end of the grid you’re at, each of us has 80 runs per week in the wind tunnel by regulation. That’s it; you’ve got to make the most of it. So you have to fight hard and that’s what we’re doing. But there’s a lot of culture change going on, there’s a bit of strengthening of the team, there are some tough things to do, but we’re coming back.

    This week Ron Dennis, your boss, gave Jenson Button a little bit of a hurry-up, as we say here in England, ahead of the British Grand Prix. What are your thoughts on that?

    JN: I think he did the same thing to Ayrton Senna. I’m pretty sure he did the same thing to Kevin. I think if you listen to my phone on a daily basis he’ll be doing the same thing to me. It’s chip paper.

    Thank you. Coming to you Pat. Can you tell us about this morning? It was not a trouble-free morning for the Williams team and also this afternoon, with Valtteri’s engine cover.

    Pat SYMONDS: Yeah, it’s been a difficult day. These are the sort of contrasts you get in motorsport. A great weekend in Austria and today we’ve been like a dog running after a rabbit, trying to chase down our problems. Engine problems this morning; power unit problems. We were running and engine right up past the end of its life and it was a risk we decided to take and it didn’t come off. Accident from Felipe, bodywork problems this afternoon. And then on top of that it’s not been an easy day anyway, as Jonathan said. The wind has been gusting, it’s been very difficult to get a read on the car, the tyres have been hard too. It brought us back down to earth today.

    It’s been quite a turnaround for the Williams team from last year to this year. At this stage of last year’s championship you had zero and now you have 85 in the Constructors’ Championship. It shows it can be done but what is still missing do you think?

    PS: It depends what your ultimate targets are and the ultimate target is to win the Constructors’ Championship, so there is still a long way to go there. The improvements that have been made in the team are quite dramatic and they continue to show improvements all the way through. I think we need a good, solid, ambitious, long-term plan and just keep improving from here.

    Adrian, it’s the first time we’ve had the chance to talk to you in an official session since it was announced that you are staying at Red Bull but in a revised role. Can you tell us how hands on you will be in Formula One cars in the future.

    Adrian NEWEY: Much less so than I am at the moment, obviously. I think I will really be stepping back to become an advisor and mentor for the team, the engineers that we have there. Some involvement, of course, in the design. But that’s really towards the end of the year. For the moment I’m still fully involved.

    Obviously there have been some changes at Renault. Can you give us your thoughts on that, in terms of the management changes?

    AN: I think it can only be a good thing. Cyril joining; he’s a very strong person. I think it will bolster Rob in terms of Rob then being able to concentrate on all the technical aspects without having to also be involved in other areas. It plays to his strengths without a doubt and hopefully we’ll see the fruits of that in the future.

    Rob, let’s throw that to you: what does it mean for you and your team of engineers?

    Rob WHITE: I think it’s good that Cyril comes back to us; has a change of colour of shirt. I’m looking forward to sharing with Cyril the way forwards. As we said previously, it’s important that we step up to deliver the improvements that we completely understand are required. I think we have some very clear messages from Red Bull that have been expressed all over the place. It’s not hard to see what’s required. We know, we understand, and my job and of the team at Viry is to deliver.

    So how close to the maximum performance from this power unit, in the current specification, are you?

    RW: I guess that’s a kind of moving target type question. At any point in time you’re always extremely close to the maximum performance of the specification on the day. But the maximum performance of the specification can move on. I think we’ve seen already during the course of this season that we’ve made significant headway without a substantial change to the thing that you probably want to call the specification of the hardware and there’s still scope to progress during the rest of this season and then during the winter period then the way the regulations are, the way the engineering programmes are structured, then there’s more scope.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Marc Surer – Sky Germany) I have a question for James Key. When you watch the top speeds, your car is always right at the top compared to the other Red Bull team – Adrian always builds the slowest Red Bull car on the straight. Was it your intention to always make the car so fast on the straight? And if so what was the plan behind that?

    JK: I think a lot of it is a car philosophy thing. For us, somehow, STR cars have always had a certain amount of efficiency about them: it was like it before these regulations as well. We tended to have cars that were relatively quick in a straight line. So, I think some of it is just natural from where we are. As a team, to be brutally honest, until recently we haven’t been able to extract more rear wing performance until now, so we probably just been a little bit low on rear wing capacity which has helped that. Equally I think that we did look at the competition in winter testing and recognise the only thing we could do to try to address some of the straight line speed capabilities of some of the cars, particularly the Mercedes cars, was to look at drag as well and, from a chassis perspective, try and tackle it that way. But I think it’s a track-by-track thing. Here we’re mid-table, so it’s not always the case.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Question for Jonathan. Jonathan, James said that currently you’re fourth of the Mercedes teams, however next year you’ll be first of the Honda teams. Obviously you’ve only got sixth months to go before the change. At what stage are you with this Honda development programme, who is responsible for what and how are the current testing regulations working against such a project?

    JN: There’s several questions in that Dieter. There’s a lot of work going on in Tochigi and Sakura at the moment with Honda on the power unit. They are responsible for the power unit including the ERS in its entirety. We are responsible for the chassis and the systems integration piece. Hardware is running, the clock is running and time is short and I think there is a lot of work to do before we’re ready for January of next year.

    In terms of how the regulations help or hinder, then I don’t think the current lack of track testing is an impediment because I don’t think we’re at that stage. We not ready for that at the moment to be quite honest with you. So, even if we could get out and run a car that’s not something we would consider right now. We’ve got our hands full with our current issues right now because regardless of what power unit is in the car, we don’t have the best chassis that’s out there and obviously given the performance of last year and this year our immediate focus is what’s going on inside McLaren. So, to some extent, we are doing what we’re responsible for and sorting that out. Of course, with an eye on the horizon. But yeah, we’ve got a lot to do. It’s exciting that the regulations have allowed, or attracted, another engine manufacturer in. I don’t think any of us are under any illusion as to how challenging that is going to be, to go through another iteration of the repackaging, and go through a winter of all of the heat-rejection stuff that we’ve done, the packaging, the ERS etc. We’ve been through it once, we’ll do it again.

    Q: (Keith Weir – Reuters) Question for Gerry. Can I just be clear, you say the new owners are here this weekend. Do you mean the new management or the people who put the money up – the investors about whom there is a little bit of uncertainly about who exactly they are? And have you been given any guarantees as to the level of funding, staffing, that kind of thing for next season, if you’re talking about 2015?

    GH: If I answer the first part of your question first, I suppose you probably know as much about the overall management structure and the investor as I do. Obviously clearly Christijan [Albers] is now going to be the team principal for Caterham going forwards and Colin acting as an advisor for the team. I think in terms of the short, medium and long term investment, that’s not something I’m going to make comment on here.

    Q: (Mike Doodson – GPweek) If there are to be any significant savings in F1 budgets the area in which it would seem logical to a dimwit like me to make them would be aerodynamics which contributes nothing to road car design and has no interest – or very little – to the spectator. What would your response be if someone were to suggest the introduction of spec-wings and aerodynamics generally?

    AN: I’m not sure I agree with the some of the points you made in your question, to be perfectly honest, in terms of there being no interest from spectators. I think if you make the cars of an increasingly fixed aerodynamic specification then it becomes GP1 as far as the chassis is concerned. And we’re already, in my opinion, in grave danger of getting close to that; that the regulations define a lot of the car. So increasingly the cars will look more and more similar. I would actually – and of course you could say I would, wouldn’t I? – but I would be arguing for an opening of the aerodynamic regulations. As far as the cost is concerned then I think the RRA, in terms of restriction in wind tunnel testing and CFD  goes a long way to reducing the aerodynamic cost because aerodynamic cost is two things: it’s the research – wind tunnel, CFD –  which is hugely expensive, then the manufacture of the parts that comes out of that. This year I think we’ve seen a slowing of the number of parts that people are introducing because, as I say, the regulations are quite restrictive by one point, and by another point we are now heavily into a set of regulations that had their roots in the 2009 change. So everybody’s becoming quite evolved in where they are. But I think, certain from what I hear and people I’ve spoken to, journalists, then they insist that the public does have a lot of interest in the changes to the cars, what happens and that’s what differentiates it from other sports. That you have got this combination of different factors. You’ve got the driver, the chassis – which is obviously not just aerodynamics but it’s heavily aerodynamic-driven – and the powertrain. And it’s that blend of features that makes it exciting and interesting. If you look at IndyCar, for instance, which went to one-make chassis some years ago, ever since it’s been one-make it’s viewing has fallen and fallen. That would be my opinion.

    Pat, do you have a view on this?

    PS: Yeah. I think Mike I’d probably take you up on your statement that it’s not relevant. I think it’s extremely relevant. Within Formula One we don’t just develop the components on the Formula One car, we develop techniques. I have, in the past, been asked to use those techniques for a major OEM on road car aerodynamics for drag reduction, very successfully. In CFD, I think Formula One teams push CFD – computational fluid dynamics – much harder than would be happening were we not involved. And particularly in the areas of turbulent flow. That is extremely relevant to things like wind turbines. When you have a whole field of wind turbines, the turbulent flow off one turbine affects those in the wave behind and CFD studies which have been pushed hard in these area by Formula One are used to develop those sort of techniques – so I think what we do is extremely relevant.

    Do you have a view on this Jonathan?

    JN: I fully support what Pat and Adrian have said. I also think that to some extent the genie is out of the bottle of aerodynamics and I don’t think we can roll the clock back and go to the glorious days of sliding bicycle tyres around Monaco. I don’t think that’s going to be quite the spectacle that Formula One is now, in terms of its relevance. I do think that it’s relevant to efficiency and to car production – I would say that because we do that in McLaren with our sports car business – but I also think that a great deal is made of the cost-base of Formula One and the contribution of aerodynamics specifically to it. And I think there are a lot of proxy wars going on there that probably have more to do with income models and how businesses are being run. Nobody’s being forced to spend that. I think there are a whole load of issues being mixed into one – but for aerodynamics specifically, I support totally what Pat and Adrian have said.

    Q: (Haoran Zhao – F1 Express) Adrian, are you going to change your office location because as we understand your office is quite close to Christian? What if Christian just came up and said ‘look, we totally messed up the twin exhaust, just sort this out for me?’ Would you do that, in the future, in the next season?

    AN: I doubt if Christian would come up and say that to me. No, I will maintain my existing office within Red Bull Technology which I will use occasionally. I will have a second office in the new Advanced Technology department.

    Q: That’s where you’re going to spend most of your time, is it?

    AN: It will be the majority there, yes, that’s correct.

    Q: (Bob Bull – BBC.co.uk/three counties) With the current regulations which don’t allow much change of the engines, once you’ve set them for the year, and the limits on what you can do with aerodynamics, do you think that the current situation is stifling innovation and possibly discouraging potential designers for the future?

    JK: I’m not so sure… I think with the engine side the homologation was an agreed regulation and if you’ve got a bit of a disparity in reliability or whatever then that first year could potentially be quite tough for some compared to others. I think it goes down two ways. You’ve got, in some cases, restriction be it chassis or engine which maybe is a little bit off-putting, as Adrian has said, on the aero side, for example. Equally, it does also encourage innovation because you’ve got less areas to look at and some clever ideas often pop out of that. I think it’s just as interesting. It may be slightly more painful but I think it’s just as interesting and if we look at what happened in 2009, I think, when the new regs came along which is similar to what we have now for aero, that’s when things like F-ducts, exhaust-blown diffusers and so-on all popped up. Before that, we weren’t seeing such levels of innovation and that was with something that was more restricted. So I think within restrictions it’s still very interesting from an engineering point of view.

    RW: I think there’s a number of elements in the reply. Firstly, as concerns the engine and the spec, I think it’s important not to get too hung-up about this aspect and certainly not without looking closely at the regulations and understanding them because the fact of the matter is that it’s a double-edged sword. The sporting regulations where the homologation restrictions are contained, are very explicit about what you may and may not do and it’s very simple: you may not do anything without the prior approval of the FIA. There’s a mechanism which is well-established, which works very well which deals with short-term matters. The fact is that it is potentially a restraint if you happen to have a silver bullet sat on the shelf that you want to deploy – well you probably can’t if its purpose is principally to make the power unit go quicker. On the other hand, it protects you if your competitor has a silver bullet on the shelf that he wants to deploy. Going forward, because this was a set of regulations built up over a period of time with some foresight and some knowledge of what happens when the power units are frozen or the engines – as they previously were – then the progressive freeze and the year-on-year permitted evolutions is a window of opportunity. It’s also a window of risk so I think that in the world of power units, to have in mind that there are mechanisms for the design and construction of the spec to change.

    In terms of stifling innovation of designers, which I think was at the end of the question, I think for the time being, at least in the world of power units, we’re not yet there because we have a very complicated set of constraints. There’s a small number of things that are explicitly determined for us in the regulations; there’s many thousands of things that are not and therefore the freedom of expression is substantial.

    And then an opinion that comes back to the previous question: I think we need to be extremely careful about unintended consequences because when stuff becomes really fixed and really standard, then you get into a fairly disreputable situation where in order to gain advantage, then you have to spend a massive amount of money and that becomes poor value for money and that’s an unintended consequence that we must be aware of as the future homologation requirements become more severe.

    GH: I think the regulations are a framework by which we must all work, however they’ve been formed. As James said, obviously the aero regulations span a number of years now so I think there will always be areas for innovation, there will always be areas – as Rob said –  where there’s going to be a greater level of restriction. I think that’s what makes Formula One Formula One, that there will always be innovation.

    PS: I think it’s remarkable that we’re accused of lack of innovation when we’ve just introduced the most innovative power unit we’ve seen in years and I’m not just talking about in racing. And each aspect of that power unit is incredible: even gasoline direct injection, GDI, to run it at the sort of speeds that we’re running has been a bit of a breakthrough. The energy recovery, also a breakthrough. Even on the chassis side, there are a lot of clever things in there: passive pitch and warp-link suspensions, inertia dampers – there are all sorts of things that are still there. I’d agree, we don’t have the freedom of regulation that we might have had twenty or thirty years ago, but we don’t have the money to be able to do those sort of things but we still have inquisitive minds and a lot of the innovation is in the attention to detail these days and it’s all very relevant.

    AN: I think it’s a very difficult one. Obviously, as engineers, I guess we would ideally like the sort of CanAm-type regulation of maximum length and width or whatever it was and do what you like within that, but realistically, that’s not practical nowadays, so I think it’s a very difficult one to strike that balance between something which allows the maximum amount of freedom whilst – as Pat hinted –  not having the budgets going completely out of control, where it becomes a complete spending war and without having a huge difference in the performance of the vehicles, because if we had too much freedom, the chances are that one team would strike it right each year and everybody would complain that the racing’s a bit dull. Unfortunately, that has happened a bit this year but that’s another matter. I think as far as the power train is concerned, the only slight concern that I would voice is that I think it is absolutely correct that these power units are an incredible piece of technology and – as Pat said – something of which we should be very proud of as an industry. What’s not clear is that as the freeze becomes more and more solid – if you like – if one power unit then has an advantage over another or one is clearly behind, how that is addressed, because if you are in that position you have no way of upgrading your power unit because you’re frozen, then you’re doomed to forever be behind but I think that’s something which hopefully can be discussed and should be resolvable, particularly because the engines do all now carry – or all cars carry – torque sensors. Those torque sensors do seem to be a little bit noisy but basically very reliable and give a good signal and so it’s entirely possible for the FIA to look at the outputs from those torque sensors and see where everybody is, not only across engine-matched factories but also of course the variable of fuel, so if a particular engine and petroleum company has the benefit over another, then it’s able to do so and within that, it has the means, if it wishes to, to allow some equalisation for anybody that finds themselves behind in a frozen area.

    JN: I think I need two points that I would add to that is that – Adrian mentioned it there – that there is still room and a lot of performance to be gained through the fuel and lube development which is open. Rob’s already mentioned – or Pat did – about what can be done around the energy recovery systems. But to the point about whether designers feel constrained, then I think it would be reasonable to assume that if the designers felt constraint and didn’t know where to go  then we would see a much closer grid that we see at the moment. Mercedes have clearly put a package together that’s effective in a number of areas and the rest of us are working very hard to catch up. If that were easy, we would have done it by now, so I think there’s plenty to go at.

    Q: (Haoran Zhao – F1 Express) Jonathan, the whole Formula One industry is crying out about the new power unit but yet at Le Mans this year we had 480bhp, six megajoul hybrid unit from Toyota and nobody from Le Mans is crying. Formula One being the peak of motor sport, what has happened and are you happy with the money that Honda is throwing in at the moment?

    JN: Yeah, I’m very happy with Honda coming back, thank you. I’m delighted about that. It was a very ambitious programme. Formula One had the option to stay with the V8 technology but the regulation makers and the teams consulted and the decision was taken to put a very advanced and efficient series together. In our first year, I think that that’s thrown up some interesting challenges, many of which have been spoken about here already but we should never under-estimate the cost of development of these things and over a period of time, with stability, I’m sure that if we looked at the marginal cost of production of an engine in three, four, five years time under this level of homologation, even if there is some equalisation as Adrian discovered, unit cost of production will be very effective. What price the engine manufacturers will want to charge the teams at that point is a moot point but development cost of these vast technology things are not easy to do. We’ve got what we designed.

    eom/FIA release of the transcript

  • With all the fans, I am excited to race again at my home GP: Hamilton

    DRIVERS – 

    Clockwise: Daniil Kvyat (Toro Rosso), Max CHILTON (Marussia), Valtteri BOTTAS (Williams), Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes), Felipe MASSA (Williams), Jenson BUTTON (McLaren) at the Press Conference ahead of British GP at Silverstone on Thursday. Image credit: FIA
    Clockwise: Daniil Kvyat (Toro Rosso), Max CHILTON (Marussia), Valtteri BOTTAS (Williams), Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes), Felipe MASSA (Williams), Jenson BUTTON (McLaren) at the Press Conference ahead of British GP at Silverstone on Thursday. Image credit: FIA

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Lewis, if I could start with you: obviously you were on pole here last year, a former winner of the event, I see you’ve got the Union flag on the underside of the peak on your cap. Your feelings on racing at home and coming home?

    Lewis HAMILTON: It’s always a special weekend or week for us British drivers. Coming here, seeing the fans, already having been at Goodwood and seeing how many people were there and the support that’s coming into this weekend. It’s very exciting for us and the feeling of being at home is really a great feeling. And the support, as I said, for me and Jenson and the guys here, it’s unlike any other place we experience. I’m really excited to see everyone and I hope that we can put on a good show and that the weather stays good.

    You spoke after the race in Austria about damage limitation, particularly after what happened in qualifying. Clearly, I guess this weekend you want to start on the front foot and stay there. So I wonder what lessons you’ve taken away from the setbacks lately?

    LH: There’s not really many lessons. There’s been these two races where we had a technical problem in Montreal and then in the last race I faced some difficulties on the driver side. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn’t, but you’re always going from strength to strength, so we’ve learned some things but nothing we can particularly point out.

    OK, thank you for that. Jenson coming to you. Similar question really to the first one to Lewis: the feelings on coming back to the British Grand Prix and racing in front of your home crowd. It’s a race you’ve not won, but you’ve always enjoyed being here.

    Jenson BUTTON: Yeah, it’s always very special coming home for this grand prix. I think for every driver Silverstone is a special race. It’s a great layout; always a full house, whether it’s sunny, hot, raining, windy. But it’s especially special for a British driver racing at home. Whether you’re doing well or not you get the support. It’s been very overwhelming actually the last few days since Goodwood leading into this home grand prix, I think for all of us. So I’m very much looking forward to driving on the circuit tomorrow and seeing the fans.

    It’s your fifth season with McLaren this year. How do you see things developing from here?

    JB: We will see. For me, right now, it’s about doing the best job I can. The whole team, us as a team are working every day to do a better job. We’re not where we want to be, we’re not where McLaren is used to being, and we know that, so we’re working very hard. In terms of the future that’s something I can’t discuss right now.

    OK, we’ll move on to Felipe: congratulations, I believe it’s your 200th grand prix this weekend you will be celebrating. So your thoughts on that and also on his rich run of form at the moment for you and the Williams team?

    Felipe MASSA: Yeah, I think it’s a fantastic race to celebrate [at]. I think it’s an important achievement. It’s already a long time, when I started in 2002. It’s really a great feeling to have 200 races, in a great team, Williams-Martini home grand prix as well, at a great track, fantastic fans. So I hope we can have a very strong race, like we had in Austria, so I hope we carry on fighting [and we are] competitive. So I’m realty happy and I’m really happy with the team I’m celebrating 200 grands prix [with] as well, so I hope we have many races in front. It’s a great placed as well. Everybody knows everything about Formula One, everything about racing cars here. Sometimes you just see pictures and you have no idea how fans have amazing pictures like that to sign, that are very close to us. It is a great feeling.

    You’re kind of unusual I guess to have got to 200 grands prix and it’s the first time you’ve come here racing for a British-base team – that doesn’t happen very often. Your thoughts on that, the Britishness of the team and what that represents to the country.

    FM: Yeah it’s a great team. It’s a very important race for me; it’s a very important race for Williams as well. For us, me and Valtteri, as well, for the championship. We are working very hard to improve and be better and better race by race and I think that’s what we are managing to do and it’s really a great feeling and I hope we have a good one.

    Valtteri, coming to you. As Felipe was saying obviously it’s a good run of form for the Williams team at the moment. You got your first podium a couple of weeks ago in Austria. Do you feel you can take on the Mercedes again this weekend.

    Valtteri BOTTAS: Well, I think overall Mercedes has been performing really, really strongly. It’s been difficult to keep up with them in most of the races – I think Austria was maybe a one-off, we will see. We know that we have been improving but you expect everyone else to do as well. It’s difficult to say. I think this season, we are going to see, the rest of the season, it’s going to vary quite a bit the performance between us and them, so we will see. We will do our best.

    After the race in Austria, you always have a debrief, all drivers do with the team, when you went through and looked at everything did you learn anything, were there any mistakes there or were you happy with the way it worked out.

    VB: Well, we’re definitely happy with the result we got – third and fourth, a lot of points for the team, that’s the main thing. I think it’s like every race, always if you look into the fine details you can always something, maybe, you could have done better. But the main feeling is very positive. It’s really good to continue from here. There have been many opportunities we could have done a lot better in previous races and now we’ve done a solid job, so that’s good to see. We know we can do it, so it’s good to continue from here.

    Max, coming to you, home race for you as well, of course. What experience did you have last year when it was your first time and what are you looking forward to this weekend?

    Max CHILTON: I’m just obviously looking forward to another home grand prix. Last year was pretty special. Your first ever home grand prix is something you won’t ever forget. I’m probably a little bit biased, but I’d like to think that it is, if not the biggest grand prix of the year, then certainly one of them. It’s just awesome to have so many spectators, a lot of them are camping, and waving the Union Jacks. I remember last year, free practice one was typical English, with lot of rain, but they were still there doing the Mexican waves and having amazing spirit, so I just hope we can put on a good show for them this year.

    You’ve out-qualified your team-mate for three of the last four grands prix. What’s been making the difference for you lately?

    MC: Just experience. Qualifying’s always been one my strong points but when I came to F1 I struggled initially. But with experience I’m working that out and I’m developing as a driver. There are techniques you can use as well. I find visualisation really helps. It’s a weird sport we’re in. You very rarely get to practice what we preach. Golfers, tennis players are out six hours a day; with us, yeah we have simulators but apart from that we’re not doing the sport that often. So the more you can practice, in any way possible, helps.

    Daniil, last three grands prix, you’ve qualified twice in the top 10, but you’ve had three straight retirements, so I guess the feeling at the moment is one of frustration, right.

    Daniil KVYAT: Well, yes, it’s true. We had quite good speed, which we couldn’t consolidate into some good result unfortunately. But last three races we couldn’t come to the end, but I think it’s been a good sign that we do have speed, we do have something to fight for and we’ll just keep on fighting.

    So overall then, half way through you first grand prix season, are you happy with the impression you’ve made in Formula One?

    DK: Yeah, looking back on it, I think we’ve been achieving maximum from ourselves, we’ve been taking maximum out from our package. I was always learning some new things, it’s been always a good improvement through the season. It’s been good but it doesn’t feel like half a season anyway. We’ll see what the next half of the season will bring us.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Huansho Zhao – Formula One Express) A question to Jenson and Lewis. Murray Walker asked you two this question back in 2010 when you were still team-mates, that we had a colossal fortnight of sport, England’s out of the World Cup, Andy Murray’s out of Wimbledon, Britain is looking at you two, perhaps three of you, how do you feel about Sunday, are you afraid of history repeating itself. Would you like to give your 2014 answer to this question?

    JB: I personally feel all the pressure is on Lewis!

    LH: I think it’s the other way around!

    JB: He’s in the best car, c’mon, make it happen! For us, for Max and I suppose a little bit for myself it’s going to be tricky to get on the top step of the podium and, yeah, it would be amazing to have a British victory. The crowd would go absolutely wild. So, I’d love to see that. For us, as I said, it will be difficult but Lewis has got a shot so hopefully that will be the case.

    Lewis, you feel a sense of responsibility?

    LH: I was going to say exactly the same thing about Jenson, I think we should hand the baton over. No, at the end of the day we’re both, all of us, are going to do our utmost to try to represent and perform for the country. You never know how the weekend’s going to go, you never know how people have developed, improved – but of course, us as a leading team, hopefully we’ll have a good shot this weekend and I’ll do everything I can to bring at least a little bit of joy and add to the great success that some of the top athletes have.

    Q: (Abhishek Takle – Midday) Questions to Felipe. Firstly, congratulations on 200 races but, if you look back to around 2012, you had I suppose a lowest point of your career in terms of competitiveness. Looking back at that time, with all the pressure and some people saying you shouldn’t be in Formula One, did you at that time think you would make it to 200 races?

    FM: Well, for sure, yes. I was thinking that everything is possible. Things change very quick in Formula One. All of us, we have good times and difficult time. You always need to pass through a difficult moment. You always learn, and definitely I learned. And I still believe I have many races in front and I still believe I can be competitive and I think when you don’t believe anymore, it’s the time to stop. But you need to feel, not what other people say. I really feel competitive and there’s still a lot more that I can do.

    Q: (Ian Parkes – PA) Question for Jenson. Ron Dennis came out with some rather intriguing comments recently urging you to ‘try harder’. Just wonder what your thoughts are on that: whether you agree with him even, or whether you are in fact giving your all in what is a relatively uncompetitive car again this season.

    JB: I think Ron’s practicing to be a motivational speaker maybe. I think when we’re in the position that we have been in for 18 months, it’s not easy. For anyone within the team. It’s very, very difficult. So, no, I think we all need to work harder as a team. I don’t think we should be pointing a finger at any individual within the team. I think we’ve got ourselves into this situation and we’ve got to fight our way out. I don’t do things in half-measures. I have the experience in Formula One to know that you need to give 100 per cent and I always do every time I’m in the paddock, at the factory, on the phone to my engineers. Everything is 100 per cent.

    Q: (Luke Murphy – Formula Spy): Question for all drivers. There’s been some minor criticism of Pirelli lately that their tyre choices have been too conservative. I just wanted to know what your opinions were on that.

    VB: I think the compound choices for the last two or three races haven’t been too bad. Obviously the compounds are a bit harder than last year. Those are the compounds and they choose the tyres we need to use in the race weekend and it’s our job to make the most out of them. So, that’s it.

    Max, anything to add?

    MC: No, not really, I’ll just copy what Valtteri said. The tyres are pretty conservative, they haven’t been too bad.

    Felipe?

    FM: Yeah, sometimes a little bit conservative. So, I like… I think in the last two races it was fine. When it’s one stop it’s a little bit boring, I prefer maybe two or three. Two is fine. I think, y’know, using the very hard tyres is not really great, I prefer it to be a little bit better than how it is.

    Lewis, I guess in a tight battle like yours, the strategy is an important part of the game – you want more options rather than less?

    LH: erm… no, I was just thinking this isn’t a bad thing. Pirelli have done quite a good job this year. We haven’t had any tyre blow-outs, which is a real positive for us, it’s what we wanted. You can’t always get it perfect, so whether or not they’ve gone a little bit too far in that direction, we can decide perhaps at the end of the year. I’m sure they’ll alter it again for next year. Of course we always want more grip, so every time they get softer, that’s a good thing for us.

    Jenson, anything to add?

    JB: Yeah, I think the last three races it’s been the right choice to have the supersoft and the soft. Barcelona  felt a bit too hard but I mean it’s pretty difficult being limited to only four compounds throughout the season. Here it’s the hard and the medium but you need a bit of stability for the high-speed corners, so, if the temperature’s alright, it should be fine.

    Final thought Daniil?

    DK: I have no problem with Pirelli, it’s all good for me.

    Q: (Sarah Holt – CNN) Tomorrow we’re due to see the first female on track for 22 years when Susie Wolff takes part in first practice for Williams. That’s got to be a good thing for the sport, especially in terms of being an inspiration for future females who want to take part in motor racing. I wonder if Valtteri could comment first as Susie’s teammate, and also if we could hear from Lewis and Jenson as well?

    VB: I think it’s great from Williams that they give the opportunity and she’s already been with Williams quite a bit doing development work in the simulator and did a test after Barcelona. I think it’s really nice to see her getting the opportunity to drive in the race weekend in FP1.

    Q: Lewis, I guess you raced against quite a lot of girls lower down in karts but they’re no longer competing when you get to this level. Your thoughts on whether this will be inspirational?

    LH: I didn’t race against many girls. Susie was one of the very few if not the only one that I raced against. I saw her in karting but she was always in the class above me and then we raced Formula Renault together. She was great. We shared a podium together a couple of times. I think she’s done remarkably well in her career. She’s very very talented, so happy. It’s going to be really cool, I think, to see her in a Formula One car tomorrow.

    JB: Yeah. First of all it’s good that it’s Silverstone as well. From what I’ve heard, she knows this circuit as well which is a positive thing. Jumping into a Formula One car, I’m sure she’ll feel a little bit of the pressure in front of the home crowd, but she’s been working with Williams for quite a while so I’m guessing she knows the ins and outs of the car and the team. She’s also driven already – hasn’t she? – in a test and went very well. So it will be good to see her on track tomorrow.

    Q: (Mike Doodson – Auto Action) This is for Max: I was very interested in you talking about visualisation. I think other drivers have done the same in the past. I wonder what is the procedure you take to sit down quietly and particularly have you ever timed your visualised lap and how close did it come to the real one?

    MC: Yeah, it’s something I’ve heard about a lot in the past. It’s all trial and error. You have to try things to work out if you like them or not. It’s just worked with me recently. I tend to start it the week before a Grand Prix and yeah, you just do it in some quiet space. As you know, it’s not deadly serious, you just kind of practise a lap and obviously the first few laps you’re miles out and then you just gradually get into it and you build from previous memories and you slowly get down to a time where everything is just there and ready to kind of be extracted into the car, so when you’re actually doing your first flying laps on a Friday, it’s kind of there ready to be used. It’s a simple technique which helps and – as I said earlier – our sport is very weird, we’re very rarely actually doing what we preach so the more practice we can get the better.

    Q: Is visualisation something you all do? Yes. No. No. No.

    Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Lewis, how important is it for you to win here and turn the championship back to your momentum, because it seems – looking from the side – that until Monaco, your season was quite smooth and then it seems that you were a little bit surprised  about how hard is the fight. Is this the wrong impression?

    LH: I’m not surprised. I’ve known how close it’s been since the beginning of the year. Nico won the first race. As every race, it’s important to be out ahead. I had the advantage for a few races and Nico’s had that for at least the last couple. But now this is the British Grand Prix, I’m going to do everything that I can to be out in front and as I said, try and represent… when it’s your home Grand Prix, it’s one of the greatest experiences you can ever have as a sportsman and as a driver, so that’s what I’m working towards this weekend.

    Q: (Alan Baldwin – Reuters) Three guys in the front, there were some comments this week from Bernie about Monza, suggesting that it might not be on the calendar much longer. I wonder if you could just comment, as the guys who had been there the most of the six here, as to whether we should take that seriously and how much of a loss for Formula One if it were to go?

    FM: Yeah, I think we’re still carrying on racing in Monza. It’s a fantastic place, great fans, so for sure, if we are not racing in Monza any more it would not be good for Formula One. We need to go to places that people really love – Formula One racing, like Silverstone. If we lost Silverstone it would not be positive, it would be a negative for all of us so I hope we can keep going to Monza for many many years.

    JB: It’s an iconic racetrack, one of the old school tracks. There’s so much history. The fans absolutely love this sport, they will do anything for this sport and they’re not going to be there to support us, they’re there to support a certain team, but that’s great to see. It’s nice to see their passion, they’re very patriotic and the circuit’s fun to drive. It’s a very unique circuit, very different to any other circuit, very low downforce circuit, always throws up a good race so it would be a shame not to see it on the calendar.

    LH: Yeah, I agree with both what Felipe and Jenson said. I think it’s important not to forget that this sport would not exist if it wasn’t for the fans. Obviously there are certain business decisions people make but there’s tracks we’ve been to where there’s been no one in the grandstands and there’s a few, particularly, which are very very special like Monza where you have a full.. you know, the circuit’s just full of fans and it really does make the event. I think it’s important that we try and keep that in the sport.

    ends/FIA release of the transcript

  • World Council accepts re-starts after stoppages from 2015: F1 races

    Munich, 26 June 2014: A President praised co-hosts the Deutscher Motor Sport Bund E.V. (DMSB) and the Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil Club E.V. (ADAC) for their support of the week which welcomed representatives from over 109 ASNs to Munich, up from 74 in 2013.

    The following decisions were taken by the WMSC:

    FIA FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

    Changes to the F1 Regulations for 2015 have been agreed by the WMSC.

    The last date at which the sporting and technical regulations can be changed without unanimous agreement has been changed from 30 June to 1 March each year, starting from 2015.FIA logo1

    Changes to 2015 Sporting Regulations

    Power units

    –       The number of engines permitted by each driver in a season will be four. However, if there are more than 20 races in a season, the number will increase to five.

    –       The penalty for a complete change of Power Unit will be starting from the back of the grid, not the pit lane.

    Aerodynamic testing

    –       The number of wind tunnel runs will be reduced from 80 hours per week to 65 hours per week.

    –       Wind-on hours are to be reduced from 30 hours per week to 25 hours.

    –       Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) usage is to be reduced from 30 Teraflops to 25 Teraflops.

    –       Two periods of tunnel occupancy will be allowed in one day (rather than only one).

    –       Teams will only be able to nominate one wind tunnel in one year.

    Testing

    –       There will be three pre-season tests of four days each in Europe in 2015 (currently teams are able to test outside Europe). This will be reduced to two tests of four days in 2016.

    –       There will be two in-season tests of two days each in Europe (instead of the current four). Two of these four days must be reserved for young drivers.

    Car specification at an Event

    The current restrictions to the parc fermé will now apply from the start of P3 instead of the start of qualifying.

    Wheels and tyres

    The ban on tyre blankets will be rescinded for 2015. This will be re-discussed if and when the wheel and tyre diameter increases in the future.

    Personnel Curfew

    The Friday night curfew will be extended from six to seven hours in 2015 and will increase to eight hours in 2016.

     

    Safety Car restarts

    Safety Car restarts will now be a standing start from the grid. Standing starts will not be carried out if the Safety Car is used within two laps of the start (or restart) of a race or if there are less than five laps of the race remaining.

    Changes to 2015 Technical Regulations

    A number of changes have been made, including:

    –     A number of new regulations for the noses to ensure improved safety and to provide more aesthetically pleasing structures.

    –     A number of new regulations concerning skid blocks to ensure that they are made from a lighter material (titanium) and are better contained.

    –     New regulations to ensure that the brake discs rotate at the same speed as the wheels.

    –     A two-stage wheel fastener retaining system is now compulsory.

    FIA WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP

    From January 2015, Priority 1 and 2 drivers will be obliged to do a minimum of three passages through the shakedown stage in order to provide greater media and promotional opportunities. Accordingly, the number of tyres used during shakedown will not form part of the total allocation for the event.

    FORMULA E CHAMPIONSHIP

    A number of amendments have been made to the sporting regulations (available online).

    The 2014/15 Calendar of the FIA Formula E Championship will be as follows:

    Date Venue Country
    13.09.2014 Beijing CHN
    18.10.2014 Putrajaya MLY
    13.12.2014 Punta del Este URY
    10.01.2015 Buenos Aires ARG
    14.03.2015 Miami USA
    04.04.2015 Long Beach USA
    09.05.2015 Monaco MCO
    30.05.2015 Berlin DEU
    27.06.2015 London GBR

    A tenth race is to be confirmed for 14 February 2015.

    The ten teams entered for the FIA Formula E Championship are as follows:

    – Andretti Autosport Formula E Team

    – Audi Sport ABT Formula E Team

    – China Racing Formula E Team

    – Dragon Racing Formula E Team

    – e.dams Formula E Team

    – Mahindra Racing Formula E Team

    – Super Aguri Formula E Team

    – Trulli Formula E Team

    – Venturi Formula E Team

    – Virgin Racing Formula E Team

    SINGLE-SEATER COMMISSION

    It has been agreed to establish a 2015 FIA Formula 3 Middle East Cup which will take place in January 2015. The first edition will be held in Bahrain. A call of interest for promoters will be launched.

    Changes to the FIA F3 technical regulations have been made to reduce running and development costs. The homologation period of the current chassis has been extended until 31 December 2017.

     

    ENDURANCE COMMISSION

    The 2015 Le Mans 24 Hours will be held on 13-14 June (with a test day on 31 May).

    GT COMMISSION

    As from 2015, a new FIA Drivers Categorisation will replace the current FIA WEC and FIA GT3 lists with the aim of categorising drivers (Platinum, Gold, Silver or Bronze) in a standardised manner based on three criteria: age, record of achievement and performance.

    HISTORIC MOTOR SPORT COMMISSION

    It was agreed to set the cut-off year for recognition of cars considered as ‘historic’ at 1990, at least for the next 10 years. Furthermore, it has been decided to extend the period of validity for Historic Technical Passports from 5 to 10 years.

    A working group is to be established, chaired by President of the Historic Motor Sport Commission, Paolo Cantarella, to investigate the classification of cars dated 1990 on that are not historic but which no longer satisfy the latest safety criteria.

    OFF-ROAD COMMISSION

    Further to proposals by the new Rallycross Technical Working Group, made up of representatives of the FIA, the promoter and the teams entered in the World Championship, a revised set of Technical Regulations for Rallycross will be in place as of 1 January 2015. This includes the broadening of possible engine options, allowing the use of ‘custom’ engines.

    WOMEN IN MOTOR SPORT COMMISSION

    The FIA, represented by FIA Women in Motorsport Commission President Michèle Mouton, signed the Brighton Declaration on Women and Sport on 12 June, underlining the Federation’s commitment to encouraging and supporting the promotion of women in motor sport. The signing took place on the occasion of the 6th International Working Group World Conference on Women and Sport, hosted in Helsinki, Finland.

    FIA EUROPEAN DRAG RACING COMMISSION

    The race scheduled for Sweden on 15 June 2014 is cancelled.

    VOLUNTEERS AND OFFICIALS COMMISSION

    The creation of a new award “Best Team of the Season” was approved. This award aims to reward a group of officials nominated by the ASNs who have achieved excellence in their teamwork. The ASNs will be free to nominate this award to either: all (or a group of) the track or road marshals (or scrutineers, timekeepers, the medical team, etc.) of a given competition; or all the officials of a given competition.

    LAND SPEED RECORDS COMMISSION

    The only confirmed record attempts currently scheduled are at the ACCUS Annual Event at the Bonneville Salt Flats in the USA, on 11-16 September.

    CIRCUITS COMMISSION

    It was agreed to amend the marshal flag signal rules to reflect current practices and harmonise them with the Code of Driving Conduct. The light blue flag should normally be waved, as an indication to a driver that he is about to be overtaken. It has different meanings during practice and the race.

    During practice: A faster car is close behind you.

    During the race: The flag should normally be shown to a car about to be lapped, if the driver does not seem to be making full use of his rear-view mirrors. When shown, the driver concerned must allow the following car to pass at the earliest opportunity.

    Next WMSC

    The next meeting of the WMSC will be held in Beijing on 11 September 2014.

    eom/FIA release

  • Rosberg pips Hamilton to extend championship lead; Maiden podium for Bottas

    Spielberg, 22 June 2014: Mercedes AMG Petronas driver Nico Rosberg took his third win of the season at the Austrian Grand Prix ahead of Lewis Hamilton despite a determind charge by the Briton to second from ninth on the grid.

    The German’s win extends his World Drivers’ Championship leade over Hamilton to 29 points. Williams’ Valtteri Bottas claimed his first podium finish with third place ahead of pole winner Felipe Massa. Sahara Force India was once again in double points as Sergio Perez, who disappointed with an controversial last-lap clash in the last race, did a wonderful job finishing 6th after starting 16th while Nico Hulkenberg, lost a place to Daniel Ricciardo during the fag end, but managed to finish ninth.

    Hamilton *lef) had to be content with a second place as Rosberg extended his championship lead. A Mercedes AMG Petronas image
    Hamilton *lef) had to be content with a second place as Rosberg extended his championship lead. A Mercedes AMG Petronas image

    At the start, pole position man Felipe Massa made a solid getaway to hold the lead. Behind him Bottas lost P2 to Rosberg into Turn One but managed to wrestle back the advantage at the following corner. Behind them Hamilton made a storming start, climbing to fifth from ninth on the grid. He went one better in the final turn of lap one to pass Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and he then settled in behind team-mate Rosberg as the field crossed the line to begin lap two.

    Sebastian Vettel though was in trouble. At the start of lap two he slowed dramatically and reported that he had lost power. He pulled over and seemed set to stop but then mysteriously his RB10 seemed to right itself. He was told to ‘go racing’ by race engineer. The champion though was a lap down on the field and a significant recovery looked impossible. The Red Bull driver soldiered on at the back of the field, surviving a collision with Esteban Gutierrez along the way, until he was eventually told to retire his car midway through the race.

    Team-mate Daniel Ricciardo also had a rocky start. Pushed wide in turn two on the first lap he dropped from fifth on the grid to eighth. He was soon after informed that he should not use his overtake button for the whole race and hampered by power problems he was soon down to tenth.

    With the opening supersoft tyres being used by the bulk of the field graining badly, the first round of pit stops wasn’t long in coming. The main body of stops was triggered by Jean-Eric Vergne on lap eight, the Toro Rosso swapping the option tyres for prime softs. He was followed a lap later by Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg and on the following lap by Kevin Magnussen, Daniil Kvyat and Ricciardo.

    Rosberg pitted from third place on lap 11, allowing Hamilton to fly past. Hamilton couldn’t find the pace necessaryon his own in-laps and stop, however, and when he emerged after his own stop on lap 13 he found himself just behind Rosberg.

    Leader Massa, meanwhile, was readying himself for his tyre change on lap 14. His stop was far from perfect however and when the Brazilian emerged he found himself behind Rosberg and was then quickly passed by Hamilton.

    Bottas’s stop on lap 15 was much quicker, however, and the Finn was able to split the leading Mercedes after taking on soft tyres. The order on lap 16, then, was Sergio Perez, who had started on softs and had yet to pit, followed by Rosberg, Bottas, Hamilton, Massa and McLaren’s Jenson Button, who had also started on the soft tyre from 11th on the grid.

    On lap 27 Rosberg passed Perez for the lead, the Mexican ceding the position without much of a fight having been told by his pit wall that the race would come back him as his strategy played out later on. Bottas too sneaked through but Hamilton had to wait until the next tour before he could pass the Force India. The delay allowed Rosberg to pop in a fastest lap. Hamilton responded with his own but the gap had by now drifted to 2.4 seconds.

    Perez eventually made his first stop on lap 29, tajking on a second set of softs before rejoining in seventh position.

    At the front the battle was hotting up again as Bottas and Hamilton closed in on Rosberg, who made a small mistake. The Williams driver got to within a second of the leading Mercedes, with Hamilton in close attendance, but Rosberg soon responded and the gap widened to 1.1s.

    Hamilton made his second stop in lap 39, taking on a final set of softs and rejoining in fifth. Rosberg though kept going for another lap and following a three-second stop he retained his advantage over Bottas and Hamilton. When Bottas pitted on lap 41 his relatively tardy 3.4s stop allowed Hamilton to move ahead and claim second.

    Massa made his final stop on lap 43, switching to soft tyres in 3.4s. The Brazilian then unfortunately found himself behind Sergio Perez, who was set for a longer stint on his second set of soft tyres.

    On the road the leader was Alonso and the Ferrari driver continued until lap 47 when he took on his final set of soft tyres. He emerged in sixth place behind Massa. At the front, Rosberg led by 1.6s from Hamilton, with Bottas a further 5.7s behind.

    The question now was whether Perez in P4 and Button in P7 behind Alonso could make any impact once they made their final stop for supersoft tyres?

    Unfortunately for Force India, the answer was not much. Perez took on the option tyre on lap 55 and rejoined in eighth position, five seconds behind McLaren’s Kevin Magnussen. The Mexican had enough pace in hand to pass Magnussen for sixth place on lap 66 but with a 13-second deficit to Alonso and just laps left sixth was the best Perez could do. Button, meanwhile made his stop on lap 58 but lodged behind tenth-placed Raikkonen in the closing stages the McLaren driver failed to make a significant move.

    At the front the battle for the lead finally flared in the final three laps, with Hamilton attempting to get inside DRS range of his team-mate. With a lap left and with Hamilton just 1.1s behind his team-mate both drivers were told they could use all the tools at their disposal. As the pair went through turn three Rosberg lit up his brakes. Hamilton saw an opportunity but he too erred in the corner and the chance was gone. Rosberg hung on to claim his third win of the season. The win means he stretches his championship lead over Hamilton to 29 points.

    With Hamilton second, Bottas took his first podium finish with third ahead of Massa and Alonso. Perez held onto sixth ahead of Magnussen but Ricciardo made and exdellent last-lap pass on Hulkenberg to steal eighth. The final points position went to Raikkonen who easily kept Button at bay.

    2014 Austrian Grand Prix – Race Result
    1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 71 1:27:54.976 3 25
    2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 71 +1.9 secs 9 18
    3 Valtteri Bottas Williams 71 +8.1 secs 2 15
    4 Felipe Massa Williams 71 +17.3 secs 1 12
    5 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 71 +18.5 secs 4 10
    6 Sergio Perez Force India 71 +28.5 secs 15 8
    7 Kevin Magnussen McLaren 71 +32.0 secs 6 6
    8 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing 71 +43.5 secs 5 4
    9 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 71 +44.1 secs 10 2
    10 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 71 +47.7 secs 8 1
    11 Jenson Button McLaren 71 +50.9 secs 11
    12 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 70 +1 Lap 13
    13 Adrian Sutil Sauber 70 +1 Lap 16
    14 Romain Grosjean Lotus 70 +1 Lap 22
    15 Jules Bianchi Marussia 69 +2 Laps 18
    16 Kamui Kobayashi Caterham 69 +2 Laps 19
    17 Max Chilton Marussia 69 +2 Laps 21
    18 Marcus Ericsson Caterham 69 +2 Laps 20
    19 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber 69 +2 Laps 17
    Ret Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 59 +12 Laps 14
    Ret 1 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 34 +37 Laps 12
    Ret 26 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 24 +47 Laps 7
    eom/FIA press release

  • Its great to get one more one-two result for Mercedes: Nico Rosberg

    Mercedes team members pat Nico rosber after he won the Austrian GP on Sunday. A Mercedes AMG Petronas team image
    Mercedes team members pat Nico rosber after he won the Austrian GP on Sunday. A Mercedes
    AMG Petronas team image

    DRIVERS

    1 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)

    2 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)

    3 – Valtteri BOTTAS (Williams)

    PODIUM INTERVIEWS

    (Conducted by Mark Webber)

    Another dominant one-two victory for Mercedes, so Nico what a very, very special for you again. Three now in the season. You capitalised on a very, very good qualifying and now another victory. Run us through it. Lot of control on the brakes by the sound of it, managing issues at the end there?

    Nico ROSBERG: Yeah, it wasn’t the easiest of races – trying to manage certain things that were a bit on the limit on the car. But in the end I had a very, very fast car again, so it was fantastic to win today. It’s great also to get a one-two here in Austria and it’s great to come back here to Austria. I mean Austria for sure deserves a race. The fans have been amazing, the atmosphere has been spectacular this weekend, so thank you very much for that and yeah it’s been awesome.

    Lewis, over to you mate. Well done. A good recovery after a tough qualifying. In terms of… mega first lap, right on Nico at the start there after the first lap. In terms of pit stops, are you happy with your positioning because I’m a bit worried about how much time you’re losing in the pits. The guys… good stops for Nico but are you happy with the positioning on that? Also at the end of the race did you have to manage any issues and could you fight Nico?

    Lewis HAMILTON: I don’t know. I have to have a look at the feedback and just see what the team say about the stops. Maybe my positioning is not right, you know obviously in those situations you’re just pushing. But the guys have done a fantastic job. As Nico said, to get another one-two here is just incredible. This track has been fantastic and the fans have been insane this weekend, so thank you all for the support.

    Congratulations Valtteri – first podium. It’s an incredible feeling up here isn’t it? Run us through the race. Obviously starting on the front row. Obviously these guys have a lot of big experience on the big occasions to close a race out but you really drove a clean race. Run us through it, are you happy with it?

    Valtteri BOTTAS: Thanks Mark. Really, really happy. Difficult to put into words really. Just really thankful to the team for giving me this car. It’s been a long way for us since last year, I mean, and many, many years at Williams and now it’s so much better. The race was exactly what we needed at this point – clean, nice, everything went like planned really. The car was good for the podium this time and I’m just so happy.

    Well done, and big points for Williams, which is fantastic. Final one for you Nico. A 29-point lead, off to Silverstone, a track that you know well; a track that I tried to catch you on in the last few laps last year but you’ve had a couple of good wins there and you’re very strong at Silverstone, Lewis’ home track, so the battle continues. Looking forward to that race; home race obviously for Mercedes as well. So how’s the feeling for that one?

    NR: Yeah, for sure, looking forward to the next one; home race, so it would be awesome to do another one-two there, that would be great to give something back to all of our colleagues back in the factory. So I’m looking forward to that.

    Q: Nico, congratulations, Mercedes sixth one-two finish of this season, your third victory and you’ve now extended your championship lead, as we’ve heard, to 29 points. Clearly strategy was an important part of the story today – but did the race turn out as you had expected it to when you were sitting on the grid?

    NR: To be honest yes it did. Pretty much exactly like we were trying to make it work. OK, I thought I would get Valtteri at the start and I did – but then they’re quick on the straights and he just went flying straight by me again, which was not good. But I knew pre-race that even if I am third after the start, the chances are still very good to make it and win the race because we have just a little bit more pace and less tyre degradation than the Williams – we expected to have less at least – so we could go aggressive on the stops and that’s what we did and it really worked out well and so I’m, yeah, extremely happy with that result. Also, great to extend the championship lead, which was really my goal coming into Austria.

    Q: Lewis, obviously the platform for your result today was that stunning start, off the grid from ninth into fifth on that opening lap. Tell us about that and then also about how you made your way through the field. Clearly that second round of stops was important for getting in front of Valtteri.

    LH: Yep, it was a good start. We’ve been working very hard on our starts throughout the year and the team have done a great job to help out with that, and yeah, so I got one of the best starts I’ve ever had really and positioned the car in the correct places. It would have been great if I’d started where perhaps I should have started this weekend – but damage limitation. To get from ninth to second and be pressuring Nico at the end of the race really shows the pace that I had this weekend.

    Q: Valtteri, your best-ever grand prix finish to follow up your best-ever qualifying performance yesterday – you’re starting to really make your mark on the sport. I guess the decisive moment for you was the first round of stops with Felipe and getting ahead.

    VB: Yeah, I think overall the best-ever weekend. So, really happy. Really happy for us as a team. We were really strong the whole weekend and that’s down to all the hard work. Of course it was a good track for us. You never know what’s going to happen in the next race but overall we are making progress. Step-by-step we are getting there, getting closer to the positions where we belong. I’m really happy. The race today: it was really nice to have a really nice, clean race. Good points for the team. We’ve had some issues lately, been a lot of talk, not maximising car we had but I think today we showed what we can do.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Frederic Ferret – L’Equipe) Question for Nico and Lewis: can you tell us more about the final five laps, about the chance to overtake Nico for Lewis and the chance to finish first for Nico?

    NR: Well, I generally felt comfortable in the last few laps. I thought that I could keep a nice gap and just on the last lap my tyres dropped away a little bit but as soon as they got past the first couple of hairpins, I knew that I was going to be fine so it wasn’t as close as maybe some other races have been recently.

    LH: There wasn’t an opportunity to overtake.

    Q: (Livio Oricchi – Universo On-line) For Nico and Lewis: 29 points difference between both of you. It means that in one race, it is not possible to change the lead. It means that Nico would be the leader of the championship. What’s your analysis of this Nico and you also Lewis?

    NR: Well 29 points, yeah, for sure it’s a nice gap but it’s still so early in the season. I really like to concentrate on each weekend and keep on trying to make the most of them and enjoying the moment, also with the car that we have. It’s so great to come to the next race at Silverstone, our home race, with the best, knowing that if I do a good job I can do pole and win the race. So I’m more taking it step-by-step and every weekend my aim is to extend the championship lead which I managed to do this weekend.

    LH: Well, Nico’s done a great job. He’s finished every race and fortunately hasn’t had any car problems so it’s inevitable.

    Q: (Kate Walker – crash.net) Lewis, after one your stops – and I can’t remember which one – we actually saw some flames coming out of your front right. To what extent was the braking problems that you suffered hampering your ability to really take the fight to Nico in the final laps? I know he had issues too.

    LH: Yeah, I think it was probably the same for both of us, maybe, I don’t know. I need to check later but it was constantly an issue during the race. Obviously I was following people all the time so that’s not always the best but I was being told to back off quite a lot, unfortunately. The last couple of laps I tried to eke it up a little bit more but still I had to be cautious, but I’m just grateful I finished. I didn’t finish the last race, that’s really got to be goal for the next few races, trying to actually finish.

    Q: (Chris Medland – crash.net) Question for you, too, Lewis, about the pit stops. You lost 1.9s across the two stops to Nico, very evenly split in each stop. Is that frustrating, because for a long time you were running about 1.9s behind Nico at the end and did the team tell you the reasons for it?

    LH: They haven’t yet. I didn’t even know I lost that much time, they didn’t feel that fast. Could be my positioning. I don’t know. I’ll obviously investigate… obviously it is frustrating when you lose time because you’re constantly doing everything you can to gain a tenth here, a tenth there, so when you lose quite a chunk… two seconds over two pit stops it’s tough but the guys… at least we haven’t really made any mistakes. If we step back a little bit and look, we’ve had so many one-twos this is just incredible this year so I’m hoping in the future we won’t have those problems.

    Q: (Barna Zsoldos – Nemzeti Sport) Valtteri, do you think with a slightly different strategy the win could have been possible today because your pace was quite strong and you were simply undercut by first Nico and then Lewis at both pit stops?

    VB: Yeah, it’s a difficult one. We need to always – like we always do – we need to analyse if there’s anything we could have done better. It’s difficult to say. Today it was difficult to know the real difference between the option and prime because the prime tyre has been taking quite a long time to warm up so we really thought it would be really difficult to undercut because it takes many laps to warm up and get a good pace after the supersoft tyre. Yeah, we need to analyse, it’s difficult to say. Yeah, too early to say. For the moment, I’m really happy with what we’ve done as a team, third and fourth. Obviously we always aim for better.

    Q: (Peter Vamosi – Vas Nepe Kiadoi) Nico, if you will win the championship this year, will you let grow a moustache like your father?

    NR: Maybe. Yup.

    Q: (Istvan Janos Simon – Auto Magazine Hungary) Lewis, you seem to have a brake problem; this problem is coming back since Montreal or maybe even before. You’ve had this problem during this race. What can you do against these troubles, to get over it finally? What can you do together with the team?

    LH: I don’t know. Going into the race I wasn’t aware that we had a brake problem, so it was news to me when we started to… when they started to speak to me about it. We had the problem in the last race but the last race was the rears and in this race it was the fronts, a little bit different perhaps. I’ll be guessing what’s gone wrong but it didn’t look like it was the same as Nico; maybe it was, I don’t know. I think they said maybe it was. We just need to make improvements.

    Q: (Eli Shaouly – Automagazin Israel) Question to Valtteri and Nico: yesterday at Williams you looked in a way pretty sure you wouldn’t win the race and Nico, you were pretty sure that you would win the race in yesterday’s conference. What made you so confident in the result?

    NR: Because generally I still believe that we have the fastest car and we had very good long run pace on Friday, that’s the race practice. We were quick there and I didn’t get the best out of it in qualifying, so I was pretty confident that the chance would be very good. Of course, you never know how to overtake and things like that, but it all worked out well.

    VB: Yeah, I agree really. I think that from all the data that we had from practice we knew that in the race it’s going to be difficult and overall Mercedes have still got the quickest car but we really nailed it yesterday so we knew that maybe Sunday could be difficult but actually it was a bit better than I expected. We were really close to them on pace.

    Q: Was that because it was 14 degrees warmer today than it was on Friday, do you think?

    VB: Difficult to say that was the factor or not, I don’t know what Mercedes did just before qualifying with the car set-up. I don’t know. It’s difficult to say; we need to analyse.

    eom

  • Felipe Massa claims first pole in six years; Force India start P10 & P11

    Felipe Massa claimed his first pole position in six years at the Red Bull Ring, as team-mate Valtteri Bottas’ second place earned Williams its first front-row lockout since 2003.

    Mercedes’ qualifying, meanwhile, unravelled when Lewis Hamilton’s snapped out of control on the run up to turn two, sending the Briton into a spin. Having made a mistake on his opening run, which led to his lap being ruled out for exceeding the track limits, Hamilton failed to set a time in Q3 and will start ninth. Worse for Mercedes was that Hamilton’s final lap problem brought out the yellow flags, which meant Rosberg had to back off from his final flyer. The title leader will start third.

    Q1 followed a predictable path, with the bottom four positions split between Marussia and Caterham, with Jules Bianchi and Kamui Kobayashi ahead of Max Chilton and Marcus Ericsson.

    Sebastian Vettel’s banker time on soft tyres left him close to the drop zone, in 15th position, but the champion was never in any real danger, at least in this session. He eased through to Q2 two tenths of a second ahead of Pastor Maldonado. The Lotus driver was lucky to make it into the second phase, however, as Adrian Sutil’s last gasp lap came up short by just four thousandths of a second. Sutil’s time was, however, good enough to drop Sauber team-mate Esteban Gutierrez to 18th.

    Q2 was altogether more unpredictable and after the first runs both Kimi Raikkonen in 14th place and Sebastian Vettel in 12th found themselves in need to improvements if there were to make the top-10 shoot-out. But while Raikkonen found the time required, claiming tenth place in Q2 with a time of 1:09.657, Vettel was less fortunate. The champion ended up with a final lap of 1:09.801 to secure 13th place behind Jenson Button and 11th-placed Sergio Perez, who will have to take a five-place penalty in the race after the sanction imposed following his accident with Felipe Massa at the Canadian Grand Prix was upheld following a review in Austria on Friday. Also ruled out of Q3 were Maldonado, Jean-Eric Vergne and Romain Grosjean.

    Vettel’s team-mate Daniel Ricciardo once again delivered an excellent lap when the required, the Australian jumping to ninth from 11th to finish ahead of Raikkonen.

    Ricciardo wasn’t the only ‘junior’ member of a team to outpace his team-mate. McLaren’s Kevin Magnussen finished Q2 in fifth place and Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat went through in seventh place. Fastest were the Mercedes of Rosberg and Hamilton, ahead of the Williams cars of Bottas and Massa.

    Q3 was similarly surprising. After the first runs it was Bottas in provisional pole position, the Finn’s time of 1:08.846 giving him 0.1s advantage over Rosberg, with Massa a further tenth back. Hamilton, though, was in trouble. Like many others during the course of the weekend so far, he was caught out by the high-speed turn eight and ran wide. With all four wheels off track his time was deleted for exceeding the track limits.

    In the final runs it was Bottas who blinked, the Finn making a small error but one significant enough to give his pursuer a chance. And it was Massa who seized the opportunity, scoring his first pole since Brazil 2008 and Williams first front-of-grid starting position since the Spanish Grand Prix of 2012. Bottas had to settled for second, giving Williams its first front row lockout since Germany in 2003, when Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher occupied the top two spots.

    Wth Rosberg third, fourth place went to Fernando Alonso. Ricciardo rescued Red Bull’s Saturday by lifting his RB10 to fifth spot. Magnussen will start in sixth place for McLaren, ahead of the impressive Kvyat. Raikkonen will start eighth while Hamilton will start ninth, as Nico Hullkenberg’s final time was also deleted for exceeding the track limit.

    2014 Austrian Grand Prix – Qualifying Result
    1 Felipe Massa Williams 1:10.292 1:09.239 1:08.759 19
    2 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:10.356 1:09.096 1:08.846 19
    3 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:09.695 1:08.974 1:08.944 17
    4 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:10.405 1:09.479 1:09.285 25
    5 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing 1:10.395 1:09.638 1:09.466 22
    6 Kevin Magnussen McLaren 1:10.081 1:09.473 1:09.515 29
    7 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:09.678 1:09.490 1:09.619 21
    8 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:10.285 1:09.657 1:10.795 23
    9 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:09.514 1:09.092 No time 15
    10 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:10.389 1:09.624 No time 23

    11 Sergio Perez Force India 1:10.124 1:09.754 18
    12 Jenson Button McLaren 1:10.252 1:09.780 22
    13 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 1:10.630 1:09.801 15
    14 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1:10.821 1:09.939 18
    15 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:10.161 1:10.073 19
    16 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:10.461 1:10.642 21

    17 Adrian Sutil Sauber 1:10.825 10
    18 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber 1:11.349 10
    19 Jules Bianchi Marussia 1:11.412 9
    20 Kamui Kobayashi Caterham 1:11.673 10
    21 Max Chilton Marussia 1:11.775 10
    22 Marcus Ericsson Caterham 1:12.673 11

    eom/FIA press release

    Felipe Massa takes pole position for the Austrian GP. A Pirelli image
    Felipe Massa takes pole position for the Austrian GP. A Pirelli image

  • Felipe Massa leads an all-Williams front row: Austrian GP

    Felipe Massa leads an all-Williams front row after an exciting qualifying session for the Austrian Grand Prix today.

    . Valtteri led the way from Nico Rosberg until the final moments with a great lap securing his front row position alongside his teammate.

    . Today’s result is Felipe’s first pole position since Brazilian Grand Prix 2008 and the first front row lockout for the team since the German Grand Prix in 2003.

    Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: I am really pleased. The guys have done a very good job. This is just the start of the 71 laps though but we will start in the best position possible. We need to think hard about how we maximise this in terms of points at the end of the race. Tomorrow will be hotter but we know from our long runs where the issues will be that we will face, it will be a defensive race tomorrow as we try to keep everyone else behind us but for the team this is a much deserved result for all the hard work that has been put in both at the factory and race track.

    Felipe Massa: It’s an incredible moment for me, but the whole team is feeling this too. The team has a great history and we continue to build on that. It’s a special day. I had some traffic earlier in the session but when it counted I did the best I could. There is a lot to do tomorrow and we have a very strong Mercedes behind us. Today is a day I won’t forget though and it’s the first time my son has seen me get pole so emotions are high.

    Valtteri Bottas: I am really happy for us as a team as it is such a good result. It couldn’t have been a better Saturday for us. I would have liked to have been on pole, but Felipe had the better lap when it mattered. Tomorrow isn’t going to be easy as the Mercedes are still the quickest car. I pushed a bit too hard on my final lap at Turn Six, but I was already down on my quickest. Tomorrow the strategy will be important and so we have to be clever with what we do. We are in a better position than the Ferraris and the Red Bull so it should be really good fun.

    Felipe Massa takes pole position for the Austrian GP. A Pirelli image
    Felipe Massa takes pole position for the Austrian GP. A Pirelli image

    -Ends-

  • Pole is the beginning of some great possibilities: Felipe Massa, Williams

    21 June 2014:

    DRIVERS

    1 – Felipe MASSA (Williams)

    2 – Valtteri BOTTAS (Williams)

    3 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)

    TV UNILATERAL

    Felipe, pole for the first time since, I think, Brazil 2008. Describe your emotions now.

    Felipe MASSA: Yeah, I’m so happy with what’s happened today with us and our team. It was such a great moment. It was already long time when I had my last pole position, which was, yeah, in Brazil, 2008. So, such an incredible moment. For sure we need to concentrate on the race tomorrow, you know, it’s a difficult and important race for us. But I think it’s a great moment. The best place to be is here in the first place. It’s something that I got the chance to be many times in all my career and I am again now. After a long time I couldn’t be in this place and I hope this is just the beginning of maybe some great possibilities to be here again, not just in the qualifying but also in the race. The race is tomorrow but I’m so happy, very emotional – not just for me but I think it’s a similar feeling what I feel and what Williams feel as well. Williams Martini had an incredible career in the past and they are back to the top, they are back to the fight. There is still a lot to do but the work is going on the right line. I’m so pleased for me and for Williams Martini as well.

    Very well done. Coming to you Valtteri. Your best ever Formula One qualifying in second place. You were in provisional pole though, but it looked like a mistake on your last and it ended up very close with Felipe, I believe only nine one hundredths of a second the gap between you.

    Valtteri BOTTAS: Yeah best position so far in my career, so one more place to go. Well done Felipe. I’m really happy for us as a team. This result is really good at this point. We’ve made some big, big steps from last year and now we get a result like this. Of course it’s only Saturday but still we can see that all the hard work really starts to pay off. I’m really happy for us. As Felipe says the race is tomorrow, so we need to focus on that. It’s going to be a different story tomorrow, it’s not going to be easy to keep the Mercedes cars behind for sure, and even some other cars like Ferrari and Red Bull are going to be strong. Yeah, not a bad day today but we just need to keep focused now.

    Very well done. Nico, coming to you now. Championship leader but it’s not the first time that you’ve not been on the front row of the grid. Did you expect to have these two cars in front of you and what happened today for you?

    Nico ROSBERG: No, of course, I definitely didn’t expect the Williams to be ahead of me today but they did a good job and it just didn’t come together perfectly for me. I also lost out on that last lap because of Lewis spinning in front in the corner, so I couldn’t do that lap. You have to lift off two tenths of a second you know and doing that, to do at least two tenths you have to do three tenths and it’s just… it wouldn’t have been possible to improve on my lap time so I backed out of it. So that definitely cost me today but that’s just the way it is. But still third place is OK, it’s OK to start from there tomorrow and I have a quick car in the race, so I’m still looking forward to it and I’ll make the most of it.

    Well done. Coming back to you Felipe. Obviously the race tomorrow, but there’s a big football tournament going on at the moment in your home country. I guess though that all eyes will be on you in the early part of tomorrow, what do you expect?

    FM: Yeah, I think there is a lot going on in Brazil in this moment so I really expect that we can have a great show, a great show for everybody which is looking, you know the World Cup in Brazil. So I hope the best definitely for the World Cup in Brazil but I hope the best for Brazil. Just before I go to the car my son gave me a little Neymar, a little one, so I bring the little one to the car and I put on the side of my helmet. It was a nice feeling. I’m a great fan of football, so I hope we can have a great World Cup. I know what it is to win at home so I can imagine winning the World Cup at home is like a dream come true, not just for the players but also for everybody which is watching, so I really hope the best for Brazil.

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Q: Felipe, it was noticeable this morning in Free Practice Three that you guys were working on qualifying from fairly early on. Was it a real plan here to really focus on qualifying and do the best possible job that you could do here this afternoon?

    FM: Well, it was not different, what we was doing this morning compared to the other races. We were doing similar working compared to what we was doing before, so definitely… also the Saturday the qualifying is the main focus y’know, but it was no different to what we did in the other races so… but I mean it’s pretty clear that our car was good, our car was competitive and it shows really a very good performance today and also yesterday since we started, both tyres it shows good performance. And it shows again in the qualifying that definitely we are a little bit surprised – we expect maybe Mercedes to be a little bit heavier, y’know? Just preparing the qualifying to put the right level of fuel and be like they were in the last races. Maybe not a big gap because this is a small track but, yeah, it was a little bit of a surprise – but it was a great job from us. From both of us, from the team, from everybody.

    Q: Valtteri, it’s obvious, as Felipe was saying, the car is working well. But it seems this year, your team, when you’ve bought updates to the car, they’ve worked straight away. Obviously the correlation is very good between the wind tunnel and the race track and everything seems to be pointing in the right direction.

    VB: That is true. We haven’t been making any bad updates. We’ve always… if we have bought something it has always worked and that has been a big improvement from last year. We can really put all the energy into the right direction, developing parts and knowing that they will work, so, no energy wasted there so that’s good. Like Felipe said, I’m really happy for the result today. For us as a team it’s a great achievement. Of course it’s only Saturday but we are really looking forward for tomorrow, trying to get some really good points with both cars. So, we really just need to focus on that.

    Q: Nico, some thoughts from you. Obviously still a good chance for you to win the race tomorrow, taking on these two gentleman here. And also some thoughts on your team-mate who’s going to be starting down in ninth.

    NR: Yeah, chances for the race are obviously good from P3. It’s more difficult than starting on the front row, of course, but it’s still a good chance there because I think it’s possible to overtake on this track. First stint, also, the tyres are going to degrade massively on the Option, so already there maybe at the end of the stint there’s a little bit of a chance. And I’ll have a good race car for sure. The balance was not ideal today in qualifying but definitely more a race car. So, in the race I’m sure I’ll be more happy with it. So I look forward to trying to make the most of it. Points-wise also with Lewis starting in ninth, that’s of course for the team not good but for me it’s, yeah, good that way. I need to make the most of it and try to extend the gap tomorrow.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Livio Oricchio – Universo Online) Nico, last race Mercedes didn’t win after six races in a row winning everything. Here, the first competition with qualifying ended with Mercedes not starting again in the first position. It’s just the circumstance of the competition or the opponents are really approaching your team?

    NR: It’s a short track here and still we have the fastest car, even today, it’s just that I didn’t get that second lap to give it a go and my first lap, the balance was not good. In general also today my balance was not good because I’d worked more for the race – but I didn’t expect it to be that bad. I didn’t expect to be that uncomfortable. But anyways, not it’s third and for the race I’m sure I’ll have a good car, so, I think that’s a very small view that we’re taking now: two races, no wins, no pole… or no pole now. But I still think we’re dominant and definitely have the fastest car and I hope it’s going to stay like that for some time to come.

    Q: (Michael Shields – Reuters) Felipe Massa, how does it feel to be starting from the pole position? I think this is the first time since 2008.

    FM: Yeah, it’s the first time since 2008. I think it’s always the best feeling we can have. Being the quickest on the track against everybody, it’s always the best feeling a driver can have. A driver always works and fights to achieve this. It’s definitely a great moment, this qualifying. Only, work for tomorrow is very difficult. Long and tough race but, y’know, is a good start.

    Q: (Sarah Holt – CNN) Felipe, you had a chance to win in Canada last time out and you’ve spoken passionately about the events that happened there since then. Do you think that tomorrow you’ve got a cool head and Williams has got the race pace that you need to make it a win this time and keep Valtteri and Nico etc at bay?

    FM:  Well, I think that depends on these guys here. We need to try to do the best we can. I think we have a good car, definitely we show a very competitive car since yesterday morning. I think what happened at the last race is past. I think you cannot live the past, we need to live in the present and the future. We lost some opportunity, we lost great points in Canada. Unfortunately we had some problems in the first pit stop when I lost four or five seconds and that put me in a difficult situation for the race but I had incredible pace as well and looking what happened with the Mercedes, it would definitely have been possible to win. I was in front of Ricciardo and he won the race. Normally my pace was also good to fight with… to be in front of him. The race is tomorrow, it’s a different situation, we’re starting in a  better position which is always a help and we need to see how Mercedes will be tomorrow in the race but we will try everything we can, definitely.

    Q: (Panagiotis Seitanidis – Alpha TV) Felipe, we saw a very touching emotional moment with your wife and son. After all the troubles you had with the accident and the difficult times that came after that, how important was the support of your family all this moment, and what did your son tell you, or what did you feel when you looked at him at that moment?

    FM: Actually, I was also very close to my family. When I was a kid, with my father, my mother, my brother, my sister – we were always together at the races. I have always had great support from my family and then after, with my wife, my son now. It’s a great moment. When I saw him, it was just like… he never saw me in first place so it’s the first time. I think that makes the father feel nice, a good feeling, to see that your son is looking that you are in first place so it’s a great feeling, it’s a great moment and for sure, it’s part of my motivation. He’s part of everything I’m doing for my career, so it’s definitely a great feeling. I hope we can have a great race tomorrow as well with him watching and my wife and all my family as well from home.

    Q: (Sven Haidinger – Sport Woche) Valtteri, what influence did the arrival of Pat Symonds have on your team and on the performance of the car?

    VB: I think we can see it in the performance. I think the results have shown that he’s been one of the key persons for Williams to come back to closer to the positions where we belong to be in the races. As soon as he arrived, many things started to change and are still changing. Every week, as a team, we are still getting stronger and stronger, so we are definitely on the right way and that is thanks to Pat but also many other people in the team.

    Q: (Anthony Rowlinson – F1 Racing) Felipe, has the change of team environment to Williams allowed you to find your best form again?

    FM: For sure, I had a great time with Ferrari. I’m not a guy who is trying to speak bad about the past. I have had an incredible time in my past and I really enjoy everybody from Ferrari, but I feel that sometimes a change helps. Always when you are in the same place for many years… also I had a difficult moment as well, you know, it was good to have a change. I think it was good for the motivation and everything, so I think it was definitely positive, this change and I really really feel happy with Williams Martini with really great people. I think they work 110 percent, happy, and they really believe in my job, they really believe in what I say and I think that’s really positive. It makes me feel better, it makes me feel nice and it makes me feel very important inside the team.

    Q: (Mikhail Rudoi – Autodigest Belarus) Valtteri, tomorrow, when you will see green lights, how do you think? You will concentrate not to lose second place or you will try to attack Felipe to the first turn?

    VB: I think you always try to do the best you can. I think it really depends how good a start you get and it depends on the situation, what kind of start the other cars around will get and then you see how is the situation but I think both of us, me and Felipe, we really need to just try and do the best we can, try and go as forward as possible after the first corner and the first lap and keep the position as long as possible. We know that Mercedes’ race pace is going to be really really strong so it’s not going to be an easy day tomorrow but we will do our best.

    Q: ( Eli Shaouly – Automagazine, Israel) Felipe, it’s the first time that somebody actually beat Mercedes fair and square this season. This actually looked closed, like finished, one or two races ago. Do you think it’s now a new opening, do you think you can handle a big challenge to them or do you think it’s just one track that is very unique and the future will be different? Maybe also Nico can answer this?

    FM: Honestly, we cannot forget what Mercedes has been doing up to now. We cannot forget that they didn’t have a clean qualifying as well. For sure, for the moment they are in front. For the moment, they are stronger. I hope, during the championship we can close or maybe can even pass (them). This is what we’re always working for, you know. But I think it’s not enough to say that we are there with Mercedes. I think that for the moment we don’t know. For the moment is maybe this track helps us definitely, but we don’t know. As Valtteri just said, I think we will see a very strong Mercedes tomorrow, so we need to be ready for everything, we need to be ready also that finishing behind them is still an incredible job for us.

    NR: I still think we are the quickest team and car at the moment, but we are always keeping a close eye on the opposition and today Williams was definitely close, so we need to keep on pushing. Today was Williams, two races ago it was Red Bull that were getting closer so we need to go for it, but I’m confident that we can keep up the development rate and stay ahead.

    eom/FIA transcript of the Press Conference

  • Hamilton tops Free Practice 1: Austrian GP

    Briton quickest on supersoft tyre ahead of team-mate Nico Rosberg and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.

    File photo of Hamilton from Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team.
    File photo of Hamilton from Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team.

    Lewis Hamilton took over from team-mate Nico Rosberg at the top of the practice timesheets at Austria’s Red Bull Ring circuit, eclipsing the german by almost four tenths of a second.

    The pair had been evenly matched in the early part of the session on the Soft compound Pirelli tyre but when the pair moved to the quicker Supersoft compound rubber, Hamilton found a new impetus and his first flying lap ended with the Briton 0.7s ahead of Rosberg, who only shaved a tenth of a second off his best time on his first lap on Supersofts. Rosberg eventually found more time on the Spielberg track but in the end he could only cut the deficit to 0.377.

    As with the morning session, Fernando Alonso was third-fastest, though the Spaniard ended the session almost a second down on Hamilton. Fourth place went to Mercedes-powered Williams driver Valtteri Bottas, with team-mate Felipe Massa fifth.

    After a difficult morning session in which both its drivers struggled, the afternoon was much more productive for Red Bull Racing. Sebastian Vettel finished sixth fastest, though 1.265s down on Hamilton, while Daniel Ricciardo finish eighth, just behind McLaren’s Jenson Button. Vettel emerged late from the Red Bull garage after his car required a new floor following a big spin in the morning. Ricciardo, too, had the floor of his RB10 changed following his own morning spin.

    As in the morning, Kevin Magnussen ended the session in ninth place ahead of Jean-Eric Vergne, the Frenchman once again taking Toro Rosso into the top 10.

    2014 Austrian Grand Prix – Free Practice 2 Times
    1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:09.542 37
    2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:09.919 0.377 50
    3 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:10.470 0.928 40
    4 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:10.519 0.977 44
    5 Felipe Massa Williams 1:10.521 0.979 39
    6 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 1:10.807 1.265 39
    7 Jenson Button McLaren 1:10.813 1.271 44
    8 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing 1:10.920 1.378 36
    9 Kevin Magnussen McLaren 1:10.936 1.394 45|
    10 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:10.972 1.430 39
    11 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:10.974 1.432 45
    12 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:11.261 1.719 45
    13 Sergio Perez Force India 1:11.296 1.754 36
    14 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber 1:11.491 1.949 42
    15 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1:11.765 2.223 30
    16 Adrian Sutil Sauber 1:11.806 2.264 42
    17 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:11.935 2.393 39
    18 Max Chilton Marussia 1:12.229 2.687 43
    19 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:12.262 2.720 46
    20 Jules Bianchi Marussia 1:12.279 2.737 36
    21 Kamui Kobayashi Caterham 1:12.937 3.395 24
    22 Marcus Ericsson Caterham 1:13.596 4.054 48

    eom

  • Monisha raises voice where other teams fail to talk about FIA’s eye wash of cost-cutting measures

    TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Eric BOULLIER (McLaren), Monisha KALTENBORN (Sauber), Franz TOST (Toro Rosso), Toto WOLFF (Mercedes), Christian HORNER (Red Bull Racing), Marco MATTIACCI (Ferrari)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    The World Motor Sport Council meets next week, it’s the deadline for regulations for 2015. In yesterday’s press conference with the drivers  they all said that cost control was the first order of priority for the sport. Are you wher you hoped to be on that subject as the deadline approaches? A question for all of you. Eric maybe you’d like to start.

    Eric BOULLIER: Well, I think it depends on where you want to put the shift. There were some discussions, they was some real will to do something for the sport from some teams and I think at the end we achieved some decisions. I don’t know yet obviously how much we are going to save. Is it enough, is it not enough? I think it’s a bit to early to say. But at least let’s say there was a commitment to do something and we tried to.

    Monisha?

    Monisha KALTENBORN: Well, in my view we are clearly not there, where we should be and where we wanted to be, at least from our team’s perspective. I also don’t think we have achieved so far any measurable cost cutting. For us the situation is a little unclear actually at the moment, at least in my understanding if you mention the World Motor Sport Council there was a decision taken last year by the Council in which they endorsed cost-cutting as a target and they also agreed in principle to the cost cap and the FIA was mandated to implement that. Since then other decisions have been taken by other groups going in a different direction. Following that amongst other teams, ours as well, the non-Strategy Group teams I’d say were asked to bring proposals in about how you can achieve a sustainable cost base while still promoting competition. We did that, we also didn’t get anywhere on that. In my understanding I really wonder what the FIA is now going to do and how Formula One is going to be governed in this respect.

    Christian, do you have any comment on that?

    Christian HORNER: We spent quite a while talking about things and so on and we’ve agreed a couple of things next year which will save money. Testing is reduced, testing will be in Europe rather than overseas, wind tunnel time and CFD ratios have been further reduced. But I think what’s important to say is that everything that was agreed in the Formula One Commission meeting earlier this week was agreed unanimously. That means every team was around the table and every team had the right to vote against it but everything that went through went through on a unanimous basis. We’ve got what we’ve got. I think the most important thing now going forward is stability.

    Marco, are you where you hoped to be on cost control?

    Marco MATTIACCI: First of all, I think it is remarkable that the drivers are underlining this point. At the same time, yes, I think we did some progress. Probably we could have achieved some more. But I keep stressing the point that according to me Formula One should focus at the same time on how to appeal to a broader audience, because I think there is a huge potential for this sport. So I guess even cost reduction has to be faced in a much more complex point of view, a large point of view: how to make this product more appealing, how to attract more sponsors. I guess yes we are working extremely hard to see where are the opportunities to reduce the cost. I would like to work even harder to see where we can increase the appeal to wider audience.

    Toto?

    Toto WOLFF: Yeah, we had lots of meeting about finding out where we could reduce costs. It’s an ongoing saga. You know it’s not the case that some teams are against cutting costs and other are for. We are all for sensible cost cutting because even the big teams need to make sure we keep it within a certain framework. We need to make sure that Christian is not running away with the costs. Christian needs to make sure that Ferrari is not running away with the costs. This is why we are all in favour, but it is a tricky thing and it’s difficult to get everybody under one umbrella. So I guess that what we have done for next year in reducing the in-season testing again, probably to even less the following year. We came back to Europe. All these are sensible steps and this must be on our constant agenda to further reduce the costs.

    Thank you for that. And finally Franz: your thoughts?

    Franz TOST: We have achieved some goals to reduce costs, like Christian mentioned before, with less testing and testing only in Europe and the reduced costs on the aerodynamic side. And we will also in future discuss possibilities to reduce costs. I think this is a longer process because this year we are coming up with a new regulation, and as we all know a regulation change is always in connection with costs increasing. I just hope that in the future we will always continue to discuss how to reduce costs and I am convinced that sooner or later we will come to a target where all the teams are satisfied.

    OK and second one to all you. There have been extensive discussions on wider changes on things to things like format and regulations in recent weeks, things like altering the Friday programme at race weekend and tyre blankets – all that kind of thing. Which measure would you personally most like to see implemented? Maybe we’ll start with Marco.

    MM: Again I want to have a wider view about how to improve Formula One and the appeal. According to me, if I could push the button tomorrow, I would like to see a much deeper, wider engagement toward the audience with the drivers. In the end, Formula One is innovation but at the same it’s entertainment and I think that it has huge opportunity for improvement, for revenues, in engaging the audience, the fan more to Formula One. All the other initiatives sound to me OK to reduce some costs but they sound to me tactical and they don’t see the bigger picture, the bigger potential in Formula One.

    Christian?

    CH: I think foremost and utmost Formula One is a show and it has to entertain. I think a race like we had in Montreal is Formula One at it’s best. That’s what we need to have and more of it – week in, week out. We need to give the public more access, more behind-the-scenes information and engage them more in what we do. I think we need more of Montreal. How we achieve that of course is the difficulty.

    Franz?

    FT: The most important thing about Formula One, which we should not forget, is the entertainment and when we came back to the Friday running which we have in this year and as we had it in the past, this is something which was quite important for the organisers. We have to think how we can bring the cars together, because as we can see today there are two cars far ahead and as long as the parity of the power units is not at a similar level it is difficult to achieve interesting races, apart from the fact if something happens, which was unforeseen. Once more it’s a new regulation, it’s the first year that we are in there. I think we also have to work for the public to understand it better, what we have produced; how this new power unit works and how the new regulation has to be interpreted. I think we will do this in future just to increase the interest of the people in Formula One.

    Two silver cars out in front, that’s something I’m sure you wouldn’t want to change Toto, but what would you like to see implemented.

    TW: You know I find it amazing that we are starting this press conference with two questions about cost reduction and cost savings and talking the sport down. We are in a fantastic new venue, we have just come back to Austria to an historic race, this is the most amazing place now. We have had some exciting races. I admit that lucky for us we are quite dominant, similar to how Red Bull has been in a couple of years and we must talking stop talking ourselves down. I cannot imagine any other sport that would start the press conference in the way like we do, just talking about what it not good. But coming back to your question: I think that what is important is the show and the entertainment and engaging with the audience, to what Marco said. Probably if I could pinpoint it to a single item, I would say let’s stop testing. This is not to maintain our advantage. This is our own little agenda but it’s not important in the broader view of Formula One. But it’s something which is not important for the spectators. I think they want to have a good show at the weekends. Can we do less testing at the beginning of the season? Probably we can but then there is a new engine manufacturer you need to take of him as well to get enough miles. Then, some of us wanted to get rid of testing completely during the season. Why not go back to zero. But it was not possible and you would be surprised who was actually in favour of in-season testing. If I could make a decision I would say let’s not test in season any more.

    Monisha?

    MK: I agree with Toto that we have an excellent product here. We have a great platform, it’s very attractive. I think it’s high time that we really focused on the people we are doing this for. For a team it’s mainly the fan and for companies its consumers, customers at the end. We need to really pick up these people, give them a great moment – that they want to come with their kids, the next generation, and see that they are having a great show here. They need to remember this kind of a moment, which is not really happening that much. Now race in the past have been exciting or not exciting. We’ve gone through years where one team dominated, so we’ve had all that before and we’re still here. So we realty need to get out to the fans, to these consumers and make sure that they keep their attention to Formula One and that’s something we have not been doing recently.

    OK and finally, Eric?

    EB: Well, I’m the same as everybody. It’s the start of a new regulation so obviously there was a lot of change over the last winter. We just want to see closer which makes the entertainment better which will allow us to engage more with the fans and keep the fans happy and I think by having closer racing first you have to bring some stability to the regulation.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Kate Walker – Crash.net): In relation to the answers you’ve all just given, we’ve just an awful lot about fan engagement and solidifying F1’s profile in various territories. Now Red Bull have got the showcar team. I would like to know from each of you, and Christian if you want to answer as well, what it is specifically to boost Formula One’s profile in your own country and in other territories that we visit away from a race weekend?

    CH: Red Bull are extremely active in that area. We have a showcar team that visits countries all around the world, goes to towns or places that Formula One hasn’t been before, isn’t expected to be seen. This year it will run in 25 different venues. We engage with the fan base – we have more than 8 million fans worldwide that are following us through social media, our digital platforms and so on. We’re generating a huge amount of hits, whether it’s through a regulation change or to demonstrate the build of a car. So we are engaging with our fans and we see our fanbase growing. What else are Red Bull doing? They’ve brought Formula One here. It’s fantastic to be back in Austria. It’s fantastic to have a home grand prix and I think what Dietrich Mateschitz has done in achieving this race and the amount of fans and spectators that there are here this weekend is great to see and it’s great to see the enthusiasm that there is for Formula One in Austria.

    Marco?

    MM: It can be done more, definitely. But we have a tradition, we have a thousand of Ferrari fan clubs worldwide, we are dramatically increasing our digital experience, we have almost 12 million people on Facebook. But I think that has to be all the teams, a force,  because working together in a synergic probably we can sell the product more. Definitely in the real life we have showcase car but I think today the younger audience spend a lot of time on the web, so I think probably to create an experience, even from a brand perspective, on the web is fundamental and we are working on this. So, that’s important.

    Franz, what are you doing?

    FT: I think there’s rarely a company involved in Formula One doing more than Red Bull. As Christian already mentioned Dietrich Mateschitz, Red Bull, bought the grand prix back to Europe, thanks and congratulations for this really fantastic event and for this extraordinary facility. And we from Toro Rosso are very closely linked to Red Bull and we have, for the next month, a couple of showcar runs in Russia – because we prepare Russia for the Grand Prix – Formula One is not very well known over there and we sent Daniil Kvyat there. In addition to this, next weekend he will be in Moscow for a press conference, there’s also the Renault World Series race where he will be, just to promote the race for Russia. And we have a lot of sponsor activities in Europe with CEPSA but also in America and Canada with Nova Chemicals and I think Toro Rosso is pushing quite hard to satisfy the fans and make Formula One popular.

    Monisha?

    MK: Well, with the size of team we have, we don’t have a demo team that we can go around and do these things – but we try to do whatever we can, particularly with our partners – like with the Telmex Group in Latin America, a lot of activities down there and that’s where we try to support, of course,  Formula One also with the race also coming up hopefully in Mexico to do something there. I think where we could do more is particularly around a race weekend. The smaller teams could get together with the others and make the crowds then benefit here more if our drivers would maybe do more – or we could just interact more with people.

    Eric?

    EB: Well, it’s similar, y’know. We are engaging a lot through social media. We are doing some events, we have a demo team running. Jenson was doing a Russian tour as well last week to meet with the media and press conference – so we are almost activating the same.

    Toto?

    TW: Yeah, I’d like to add to that, social media is growing at an exponential rate with us. On good days we have more than 50,000 new likes on our Facebook site. We are almost having the size of the Mercedes audience and this shows that that audiences are probably transitioning towards other platforms. Whether you can monetise it in the same way, I doubt it…yet.  In terms of activation, we do a lot. We have show car runs everywhere. Mercedes is just launching a big, global campaign around Formula One. You can see much more activation around Mercedes-Benz’s motorsport activities globally – and this of course is to promote the team but also to promote Formula One everywhere in the world.

    Q: (Kate Walker – crash.net) A lot of you mentioned social media in your responses. Now we saw in the Montreal weekend that the commercial rights holder had said that he viewed social media as a flash in the pan and something that didn’t have the longevity to require our support. If we have the commercial rights holder working against social media, what can the teams do in the face of that opposition?

    MM: This impression that the commercial rights holder is working against media, I think as every evolution, you need to do this carefully, considering that there is a financial model behind, to be migrated to a different way. Not necessarily you need to embrace everything without a proper thinking. There is a certain audience that can be interested that is present on social media and another audience that cannot be interested. So, I believe that there is work in progress and probably that will come up with some kind of solution in the short term but I didn’t have the perception that he’s working against social media.

    Monisha, anything to add?

    MK: I’m also not aware that he’s so much against it. We know that it’s taken a while for Formula One to do more in social media and it’s a fact of life today. You can’t ignore it. And since we do have a product which is characterised also that much by exclusivity, I think we have to be careful and assess very carefully how we open it and how we can still monetise on it because these are revenue streams which, if they come in correctly and the distribution is also the right way, it has, of course, an impact on all the other issues we are combating right now. So, it’s all somehow connected – but you have to be careful when you open up to these kind of mechanisms.

    Toto?

    TW: What Monisha says is very true, because we have exclusive content and the commercial rights holder needs to have a long-term strategy about how to monetise the content and if you generate a billion out of traditional TV, you of course are struggling in the short term to give everything to the social media, or into the digital world where you can’t generate revenue yet. So, I think we are at the verge of probably entering into a new era, where it’s going to transition into the digital world – but you have to be very careful, you have to plan and you need to balance the interests of your current partners, and value your current partners, and at the same time make sure that you’re transitioning the business case and the business model into the future.

    Q: (Luke Smith – NBC Sports) Marco, we saw that Gene Haas was spending a lot of time in the Ferrari garage over the Montreal weekend. How are talks going regarding an engine supply and could I get maybe some views on his entry for 2016 with Haas Formula?

    MM: We are doing some progress and naturally to enter in Formula One, it’s a challenge. You need to be competitive and so I think there is, again, work in progress and probably a decision will be made in the coming weeks – but it is important, the positive thing I believe is to have Americans who start to look at investing in Formula One, it’s really an important topic to stress – because this is, at the moment, the largest and most important economy in the world. So, it’s a good sign that Americans start to look at investing in Formula One. Aside, if you look at Haas or someone else, I really welcome United States to look in Formula One.

    Q: (Mikhail Rudoi – Autodigest Belarus) Question for Marco. When you have any difficulty or problems or working questions, do you call to Stefano Domenicali to get some maybe advice or do you do everything by your self?

    MM: I think maybe the main characteristic of a good manager is to listen and to ask question. I think Stefano has been an asset of the company and is an important asset for me – so definitely I ask questions to Stefano. I listen to Stefano. At the same time I’m the one that makes the choice to bring a new direction within the team.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Gentleman and lady, after about a year’s worth of meetings across the world, Formula One Commissions, whatever, the best that that the best brains in the most cerebral sport in the world could come up with was a couple of savings on wind tunnel time, a reduction on race team headcount of two, curfews increased by one or two hours per race weekend… and yet we’re supposed to be talking about cost saving. Is this honestly the best that can be done and what sort of figure have you come up with. You’re all business people, you must know roughly what the savings will be.

    CH: Dieter, you’re very ill-informed because we didn’t reduce the number of people by two, we kept it at the same, so… Look, it’s an interesting topic and you’ve followed this and written a lot of column-inches about it – but costs in Formula One are one element, the show is another and I think that you have to be careful not to make decisions that affect the show. And there were a lot of things that were tabled that, when put in front of promoters and other people that have a vested interest in the sport said, ‘well hang on a second,’ You shorten Fridays – and you guys were moaning about it as much as anyone – to say well that damages the show, that damages the promoters ability to sell tickets and put bums on seats. So, when you put a group in the room who all have vested interests, whether it’s the commercial rights holder, the teams and the governing body, and you talk things through, then you realise well actually, while there is cost associated with it, by reducing it, we’ll create more harm than good. So, therefore, some decisions were made on Wednesday which I believe were in the best interests of the sport. Now, some of them aren’t going to save any money – well, most of them aren’t going to save any money but hopefully what we will get out of it will ultimately be a better show.

    Monisha?

    MK: Well, I said in the beginning that in my view not any measurable cost-reduction has been achieved so far – but I think we have to look at a bigger picture here which is that it’s also been said before, we have to focus at the end of the day on the fans and on the consumers and we have to start right there: what image does Formula One have with them? And that’s not a good image right now and that’s where it all starts. So, if you find out what it is, you probably come at some point of time, then to points like the cost, that why do they think we may be burning money here. It’s very difficult for somebody new to come into the sport today because the financial levels are very, very high. It’s very difficult for established teams – private teams – to stay in the sport, even if you’ve done that for 20 years or more. So we have to try to tackle it from there and see, can we, can we do something on the costs? That’s just one aspect of it. What can we do on the show? Because the revenues at the end of the day matter. If they are right. They are generated by the fans and the consumers, not by us teams – we’re just spending the money out there. If that’s right, all these other areas again will come into place because probably you’re at a sensible level of costs, you can make it exciting again, keep a diversity in the sport, which the sport needs. So I think we have to just change a bit our view and having a bigger view on it than just focussing on costs.

    Eric?

    EB: Not much to say.

    Anything to add Franz?

    FT: No. As I mentioned already before, we had a regulation change, and a regulation change always will increase the costs. We have not to see  how in the future it will come down, on parts or whatever with the costs. The most expensive part currently is the power unit. And once the manufacturers have stopped the research and development work because they have reached a certain level, I expect that these costs will come down, then we have some cost savings on the aerodynamic side and, as Monisha mentioned, that we get a balance with the interest of the people, that we don’t lose people, because that’s very, very important. Formula One has to stay on this very, very high level and then I don’t see any problems for the future.

    Q: (Ian Parkes – Press Association) You spoke well at the start about the need to engage with fans and then you touched on what you’re currently doing with regard to that, but I’ve not really heard much so far by way of potential solutions as to what you could do for the future to draw the fans in. Obviously one of the successes in the past was the fans forum – for arguments’ sake – which was run by the now defunct FOTA. Is there a possibility of somebody picking up that baton and running it again across all eleven teams, not just previously the FOTA teams? As I say, I’m looking for potential solutions now as to what you could do rather than what you’re currently doing? To anybody who would like to start off.

    TW: You’re right, we need to explore all avenues and all opportunities. We had some pretty good discussions in the last meeting, engaging with the promoters and I think we need to continue to discuss that with the major stakeholders and Mr Montezemolo has started an initiative to put the most important stakeholders on the table and evaluate all these opportunities. I guess besides a fan forum which for sure was a good idea, there are many other possibilities, be it in real life, be it on the internet or the media. We should look at everything.

    MM: The digital world is changing every day. Every day there is a new opportunity. Definitely, it is important, as Toto will say, as our president Montezemolo has been saying, we need some kind of workshop, all the stakeholders, sponsors, teams to take time and to come up with a business model or strategy to engage more with the young generation, with a wider audience, which kind of channel to use. You can go to Twitter, to Google, every kind of new media. I don’t think it’s rocket science but you need to do things in a calibrated way because it’s a very competitive arena where you have impressive sports like champions league, NBA or NFL that do a remarkable job so I think that you need not just say OK, let’s embrace new media, you need to have a very clear marketing strategy that is going to make sure that all the stakeholders will have a return on it, so I think it requires time, it’s a serious exercise and I think we started a process. So I’m extremely confident that we started a journey to go in that direction.

    EB: There is no magic wand, you know, there are no secrets. You’re obviously going to have to dig it out, you know, so you need to work and as long as we keep the discussion open and we know what we want to achieve we need to adjust to all the actions which is individual actions or around the track as well. As you said, there were some forums organised in the past, maybe it’s going to come up again. It’s just that we obviously need to adjust during this process where we are changing F1 for the future.

    Q: (Christian Nimmervoll – Motorsport Total.com) To the representatives of the bigger four teams: the Le Mans 24 hrs last week generated a huge following, probably bigger than in previous years. Is any one of you guys considering a Le Mans programme in the future, or can you imagine to consider it?

    TW: Well, you know, for Mercedes it’s a tricky one. Past attempts weren’t really successful. It’s a serious exercise, if you consider the resources which are deployed to be competitive in Le Mans, it is at Formula One level, but nevertheless, as a racer, I must admit it’s an amazing race. I spent three hours in front of the live timing and I couldn’t move away because it was so exciting in the night, detrimental to my family life but very exciting indeed.

    CH: How did your wife feel about you looking at live timing in the middle of the night?

    TW: She was quite upset with me, actually.

    CH: I bet she was.

    CH: She was quite upset with me. And, erm… Now you’ve put me off. You’ve derailed me. So no plans to do Le Mans from our side.

    CH: I was not looking at the live timing in the middle of the night. It was obviously a great race, exciting race. It shows that different technology can produce close racing. You’ve got a normally aspirated, a diesel engine very similar to what we have here and it was still close racing, so maybe there’s a few things that Formula One can learn from it but I think that Le Mans was an exciting race, it was great to see our old driver, Mark Webber, doing very well.  Unfortunate for him, with a couple of hours to go that obviously they ran into difficulties but it’s a different thing. Le Mans is one race, it’s a spectacle, it’s a 24 hour race. Formula One is a totally different kettle of fish, it’s a sprint race that happens 18/19 times a year but of course there’s always things you can learn from other activities.

    MM: First of all we were at Le Mans and we won the category with car 51, with a 458 so it was a remarkable achievement. Having said that, it’s good to look at other series, what can be migrated to Formula One but Formula One is 19 races and I believe that it is a worldwide platform so we need to consider that there is a very good base to start from. Having said that, myself, personally and my team, we are 100 percent focused on Formula One. I have to do my job here at the moment so I can’t have this distraction.

    EB: So no to your question, but it’s true that Le Mans is a one event in itself. Obviously I’ve passed some years there so I know a little bit how it works and I did show up there on Friday just to have a look but there are a couple of things that we should look at how they run their hybrid energy storage and stuff like this. Maybe there is something we could learn and get into F1 but it’s different racing.

    Q: (Silvia Arias – Parabrisas) Talking about Le Mans, there are some rumours that maybe for the next year the races will start with the safety car in front. Would you like something like that, to improve the show or whatever?

    MK: Well, not too long ago we’ve had quite a discussion on safety car starts and things like that so I think what we’ve now managed to agree there is the right thing I think. We should focus on what now we have changed for next year and see how that’s going to affect the viewers and the show and then let’s take it from there, so let’s not just start getting wildly into actions and trying to just change because we need to do some action.

    Q: (Flavio Vanetti – Corriere della Sera) To Marco Mattiacci: we had an interview by Luca di Montezemolo in the Wall Street Journal, then he dismissed the intention of Ferrari to quit Formula One but in case you don’t see the changes you’d like to see in Formula One, can you consider the possibility to leave this world or not?

    MM: I don’t want to work with that perspective. I know that Formula One is about Ferrari, and that Ferrari is about Formula One. I want to work, we will work, the president will work in order to improve and to make sure that we will have a Formula One that will appeal to a  wider audience, so at the moment I will not consider the scenario.

    Q: (Peter Vamosi – Vas Nepe Kiadoi KFT) To all of you: how do you like Mr Montemolo’s idea of introducing third cars in each team? Do you have a driver for that?

    FT: First of all, we currently have eleven teams, 22 cars and as long as these eleven teams stay in Formula One, there’s no reason and no need to bring in a third car.

    MK: I agree with Franz. Were there to be a need, it wouldn’t first of all be a good thing for Formula One because obviously then some teams would no longer be there. I think it’s an interesting idea. The idea has always been coming up since a long while and maybe we could even use that to improve the show. I think there could be smart ways to see how you could actually use that car but the least problem I think we’d all have would be with the drivers. I think we all have enough.

    EB: First, there is a limitation on the number of cars per race, so obviously if you would go, as Franz said, if you would go three cars per team now, there will be too many cars and that means that some cars would not race. I think the idea to run a third car is… unfortunately, if we had less teams, that could be a means to obviously run enough cars on the grid, but your question about drivers, don’t worry, there are enough around.

    TW: Yeah, I agree with what all three have said. At the moment we have eleven teams and hopefully they stay in Formula One but the past has shown, the last 50 years have shown that some teams come, some teams go. Nevertheless, if it falls below a critical level, which we estimate as a critical level, having a third car could be a way of filling up the grid and there could be interesting discussions about promoting that, putting young drivers into the cars and we’ve had many of those discussions and I think you need to have a fallback scenario in case we are really running into difficulties, but our agenda right now needs to be to keep the grid as it is.

    CH: Nothing really to add, it’s not relevant at the moment.

    MM: We have always been… we are in favour to have a third car, in particular if we understand the opportunity to give this car to a young driver, the other driver for different geography. I think looking to improve the show, I think it could be a great opportunity and we are in favour of this.

    eom/FIA transcript of the Press Conference