INDIA in F1

Tag: Force India

  • Vettel powers to a third Singapore victory in a row; Kimi third

    Singapore, 22 Sept 2013: Sebastian Vettel powered to a comprehensive third Singapore Grand Prix victory in a row, finishing over 47 seconds ahead of second-place

    Vettel kisses the trophy after the Singapore win. An FIA photo
    Vettel kisses the trophy after the Singapore win. An FIA photo

    d Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen.

    Vettel’s seventh win of the season was secured soon after the start. He made a good start from pole position, but front-row rival Nico Rosberg got away better and passed the Red Bull driver on the approach to the first corner, an FIA release said.

    The Mercedes man carried too much speed in, however, and was forced to run wide on the exit.

    The error allowed Vettel to retake the lead and from there the German simply drove away from the field. By lap 22, just after the drivers’ first stop for tyres, the championship leader had carved out a 9.5 second lead over Rosberg, with Alonso third and Mark Webber fourth.

    Then, two laps later, Toro Rosso’s Daniel Ricciardo hit the wall at turn 18 and the safety car was deployed, maintaining a perfect record of safety car interventions at the circuit since the inaugural race in 2008.

    At the front of the field, Vettel, Rosberg and Webber elected to stay out, as did Lewis Hamilton. A host of others dived for pit lane, however, including Alonso, Romain Grosjean and Raikkonen. It would prove a pivotal moment in the battle for the lower podium positions, if not the lead.

    When the safety car left the track, Vettel found even greater pace than in his first stint and within a couple of laps he was 3.2 seconds clear of Rosberg. The Red Bull driver’s race engineer Guillaume Rocquelin got on the radio and gave Vettel permission to “use his tyres” to build a gap. The German needed no encouragement and in a stunning period of racing he was often lapping more than two seconds quicker than the Mercedes. Just five laps after the safety car had exited, Vettel was over 14 seconds up on Rosberg.

    As far as victory was concerned that was it. There was plenty of drama behind Vettel in the second half of the race, but it was all very far distant from the German and he cruised to a win that now leaves him 60 points clear of Alonso at the top of the Drivers’ Championship standings.

    “I didn’t get going initially and then had to keep the inside clear to [Nico] but fortunately he went in a little bit too deep and I could get him back, which was crucial because then we had some very good pace,” said Vettel of his 33rd career win. “With the safety car obviously it was difficult but then we seemed to come back. As soon as the safety car came in we had a very, very strong pace in the car. The car was incredible. I said to the team that this doesn’t just happen like that, by accident or by luck. There’s hard work behind it, which I appreciate, and it’s just a pleasure to drive it around this crazy track.”

    Behind the winner, the order was changing. First Grosjean retired, a pneumatic problem forcing him out of the race. Then Rosberg and Webber made their second detours to pit lane. The Mercedes driver had a slow stop, and Webber stole in front.

    It was only eighth place for Webber however, as ahead those who had chosen to pit during the safety car period rose up the order.

    It was then that Alonso climbed to second. The Spaniard had already put in a stellar drive, rising from seventh on the grid to third as the field exited turn one and then cementing himself into podium contention. In deciding to race to the end on the tyres taken on during the safety car period, he was taking a risk but, typically, in his case the gamble paid off.

    “It was a risky move but as I said, we are in a position in the championship where we have nothing to lose,” said the Spaniard. “To finish second in the race or to finish fifth: it doesn’t matter too much to be honest, so we push, we take care of the tyres. The car was performing really well in the race. And the fans pushed us a little bit to gain some extra tenths today.”

    It worked, too, for Raikkonen. The Finn was able to keep his tyres alive and even passed Jenson Button for third late on, making a bold move stick around the outside at turn 14.

    “I could see that his tyres were going off, so I just gave some pressure and then I have to get past him because obviously some people changed to new tyres and they were catching us quickly,” said Raikkonen. “I managed to pass him and pull away and luckily nobody managed to catch me in the end. So not too bad.”

    It was a different story further back. The McLarens of Button and Sergio Perez and the Saubers of Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Gutierrez also tried to make the stratagem work, but closer to the chasing pack of Webber, Rosberg and Hamilton, they could not find adequate pace and the trio, on new tyres, soon closed in and got by.

    Webber climbed to fourth and began to bear down on Raikkonen. In the closing laps, however, he was told to short shift and then a lap from home he reported that he had no power. With flames pouring from the back of his Red Bull he pulled over.

    That meant Rosberg finished fourth, with Hamilton fifth in the second Mercedes. Felipe Massa finished sixth for Ferrari, with the McLarens of Button and Perez in seventh and eighth respectively. Ninth went to Hulkenberg and the final point of the day was taken by Adrian Sutil.

    2013 Singapore Grand Prix – Race result

    1. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 61 Winner 25
    2. Fernando Alonso Ferrari            61 +32.6 secs 18
    3. Kimi Räikkönen Lotus 61 +43.9 secs 15
    4. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 61 +51.1 secs 12
    5. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 61 +53.1 secs 10
    6. Felipe Massa Ferrari 61 +63.8 secs 8
    7. Jenson Button McLaren 61 +83.3 secs 6
    8. Sergio Perez McLaren 61 +83.8 secs 4
    9. Nico Hulkenberg Sauber 61 +84.2 secs 2
    10. Adrian Sutil Force India 61 +84.6 secs 1
    11. Pastor Maldonado Williams 61 +88.4 secs
    12. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber 61 +97.8 secs
    13. Valtteri Bottas Williams 61 105.161+ secs
    14. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 61 + 113.512 secs
    15. Mark Webber Red Bull Racing 60 +1 Lap
    16. Giedo van der Garde Caterham 60 +1 Lap
    17. Max Chilton Marussia 60 +1 Lap
    18. Jules Bianchi Marussia 60 +1 Lap
    19. Charles Pic Caterham  60 +1 Lap
    20. Paul di Resta Force India 54 Accident
    Ret Romain Grosjean Lotus 37 Pneumatics
    Ret Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso 23 Accident

  • A different strategy worked as we did not have the pace: Alonso

    DRIVERS

    1 – Sebastian VETTEL (Red Bull Ra

    Alonso (left), Vettel (2nd from right) and Raikkonen (right) on the podium after the Singapore GP on Sunday. An FIA photo
    Alonso (left), Vettel (2nd from right) and Raikkonen (right) on the podium after the Singapore GP on Sunday. An FIA photo

    cing)
    2 – Fernando ALONSO (Ferrari)
    3 – Kimi RÄIKKÖNEN (Lotus)

    Podium Interview (conducted by Martin Brundle)

    Q: Sebastian, it looked pretty easy from where we were sitting. How did it look from your carbon fibre seat?

    Sebastian VETTEL: Obviously the start was quite hairy. Quite difficult with Nico having a good start, better than me. I didn’t get going initially and then had to keep the inside clear to him but fortunately he went in a little bit too  deep and I could get him back which was crucial because then we had some very good pace, controlled the first stint, with the safety car obviously it was difficult but then we seemed to come back. As soon as the safety car came in we had a very, very strong pace in the car. The car was incredible. I said to the team, you know this doesn’t just happen like that, by accident or by luck. There’s hard work behind, which I appreciate and it’s just a pleasure to drive it around this crazy track.

    Q: You could just take off at will, whenever you wanted to. It seemed to be the only man who could beat you today had the slowest car on the track, the safety car. It was the only thing that was going to stop you.

    SV: Yeah, well I mean this is a long race, it seemed to go on forever, so there’s a lot of things that can go wrong, the walls sometimes get really, really close, sometimes closer than you think. So you can’t really afford to lean back. Obviously towards the end I was controlling the gap. It was helping that I was on fresh Options compared to these guys who were on very old Primes at the time, so we could control the gap to see the chequered flag.

    Q: And physical? You’re looking pretty sweaty up here. Was it a tough race?

    SV: I think we’re all sweating, not just the champagne men are wet, I think we all sweat a lot. As I said, it’s hard work out there. It’s quite hot but we like it. It’s one of the toughest challenges all year and it’s a very good feeling when you cross the line as a winner.

    Q: Fernando, you’re there. As always, you’re right there. You made a lot of fans very happy again. Tell us about your start, it was electric.

    Fernando ALONSO: Yeah, it was a fantastic start. We knew that we didn’t have the pace today so we have to invent something. The first possibility was the start, then different strategy compared to the others. We did both things: a very good start and a different strategy. I think it paid off at the end. A fantastic podium, a second place that tastes like a victory for us.

    Q: You pitted on lap 25 and put on the tyres that you ran to the end of the grand prix. When was that decision made? And how do you keep your tyres in when we saw the McLarens and many other drivers struggling with hopeless grip by the end?

    FA: Yeah, it was a risky move but as I said, we are in a position in the championship where we have nothing to lose. To finish second in the race or to finish fifth: it doesn’t matter too much to be honest so we push, we take care of the tyres, the car was performing really well in the race. And the fans pushed us a little bit to gain some extra tenths today.

    Q: This man [Vettel] had some speed you just couldn’t live with though.

    FA: Yeah, they were too fast all weekend and we have to congratulate them for a fantastic weekend and next time we will try to do better.

    Q: Kimi, you had a back problem in qualifying. Has that affected you during the race?

    Kimi Räikkönen: Luckily not too much but now afterwards it’s not 100 per cent but it doesn’t matter: we have two weeks’ time to rest and get it right. I think we did the best that we could and finished third, so I don’t think we could have achieved much more today.

    Q: You had to be patient through that race. You really had to believe that you could still be there at the end and take the places when they were there and not make mistakes.

    KR: Yeah, I think I had pretty OK speed and then I could overtake a few people and then in the end I was following Jenson and I could see that his tyres were going off so I just gave some pressure and then I have to get past him because obviously some people changed to new tyres and they were catching us quickly. I managed to pass him and pull away and luckily nobody managed to catch me in the end. So not too bad.

    Q: You say very calmly “I managed to pass him” but it was around the outside at Turn 14. It was at tricky one.

    KR: Yeah, maybe it looks more tricky. Obviously you have more grip when you brake on the line and you know more or less where you have to brake. Much easier than inside. So, not an easy one but we managed to get past and that’s the main thing.

    Q: Sebastian, it’s looking pretty good isn’t it? But it’s always this man [Alonso] who seems to be chasing you, up here on the podium with you.

    SV: Yeah, it’s incredible but to be honest with you I’m not really looking at the championship too much. Obviously we’re in a very good position, very strong position but I’m enjoying the moment. Days like today, like yesterday when you can feel the tension. I’m enjoying the moment. I love racing and the car’s fantastic and it doesn’t happen, as I said, by accident. Whilst there’s a lot of people hanging their balls in the pool very early on Fridays, we’re still here working very hard and pushing very hard so that we have a strong race. Days like this it’s just a pleasure to be in the car. The guys are completely committed, fully behind us, so it’s great.

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Q: Sebastian, as always, Singapore, a safety car features somewhere, it cut your lead early on, it obviously presented an opportunity in terms of strategy for others around you – but you used the word ‘control’ in your message to the team on the slow-down lap and I guess that’s really what today was really all about. An incredible demonstration – the whole weekend – of control.

    SV: Yeah, well, I mean it doesn’t happen just like that. It was surely not easy to get everything right all weekend. Extremely happy though. I think the whole team can be extremely proud. I know how much work is going in. Here obviously we have a funny rhythm. When it’s nine o’clock the curfew kicks in. That’s when our mechanics leave the track on Saturday morning. They are flat out checking everything on the car they can. Same with the engineers, late hours in the office here but also in the factory. So there’s a lot of team effort going in. If we have results like today where we have the luxury to control the race at some stage, then it’s because of those late hours, because of the commitment that goes in from everybody. It’s just a privilege to be part of the team and be part of that. To enjoy the moment completely. It’s one of my favourite races here. I’ve won here three times in a row – which is incredible – so I’m just extremely happy with that and extremely happy to be with the team at this stage.

    Q: Obviously the decisive moment of the race was the start. Rosberg initially got ahead of you but then you managed to come back around the back of him and get him into Turn Three. Can you give us that from your point of view in a little detail?

    SV: The lights went off, I thought I reacted pretty well but was a bit lazy to get off the line. I thought that Nico might still be there. He was and we were side-by-side, kind of, so I had to give him room. But fortunately he was braking quite deep into Turn One and I was able to come back on the inside to get the position. Fortunately the next corner was a left-hander so I got in front and from there we had a very, very strong pace. Safety car didn’t help but also I think didn’t hurt us. In the very end obviously we had a new set of Supersoft, compared to those guys, they were obviously on very old Primes so by then we could control the race. Don’t forget there is 1.5s difference between the tyres.

    Q: Fernando, another Alonso special. Seventh on the grid, second at the finish. Obviously your brilliant start contributed to that but also the strategy and a brave call to pit under the safety car and go to the finish on a set of mediums. What is that? 36 laps? How did that feel in the cockpit?

    FA: It was not easy, obviously, to finish the race with those tyres but we commit to that strategy when we pit under the safety car and we were controlling the pace all through the last stint thanks to the gap that we managed to build. Yes, the start again was very good and I was lucky to choose the right line. On Turn One there is always people going on the left, people going on the right in every circuit. We’ve managed so far to choose the right one. And then we were third which was already a good result for us. But when we didn’t stop Rosberg pitting in the safety car, we decided to pit and to try something different. We were too slow this weekend. We were not in a level that we should be. We try a little bit different things and it pay off at the end with a fantastic second place. For us it tastes like a victory today.

    Q: You say you were too slow. You bought updates this weekend hoping it would get you closer to the pace of the Red Bull. That hasn’t come through. You’re now 60 points behind with six races to go. Does it feel like kind of a water torture? Do you have a trick? Do you have any thoughts on how you can turn this around?

    FA: Well obviously we have to be realistic. A few races to go already, the gap is still increasing every weekend and now it’s sixty points. So, as I said, we need to be honest with ourselves and knowing that we need a lot of luck. We don’t need luck in Korea; we need luck in Korea, in Japan, in India, in Abu Dhabi… we need luck every weekend if we are one second off the pace. We need a lot of luck. On the other hand, we are a very uncomfortable opponent, I think, because if we get that luck, we will be there.

    Q: Kimi, when you put those tyres on, did you know you were going to try to go on the finish on them – and what in your mind did you think was possible at stage?

    KR: We had a plan and we know that what moment, if the safety car comes, we try to go until the end, so I knew what will happen and luckily some other teams couldn’t do it and had to pit. I was kind of stuck behind Jenson for most of the race but then I tried to give him some pressure and keep him pushing so I noticed that he started running out of his tyres and I could start to get in closer and closer. In the end I decided to try to pass him and managed to get past – because there were people who stopped for the fresh tyres who were catching very quickly but luckily once I got past I could push a bit more and keep the gap big enough to end it in third place. After the weekend where we had some problems with myself and not the ideal setup with all those things and where we were yesterday, finishing third, I don’t think we could have asked much more.

    Q: Can you describe the back problem you’ve been suffering from and how do you feel right now?

    KR: I didn’t feel it too much during the race but obviously afterwards it’s not ideal and yesterday it was pretty bad. I almost didn’t drive, so between that and finishing third I think we have to be happy – and hopefully we can sort those problems for the next race. It’s not the first time. For a long time there have been some issues with my back. I know that I have some work to do at the end of the year so we have to see what we do.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: Abhishek Takle – Mid-Day) Fernando, another strong drive, another strong second place but Seb just keeps extending his lead. Is there some sense of inevitability or perhaps acceptance on your part that you have to wait yet another year for that first world title with Ferrari?

    FA: Well, as I said, there’s nothing we can do. Obviously we try our maximum, we’re trying to improve the car for every race and we are doing it but obviously not enough compared to our opponents. They are doing a better job than us, they are fantastic every weekend. They are winning and they deserve those wins. This is a sport, someone always has to win and the best one wins and we are not the best ones at the moment but we will keep working.

    Q: (Heikki Kulta –Turun Sanomat) Kimi, was this the most painful race weekend you have ever had?

    KR: Yes, I  had some pain yesterday but for sure there have maybe been some more painful ones where something goes wrong, it doesn’t always have to be physical pain, there can be something… you don’t finish the race which is more painful in a way. Other things sometimes happen like this weekend and you have to live with it.

    Q: (Jacob Polychronis – F1Plus.com) Sebastian, very sadly the boos returned this year. This was perhaps expected at Monza because it was Ferrari’s home race and the fans are very passionate, but this is like the tourist Grand Prix, people are from all over the world, it’s no home Grand Prix.

    SV: It’s called travelling, they are on a tour, they come to every race. Fortunately we keep winning so they’ve got a reason to boo.

    Q: (Jacob Polychronis – F1Plus.com) Sadly perhaps they are going to stay on tour. Is this something that is very sad for you, are you concerned, is it mentally exhausting even?

    SV: It’s not nice but I think you should look around the grandstands. Most of the fans are dressed in red, Ferrari has a very strong fan base for a reason: they have a lot of tradition in Formula One, they’ve been around longer and won, and they’ve been more successful than any other team. There’s more and more blue people – more and more people dressed in blue so we are doing a good job on that front but obviously they are quite emotional when they are not winning and if somebody else is winning, they don’t really like it and as it seems, as I said, they are on a tour and they come back to… they are wealthy enough to go to a lot of races, Monza or take the flight to come here to Singapore. As long as they keep booing, we are doing a very good job so that’s the way I see it. It’s not people from Singapore or from one country only. It’s normal in sports if some people support one driver then they don’t like another driver to win. Equally there were a lot of German flags around the track, there are a lot of Germans here in Singapore, it’s a very international city. The parade lap was quite nice and also the lap after the chequered flag there were a lot of people cheering. Obviously I didn’t give them the most exciting race but on days like this, I really don’t mind.

    Q: (Livio Oricchio – O Estado de Sao Paulo) Fernando, you did 36 laps with the same set of tyres; did you have any reference that the tyre could support the race conditions or were you just playing the game?

    FA: We didn’t know exactly how long the tyres would survive. We were maybe not expecting that long but… We are sixty points behind in the championship, if it works OK, if it doesn’t work maybe we don’t finish second, we finish fourth or fifth. It’s nothing really… what we can do. There was a small chance that if Rosberg, Webber and Hamilton were not that slow after the safety car, maybe Sebastian didn’t get the 28 seconds necessary to exit in front of me but Nico, I think, had a problem with the front wing, Webber was without tyres and Hamilton pitted very late, the last. So when I had a free track and Seb pitted and exited in front of me already so we had a small chance to maybe lead the race but obviously very difficult to keep Sebastian… probably in the last part of the race with new tyres and we with a very slow pace. But we tried, nothing to lose and I think that will be the strategy in the last part of the championship. We are not as fast as they are in qualifying or in the race so we will try something different.

    Q: (Carlos Miguel – La Gaceta) Fernando, a lot of people are talking about how this championship is finished. What’s your mentality, no surrender? Do you think there are some tracks where you can try to win? What is the situation?

    FA: Well, as I said before, it’s very difficult. Nothing changed too much over the last two or three Grands Prix. We need to be very lucky but not only in one weekend, we need to be lucky for the last six races if we want to win the championship. We have a points deficit which is a big gap and we have a performance deficit which is a big gap so we need to be very lucky. We saw today, again: Webber stopped on the last lap. If this happened to Sebastian one weekend, we have to be there, in second place. If we cannot win the race, we need to be right behind and try to take any opportunity but being realistic, we know that we need to be very very lucky.

    Q: (Lim Say Heng – The New Paper/People Singapore) Sebastian, you said before that the race in Singapore is probably the toughest in the calendar. Now that you have won here, would you say that the toughest part of this year’s title race is now over?

    SV: Well, the toughest race in terms of physical challenge, I think – at least, that’s the way I feel. A couple of years ago, Fernando asked for the race to be a bit shorter. It’s quite long, to be honest. Obviously it depends where you are in the race but I think from a physical point of view this is the most challenging, not because there are so many high speed corners but it’s a long lap, there are a lot of corners, no room for mistakes, very bumpy, it’s very humid, artificial lights – all this makes it a very tough combination. It’s then even sweeter to be successful here.

    FA: I think it’s long, obviously the only race where we have two hours, every single year. We’re running 1m 55s and it’s 61 laps so it’s very easy to do the calculation that it will be two hours all the time. In Monaco, that is also a slower, street circuit, it’s not 300, it’s two hundred and something, it’s more or less a reasonable time. So it’s something that we may think for a year but they don’t, they don’t consider it’s OK. It’s five years that we race for two hours, last year was 59 laps, it was not 61 because we reached the two hours before the 61st lap and we need to check with the federation, but happy with any decision.

    Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Fernando, whose call was it to try to stay out? Was it your call or was it from the team to try to stay out and to change the strategy?

    FA: It was the team. I asked how may laps to go and they told me 36 and they said we will pit and then we will decide. At that moment, we lost only two positions with Webber and Hamilton so if we pit we will have new tyres for the restart and then looking at the safety car it was quite long etc, they were telling me ‘our aim is to go to the end’ so from the restart, taking care of the tyres for 32 laps.

    Q: (Frederic Ferret – L’Equipe) To all three of you: today we saw the Red Bull was good, the Lotus was good and there were two failures. Do you have an explanation as to why the failure often happens to the other car, not the leading driver?

    KR: I have no idea what happened to Romain.

    Q: He had a problem with the air system.

    SV: The air system. And Mark?

    Q: Gearbox, that’s what he told me.

    KR: It sometimes happens. I’ve had some issues. It can happen to anybody and then it’s up to us, up to the team to try to make sure we don’t have any issues but although they do everything to 100 percent you can have a failure, even the cheapest part of the car can fail or the most expensive part. It’s just one of those things that happens, even though we do the best we can to make sure there are no failures.

    SV: Yeah, I don’t think there’s a reason. We both had issues with the gearbox – if Mark had a gearbox issue – in Monza. When we came here, I think we understood it to some extent but not entirely. I had more issues on Friday with the gearbox than Mark had. Maybe he was in traffic the whole race. It’s quite hot, temperatures were maybe a bit higher but on the other hand his gearbox suffered already a little bit more in Monza because I think a radiator had an issue. So maybe it’s a consequence of that but I don’t think there’s a reason for that, between cars. We both get the same stuff from the same shelf.

    Q: (Anthony Rowlinson – F1 Racing) Fernando, do you feel confident that Ferrari will be able to close the performance gap to Red Bull next season?

    FA: Well, I think we start from zero next year, completely from zero. Big change in regulations so it’s our best opportunity to close the gap. This year was a continuation in a way. I think we started in a good way, we were competitive in Australia, maybe not in qualifying but in the race we were taking care of the tyres very very well, together with Lotus. We won in China, we won in Spain and then we seemed to lose a little bit of performance, especially when the 2012 Pirelli tyres came back so that was probably our point in the championship; when they changed the tyres, we said bye bye. For next year I think we start from zero. Really we will put all our effort and hopes into 2014, because starting from zero is our best opportunity to close the gap with all the top teams.

    Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Fernando, we heard during the race a radio message from (Andrea) Stella (Fernando’s race engineer) when he said ‘take care of the tyres, we have to put on the car the supersofts, take care of Paul di Resta, he’s behind you.’ It was a tricky joke for everybody else, to push Mercedes to stop again?

    FA: I think it was maybe not clear on TV because, at least, what they told me, was take care of Paul di Resta behind because he’s on supersoft, new supersoft and I was on medium, so there was a performance advantage, as Seb said before, of around one second in the first couple of laps, so I knew that maybe Paul was trying to attack me in those first laps with fresh supersoft. So that was the message: be careful with di Resta.

    Q: (Trent Price – Richland F1) Sebastian, late in the race, Rocky (Guillaume Rocquelin, his race engineer) radioed in that he thought there was a brake vibration on the car. Was this something you could feel, was it affecting you under braking?

    SV: Yeah, definitely, I could definitely feel it. It was building up towards the end of the race. Fortunately we were in the lead and we had a new set of supersofts which we saved yesterday, so I could afford to take it a bit easy. Surely, if we had been under a lot of pressure then…  we’ve had those kind of issues before but it’s not the most comfortable… you use the brakes quite a lot to stop around here. Then we could control it but had we raced harder until the end I think it would have been tough.

    Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Kimi, do you think that you will be fully recovered for Korea and what do you target there?

    KR: For sure, we will have to see. I  think it should be OK and we try to do a better overall weekend there.

    Ends

  • Tyre changes caused Force India’s dip in fortunes: Bob Fearnley

    TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Franz TOST (Toro Rosso), Bob FEARNLEY (Sahara

    Bob Fearnley. Photo by Sahara Force India
    Bob Fearnley. Photo by Sahara Force India

    Force India), Tony FERNANDES (Caterham), Claire WILLIAMS (Williams), Eric BOULLIER (Lotus)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Let’s start with today’s two practice sessions. Bob, if I could turn to you first. Progress made or was it a bit of a struggle for the team? 

    Bob FEARNLEY: It was a little bit of a struggle but I think we saw a little bit of progress in FP2, so optimistic.

    Same optimism for you Franz?

    Franz TOST: Yes, if we find seven to eight tenths then I’m optimistic for tomorrow.

    Any chance?

    FT: I hope so. The engineers have some time now. It’s a wonderful night and I’m convinced that they can study all the data and they will find a solution for tomorrow’s set-up.

    For yourself, Eric, one of your drivers spent more time on the track than the other. Romain Grosjean had problems.

    Eric BOULLIER: Yeah, it’s a concern in these early days but it should be fixed for tomorrow. Some issues yes on Romain Grosjean’s steering, power steering and hydraulics but still fast, and obviously happy with the second session when we could see on the high fuel pace Kimi was matching the so fast Red Bull cars, so we’ll see tomorrow,

    At Williams, Valtteri Bottas, driving here for the first time, was slightly faster than his team-mate Pastor Maldonado.

    Claire WILLIAMS: He was but I think we’re still where we are and I don’t think that was a surprise. We had a few changes to the car this weekend that we have evaluated so we have a lot of data to go through and we’ll see where we are tomorrow.

    And Tony and Caterham?

    Tony FERNANDES: As Claire said: we are where we are. Young drivers who get used to the track every practice session and we improve every session, so we’re expecting a bit more out of FP3 but we are where we are.

    Eric, if I could turn to you next. Not for the first time in Formula One history we’ve seen drivers and engineers leave Enstone recently to head off to Ferrari. How concerned are you about the impact the departures of Kimi Raikkonen, James Allison and Dirk de Beer will have on Lotus regarding your future competitiveness.

    EB: Not so high as you could maybe surprisingly imagine. It’s true that it’s a new chapter for Enstone, we lose valuable people and obviously a very charismatic driver. But as you said it happened twice already in the Enstone and every time the team has been world champion right after. So actually I’m quite motivated saying let’s start a new chapter and do as well or as good as happened before.

    Claire, you’ve strengthened your staff at Williams. Pat Symonds, just over a month ago, started as Chief Technical Officer. Have you started to notice differences yet? What areas has Pat identified that you need to make improvements in. And also, will you be looking to bring others in in the future?

    CW: I think Pat started just before Spa, so he hasn’t been with the team for a huge amount of time, but already we’re seeing the impact he’s having. He’s a guy that’s worked in Formula One for a huge amount of time and he has a huge amount of experience. He’s won numerous world championships and of course that’s going to bring with it a level of experience we really need at Williams. So he’s definitely looking… or spending a lot of time at Grove. He’s not here with us this weekend, he’s got critical meetings to attend to back at the factory, making sure we are where we want to be next season. But we all know that he’s not the magic bullet but he’s doing a great job for us so far and we will take his advice and see what we need to do once he’s had time to evaluate the business as a whole.

    Franz, at the end of the season you and Toro Rosso say goodbye to Daniel Ricciardo, his replacement expected to be another Red Bull young development driver. As team principal, what are you looking for from whoever gets that seat. What qualities do you think a young driver to bring to be an asset to Toro Rosso.

    FT: The best one is always when he finds the right-hand pedal and pushes it – that’s quite good. Generally speaking he has to be skilled; he has to have talent. For example, currently the Red Bull drivers, all the drivers from the Red Bull driver pool, have won a championship when they were racing in a lower class. Vettel, for example, in BMW junior. Daniel Ricciardo as well as [Daniil] Kvyat and [Carlos] Sainz won in the Renault 2.0 litre championship. Jean-Eric Vergne won the English championship as far as I know, with the highest number of victories. That means this is a good basis where they showed their talent. This is the first point. The second point: they must be patient. That means if a driver is coming to Toro Rosso he has to live Formula One 365 days a year. There should be nothing around that disturbs him and he has to be 100% concentrated on this job. The next important point is discipline. Discipline does not only mean he arrives in time for the meetings, discipline means also that he, for example, in qualifying does not overdrive the car; that he respects the schedule for his physical training; that he respects all the important facts of nutrition and that he respects what the engineers tell him. The next important point is innovation. He should think first how he can beat, at first his team-mate and for second all the other competitors. That he must think in advance; that he must be well prepared. All these factors together decide together whether a driver becomes successful and wins races and championships or not, and we are looking for this.

    On a similar note to Franz, if I could turn to you Tony, is that the same at Caterham? Are they the qualities you’re looking at or do you have to look more at the budget that a driver can bring as well given the situation that the Caterham team is in?

    TF: I think this year was the first year that we took the budget into consideration. We were trying to save as much for 2014. This is the state of Formula One right now where unfortunately sometimes the budget plays a large part in your decision making. We’ve got two fairy inexperienced drivers driving for us in the hope that we can put more resource into the 2014 car.

    Q: Bob, we were talking to Adrian Sutil here yesterday. It was his opinion the recent dip in Force India’s form was related to the change in the construction of the tyres that we saw halfway through the season. Is that a view you share? And if so, what as a team can you do to combat the downturn in results before the end of the season?

    BF: I think Adrian’s absolutely right: it’s not coincidental that the dip in form obviously ties in with the change in tyres. It’s very difficult because we’re past the time in the season where we’ve already committed through to the 2014 car. We ideally would need to put the 2013 car back into the system. I think what we’ve got to do – and it might not be very exciting – but I think we’ve got to just eke the best of the performance we can out of it, we’ve got a great team of engineers and I feel sure that they will overcome the problem but we’ve got to do it on the track and we’ve only got Fridays to do that. So it’s challenging and it’s going to be a little bit tough and it’s disappointing after what was an incredible start to the season – but we are where we are and we can’t change things.

    Q: Question to you all next regarding costs in Formula One. We heard from Christian Horner in the FIA press conference in Monza, his thoughts that although teams have been working to reduce costs, 2014 looks like being a very, very expensive year with the regulation changes. In his words, “collectively,” he said, “the mistake the teams made was not saying ‘no’ to the new engines.” I just wonder, do you share his view? Have costs escalated beyond what’s ideally realistic for your teams to deal with the larger outfits on the grid? Start with you Tony.

    TF: I’ve been consistent since day one I’ve been in Formula One that costs are too high and every… when I came into Formula One, people talked to me about costs coming down but I don’t think there’s been a single year it’s come down. I think next year will be probably the highest year – so I think there’s something fundamentally wrong. I don’t think it’s just the engine, by the way, I think the teams lost out an opportunity to get costs under control. I think self-interest overrode the sport and we are as much to blame for this problem as an engine.

    Franz, is that a fair assessment?

    FT: Yes, as I said, next year’s power unit package costs are double the price of this years and we are always talking of reducing the costs. Regarding now that power unit, on the one hand we must say Formula One is the peak of motorsport and we should come with new innovations. I think the new package from another point of view is quite economical and is quite interesting – but it costs us a huge amount of money. But the teams are stupid enough to decide to do tests during the season. This is totally a waste of money because we have eight test days and as soon as the car goes out on the track it costs money. But the teams want to do it. On the one hand they’re complaining they don’t have money, on the other hand, they throw it through the window. It’s a little bit difficult to understand for me but we were voted down because we were against the tests. And who wants the tests? The rich teams. As usual.

    I’d be interested in your thoughts now Eric.

    EB: It’s true that Formula One is costing too much money and regarding the next year engine, I do agree with Franz, F1 needs technology, this is the pinnacle of motorsport. I think just rather than blaming engine or not, it’s more about the process, about how this technology has been developed and sold to the team, which should have been controlled more. F1 needs technology, we need car manufacturers, we need obviously sponsors but we cannot afford to spend more and more every year. I was not there personally but last decade car manufacturers were in this place and the lowest budget in F1 was around $250m and the highest about $400m. Today it’s not the case any more and the smallest budget is around $60m and the highest is around $250m. But still, it’s… you multiply by four. If you want to be competitive you need to spend unfortunately some money, because you cannot afford if not, and you cannot be competitive then… This is a circle: you are not attractive, you do not bring in any new sponsors… so where is the balance? I think it’s a complicated debate. Obviously all the teams should stick together first, which is obviously something very difficult to do, and also sit down with Bernie and the FIA and make sure the regulations are stable at least for the next few years. I think in the new strategy committee we have a chance to voice what we would like to do. That’s going to be the first step, to make sure we go to a sustainable Formula One.

    Claire, to you next.

    CW: I don’t think I really have much more to add. Everyone’s covered the arguments. Williams, you know, we’re an independent team and we rely on sponsorships to go racing so the escalation in costs for next year across various different elements of what is involved in going racing, aren’t great for us and we have to just push and push to try to get the budget in for next year. But we have high ambitions as to where we want to position the team and to get the team back up the grid – but to do that is going to take more money. So to have more costs piled on top of each other, it’s going to be a challenge for us.

    Bob, where do Force India stand on the current debate?

    BF: I think the teams have demonstrated that they are not capable of being able to agree a cost control, so I think the answer is to take it outside of the team’s control. I think it’s up to the FIA to decide a formula, bring that in and implement it.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Chris Lyons – AP) Eric,  Kimi said yesterday that one of the reasons he left was that he wasn’t being paid his salary. Can you clarify the details of that and does the fact that this has come out damage the brand of the team?

    EB: I don’t think it’s damaging the brand of the team to be honest. The truth is that yes, we owe him money so that’s true. He’s going to be paid, that’s true too and if you want to have a little bit more of the story, last year in the same period it was the same story: we were owing him some money but at the end of the year he was fully paid. It’s just the way we manage our cash flow. Unfortunately we are not as rich as some other teams on the grid. You can also understand that a team capable of winning this year and fighting for some podiums may not be as sustainable as it should be. We have obviously favoured our people working in Enstone which is understandable I think, obviously the car development because this is the essence of Formula One if you want to keep competing. So there is nothing else behind this story.

    Q: (Joe Saward – Grand Prix Special) Just to lighten it up a bit, in two or words or in the case of Franz, three, can you say who’s going to be driving for you next year or who do you think will be driving for you next year? Tony?

    TF: No idea.

    CW: I have two: no comment.

    EB: No.

    FT: We will see. The season’s not finished yet. There are some races to go and then Red Bull will sit together and then we will decide.

    BF: It’s Vijay’s decision.

    Q: If I could re-phrase the question, do you all have in your own mind an idea of who you would like to be driving for you, or is your mind still wide open as to what your final pairing would be?

    TF: I would have one pretty clear and one open.

    CW: Yes, in one word.

    EB: Yes.

    FT: Of course the Red Bull drivers – da Costa, Sainz and Kvyat – and then we will see where we end up.

    BF: No, ours is a process, we can’t make those decisions at this point. It’s something we do after the Indian Grand Prix.

    Q: (Mat Coch – pitpass.com) Eric, with Kimi leaving and the state of the team at the moment, are you after a driver to come in on a salary or are you looking for someone to bring funding?

    EB: We keep the same strategy that we’ve had for many months. Geni helped us to bring the team to where it is today. We now want to have more finance, more sponsors because we need to step up and guarantee some stability over a few years. That’s part of the strategy, this is what we are still working on and we need to deliver on that point. We see the timing was not the right one for Kimi but we still have to deliver this. That would then allow us to chose drivers on merit which is obviously the first choice.

    Q: (Kate Walker – GP Week) Claire, you mentioned earlier about the difficulties of ensuring that you have enough budget, the way that it’s an annual process. We’ve been reading in the papers recently about troubles with the Venezuelan economy. I was wondering if that was going to have an impact on your operating budget next year.

    CW: We have a long term relationship with our friends in Venezuela so no, I don’t really have a concern about that at the moment.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – The Citizen) Lady and gentlemen, you’re constantly going on about cost-cutting in Formula One, how costs must be reduced but as any housewife knows, there are two ways of keeping the household going: one is to reduce costs and the other one is to maximise income. Claire, you said earlier on that your source of income is sponsorship but I would have thought that the commercial rights holder also pays you something, and the commercial rights holder is obviously recording record profits. Is it not easier for the teams to club together to go and get more money out of the commercial rights holder than it is to constantly bang on about reducing costs and not reach agreement?

    TF: I think the team didn’t get together. The teams had a wonderful opportunity to try and create a fair, equitable split so that the sport is sustainable. I’m obviously in another sport where I think the difference between the top and the bottom is not as great as between the top and the bottom in Formula One. If you look at the Premier League, the winner of the Premier League share of prize versus the team at the bottom is not as spread out. I think teams had an opportunity but I go back to my very first point: that teams looked at things on an individual basis as opposed to working together in FOTA and trying to find a win-win situation for everyone and create a very healthy environment in a sustainable sport. We screwed it up, it’s as simple as that.

    BF: I tend to agree with Tony. I think we’ve had wonderful opportunities and we’ve collectively failed to be able to bring the deals together. There’s a certain amount of greed comes in from the top teams as well and I think they have to take some of the responsibility for that  but it is Formula One, it’s not something that’s new, there’s never been any equality in Formula One so you have to go out there and make sure it happens for yourself.

    FT: Each team has got the Concorde Agreement, at least from a financial side and if teams do not accept it, they don’t need to sign it. It’s as easy as that. And if they sign it, they have to accept it. There’s nothing to complain of from this side. I think first of all the teams should try to come down with the costs. It’s easy to say yes, we should get more money but give the engineers one million and they ask for two. Give them four million and they ask for eight million. It’s something about the discipline within the teams and as I mentioned before, we decide by ourselves to spend the money for nothing as I explain with the testing.  If the teams get more money, they go testing even more and in my opinion that’s wrong.

    CW: I think everyone’s said it all really. In my experience, this is the way Formula One has always been so unless you have a seismic change in the future, then I imagine it will remain this way but as people have said, the teams may have had an opportunity but unfortunately they didn’t take it.

    EB: Well, I think it’s been debated and it’s true that I share the view of the other team principals that we may have missed an opportunity to just sit down with the commercial rights holder and re-negotiate something which could have been more in favour of the teams but we failed. I think on top of this it’s not one more or less costs, I think it should be both of them to be honest, because, as Franz said, the more money you get, the more money we will spend if you don’t have any safeguards around you. Your engineers will always try to find out the best way to be competitive and this is why we are paying them to be like this, but at the same time, the more open the regulations are, the more we will spend money and waste money.  So it’s true that we need both.

    Q: (Joe Saward – Grand Prix Special) On the question of testing, can anyone of you think of a good argument this time next year when Bernie says ‘look, you’ve gone to four tests, you haven’t earned any money, why don’t we have four more races in 2015?’

    EB: Four is not enough. Ten more is better.

    Q: Could you race more, is that possible?

    FT: This is what I always request. I prefer to have more races where we gain money instead of spending money for nothing, therefore I would prefer to maybe have two races more or three or four races more – I don’t care – instead of going testing for eight days where we go out to do some laps for nothing in the end, because reliability – as we can see – is no longer an issue. Ten, 15, 20 years ago we could say OK, we need to do some tests so that the cars become more reliable. That’s no longer the case. What we are doing now is to create a new test team, because the theory that the race team will do the tests on Tuesday and Wednesday is absolutely wrong because they have to go home to prepare the cars for the next race. That means that on Sunday, the test team will fly in, then we do the test on Tuesday, Wednesday, then they go back. It’s not only testing, it means bringing new parts, because the development will be increase and these are the costs.

    CW: I think there are so many considerations.  Like Franz said, the major one for bringing testing in is that you’ve got to create a new support team.  A few years ago, Williams disbanded – whatever the word would be – our designated test team so now we’re looking at additional costs to create a new test team because you can’t have your race mechanics and engineers working that amount of time but then there are other considerations. Could you use those days for a young driver development programme, for example, that could bring in revenue for the teams? So it’s definitely conversations that we’re having internally at the moment to see which would be better whereas I don’t know whether… you bring in four more races a year or… Eric wanting ten more races. You’re going to have to bring in more personnel to support that as well, so I think again, it’s all about costs isn’t it?

    EB: Just to comment on this, when I said ten more races, I know we face the same problem that today we have a team sized for twenty races, so if we go one or two more races, I think we would struggle if we could do it, but if you had ten more we would have to have a second team. This is why I said ten actually, because four races would be difficult but it’s better to race than test.

    BF: I think Eric’s got a very good point there in terms of the amount of races, but the advantage you have of testing as opposed to having two or three races imposed on you is if you could make the choice of whether you wanted to go testing. You don’t have to do that, you do have to do races.

    Q: (Luke Smith – NBC Sports) Eric, since Ferrari’s announcement, the two names that have been linked to the seat (at Lotus) have been Nico Hulkenberg and Felipe Massa. Where does this leave Romain Grosjean in this situation; is his future with the team secure or could you completely change your line-up for next season?

    EB: His future is secure so far because he has a contract with us. Last year was a bit difficult for him; this year he’s doing a great job. In the last four races, we have nothing to complain about. He was one hundred per cent up to speed, especially compared to his famous teammate. We just see now and monitor what he is doing and if everything is going as planned, he will have a great future with us.

    Q: (Fredrik Af Petersens – Honorary) One question: I might have missed something but you are all talking about a missed opportunity regarding next year. Why did you miss it?

    EB: We couldn’t sit down together and clearly we missed the opportunity by not taking the chance to conclude the process.

    Q: (Fredrik Af Petersens – Honorary) Aren’t you grown-up enough to do that?

    CW: We’re all too competitive.

    FT: We do not only compete on the race track, also behind the scenes, around the green table.

    Q: (Fredrik Af Petersens – Honorary) Just a comment, and I agree with Franz when it comes to testing, but your father, Claire, once said, a few years ago when there was a lot of testing, that ‘the first race of the year, my car is about half a second slower than the quickest one. Then we go testing. At the end of the year, my car is quicker but still half a second slower than the quickest one.’ So why go testing and, as Franz says, spend a lot of money?

    CW: That’s true.  Yeah. I do think that there is an argument that over the course of a year, if you start the season… to use an example, where we were at the start of this year, if we had had the opportunity to do some test days after the first few races, after Bahrain or Barcelona, it may have helped us, we don’t know, so I think there’s an argument for both sides.

    Q: To pick up on Freddie’s original question, Tony is there a feeling among the teams that are represented today that you haven’t got the voice that is heard, that missed opportunity that you’re talking about. I assume that your opinion was given at various meetings. Was your voice not heard? Was that the problem?

    TF: No, I don’t think so. I think there were numerous meetings, loads and loads of meetings, loads and loads of proposals but at the end of the day, some teams decided to split and when that happens, it’s a divide and rule situation and the whole thing falls apart. I don’t think it was anything else but that. There was lots of unity at the beginning but one by one, people decided to do their own thing.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – The Citizen) I would like to continue this particular debate about cost-cutting and maximising income. The general consensus of opinion seems to be that the teams screwed up in not maximising the income they could get from the commercial rights holder. The general consensus of opinion also appears to be that the FIA should control cost cuts. Am I correct in assuming then, that you people are asking the FIA to control something because you people screwed up?

    BF: I think that was my comment, actually Dieter. I don’t think anybody else made that. My view is that the teams can’t agree what day it is, never mind be able to agree cost-cutting measures…

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – The Citizen) Tony used the words ‘screwed up…’

    TF: Yeah, I do. I don’t honestly think that if someone mentioned grown-ups etc around here, if we all sat together and agreed something, we wouldn’t need anyone to police it. The reality is we can’t. In my short period in Formula One it’s very clear, so I think someone here suggested the FIA controls that but the reality is that if 12 people in a room can’t agree something, then that sounds fairly ridiculous, but going back to Claire’s point, the competitive element of it leads us to this position and historically that’s always been the case I suppose.

    CW: I don’t necessarily actually have anything more to add to it.

    FT: For me, the FIA should not be involved in financial topics, but the FIA can come up with a regulation which helps the teams to cut the costs but then it’s obviously up to the teams to spend the money.

    EB: Nothing else to add, to be honest.

     

    Ends

  • I expect better performance in Singapore: Adrian Sutil

    DRIVERS – Adrian SUTIL (Force India), Nico HULKENBERG (Sauber), Valtteri BOTTAS (Williams), Sergio PEREZ (McLaren), Kimi RAIKKONEN (Lotus), Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    I’ll start with Kimi if I may. Congratulations on the move for next season. First time we’ve seen you since the announcement. If we’d have said to you at the start of the season that you’d be a confirmed Ferrari driver by September, what would have said then: no chance, no way or is it something you always thought might be possible?

    Kimi RAIKKONEN: I just have to say things change in Formula One a lot. I never had a bad feeling with them really. But I mean I still have a lot friends and good memories from there. I knew that my contract will end at the end of this year so obviously I had to make some kind of decision what to do for next year and now it’s been done.

    Was there anything that Lotus could have done to keep you with the team or was the attraction of a return to Ferrari just to strong for you?

    KR: Yeah, there was a lot of things and for sure they know what it is. It’s hard to say which way it would have gone if that would have had happened but the deal’s done now and I’m very happy with the new deal.

    What would you say is the biggest challenge for you then next season at Ferrari?

    KR: I know the team and I know the people. Obviously there are some new people and some more have left since I was there but most are the same. I don’t think this will be too difficult to go there and do well. The car’s will be obviously different so I think that will be the most difficult thing, to get the cars right and get them running reliable and whoever makes the best car will probably make the best out of it.

    Thank you Kimi. Let’s turn to Nico Hulkenberg, sitting behind you. There’s at least one seat going at Lotus and if you look at some of the headlines on the Internet you’re the man for the man for that team for next season. With due respect to your current team, is signing for Lotus a priority for you?

    Nico HULKENBERG: It’s not a priority. The priority is to find a good deal and a good car, a competitive car, and a good package. Nothing is finalised. Nothing has been decided at this point. Trying to sort out all the options and then to come up with a good decision for the future.

    Your name was of course linked to Ferrari. Did you think you got very close to a move there?

    NH: I don’t know. I guess so. There was a chance there. There’s no point now to think about that too much. That’s history now. I have to look forward and move on.

    You come here fresh with your performance at Monza in your mind. How much of a relief was that result for you given some of the difficulties on track this year?

    NH: It was a fantastic weekend for us, a great effort by the team. I’m really happy for everybody there, for the hard work and that finally we could reward them a little bit, and for sure that’s given us a boost and some momentum for the final seven races. Monza, after a very challenging and disappointing year, has been very happy and good for us.

    Sergio, I’m sure you’re really excited to be here in Singapore this weekend but I’m sure your thoughts aren’t very far away from your fellow countryman affected the tropical storm in Mexico?

    Sergio PEREZ: Definitely. We’re not having a great time right now. A lot of people have lost their houses; other people have died. Things are getting a bit more complicated. That’s a bit sad for my country. I will dedicate my race weekend for all my country, all the people that is suffering, losing their houses, their families, so hopefully things can get better.

    From a personal perspective, this time last year we were discussing your future and linking you to a move to McLaren, which eventually came off. Twelve months on people are talking about your future again. Have you signed a contract with McLaren yet?

    SP: Yeah, it’s pretty much everything done, I think, But the right thing to do is to ask Martin about that but everything is done.

    Have there been stumbling blocks along the way or have you been in unanimous agreement with McLaren?

    SP: Yeah, we’ve been having some discussions about the contract. The contract is done but we are just finalising the final dots. Obviously I cannot give much details about them but everything is pretty much done.

    Q: Valtteri, driving the Marina Bay circuit for the first time – what challenges lie ahead for you do you think this weekend?

    Valtteri BOTTAS: I think it’s going to be a difficult race weekend, like Monaco was first time for me. And then this track, it’s a night race obviously but the lighting is very good and bright so that shouldn’t make a big difference but y’know, it’s a difficult circuit, a lot of corners, so there’s lots to learn on Friday.

    Q: Realistically, what are your goals for this weekend?

    VB: Still our goal is points. This track is a lot different from Monza. We were not really strong there but this is different and it means we can be stronger here. The team was very strong here last year actually, so really hope this track suits our car. We have some little updates and if they work I really think it is possible to fight for the points in the race.

    Q: We’re talking about drivers’ futures. For yourself for next season is it safe to assume you’ll be staying with Williams?

    VB: I think we still have to see. It’s always best to ask the team, they know the best what they are going to do but at the moment I’m very confident with Williams and comfortable and really would like to continue.

    Q: We’ll stay on that theme. Adrian, your chances of staying with Force India for next season?

    Adrian SUTIL: Yeah, I would be happy to do another year. I’m just back into Formula One, more than half a year only. It would be OK but I haven’t really lost too many thoughts about it yet. It’s quiet at the moment.

    Q: You and the team haven’t sat down and started to look ahead just yet then?

    AS: No, not yet.

    Q: And this season, the form of the team, it was an upward curve and then the tyres changed. We had the construction from last year and the compounds from this year and the team’s form seemed to take a bit of a dip. Is it all tyre related?

    AS: Yes, I think so. Since the new tyres came in it was clearly a step down for us. We used to be able to do one less stop in the race which was a big advantage compared to others and also the general balance of the car was much better and we lost it a little bit now, last few races. Spa was still OK but Monza was a big disappointment. Coming here of course we try to improve our performance again. I don’t think we get everything out of our package and we don’t develop the car any more – that’s clear – but it’s not different to other teams. So, we have to get back again where we used to be and I think even with this car what we have, we can show more in Singapore – here I expect a better performance.

    Q: Is that very similar to yourself Nico Rosberg, that after the disappointment for the team in Spa and in Monza, Singapore, totally different track, Mercedes should improve? Or are you fearful of another disappointing weekend?

    Nico ROSBERG: Spa wasn’t really a big disappointment. Of course it wasn’t a win – and we’re aiming quite high recently – but still it was a great points haul for the team with third and fourth. Monza, yes, didn’t go to plan. I think we had a very, very quick car so a lot more would have been possible. Unfortunately my weekend didn’t go perfectly. But that’s why I’m really looking forward to this race here. It’s back to high downforce package where Lewis won last with this package in Hungary, so I’m confident we can be very quick again this weekend.

    Q: A track you quite enjoy as well, I’d have thought.

    NR: Yeah, for sure. I’ve had great results here in the past and really enjoyed the track and that’s why I’m looking forward to it.

    Q: Have you enjoyed this season? There have been two tremendous highs but some frustrating moments as well.

    NR: In general I’ve really enjoyed it, yes, because it’s the first time in my career that I’ve really had a car that on numerous occasions I can win races with. That’s a great feeling. To come to a race track knowing I can put it on pole, I can win the race, it’s really nice.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Kimi, you said last year that when you left Ferrari you felt liberated. So what made you decide to go back and lose your – in brackets – freedom?

    KR: I always had freedom there also. There are a lot of stories from my past, from different teams but it’s all from you guys and I don’t think that you guys work in the team so you don’t really know what’s happening and you write a lot of stuff which can sometimes be true and sometimes not. I had a good time, like I said, and I’m sure we will have a good time together again.

    Q: (Jacob Polychronis – F1Plus.com) Kimi, some other drivers have been quite quick to already suggest that your partnership with Fernando Alonso may not work out, namely Jenson and Sebastian. Do you care to weigh in on the issue?

    KR: I don’t see the reason why it wouldn’t work. We are all old enough to know what we are doing and for sure the team is working for the right things to make sure. If there is something, I’m sure we can talk it through. It’s not like we are 20-year old guys any more. I might be wrong, but time will tell, but I’m pretty sure everything will be good. For sure there will be hard fights on the race circuits but sometimes things go wrong… like I said, I’m pretty sure it will all be OK.

    Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Kimi, Mr Montezemolo said in an interview in our newspaper that he expected victories and poles from you, but also that you can help Alonso to develop the car. Are you ready to spend more time in Maranello, like Fernando, to stay there even more than in the past?

    KR: It’s a pretty similar answer to before. There are a lot of stories but I think we’ve done pretty well in this team when we started and I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t be able to produce a very good car for next year and keep improving it. Obviously there are new rules so it will be more challenging for all the teams but I have no worries about those things.

    Q: (Luc Domenjoz – Le Matin) Kimi, it seems that Lotus owes you a lot of money, so the question is simple: why, if the team doesn’t fulfil its part of the contract, why do you respect yours and why don’t you simply stay at home?

    KR: I like to race and then obviously that’s the only reason why I’m here; it doesn’t matter which team it is and obviously the reasons why they ask from the team but the reasons why I left from the team is purely on the money side, that they haven’t got my salary so it’s an unfortunate thing but like I said, I want to try and help the team as much as I can and I like to race.

    Q: (Fulvio Solms – Corriere dello Sport) Kimi, referring to your next teammate, what do you think will be possible to learn from him next year and can he learn from you?

    KR: For sure, you always learn from different teammates; everyone does different things. Maybe they do something better than you but often there are a lot of things that only suit one guy and it doesn’t work if you try to do the same thing for yourself, it’s not going to work. I know the team, I know the people. Like I said, I have no worries to go there and have something that wouldn’t work. I don’t really worry about it, I’ve never worked with Alonso. I obviously know him from racing but I’m sure it will be fine.

    Q: (Chetan Narula – Planet F1) Adrian, how important is it for Force India to beat McLaren, considering there is just a five point gap and quite a few races to go, also considering that extra points means extra money in the Constructors’ standing, especially for a middle team going into 2014, which is a highly… the rule changes and everything for a middle team to go forward and to develop, so how important is it to beat McLaren?

    AS: It would be a great success, of course. We are a few points behind now and it’s a very high target to complete but we showed, with a good car, it’s possible also to fight against McLaren and well, what can we do, we are professionals so we want to finally actually win races which is why we’re all here. That’s why we never give up so at the end of the season, who knows what’s going to happen? We only know that it’s a big challenge to beat McLaren but it’s not impossible and that’s why we’re pushing on. It would mean fifth position for us at the end of the year, that’s two better than last year and that means much better financial backing, of course,  for the next year. So you can think about it by yourself, that definitely means a better chance for us next year to compete even better.

    Q: On the flip side to that, Sergio, how important is it for you and everyone at McLaren to finish ahead of Force India this year? Is it a fight and a battle that you’re taking a lot of notice of?

    SP: Yes, of course. It’s not a secret that we haven’t had the year that we were hoping for so we definitely have to try and finish as high as possible in the next seven races that we have ahead of us and maximise the full potential. Last weekend in Monza, we should have got more points than we did so I think we definitely have to make sure that we bring home all the points that we can. If at the end we beat Force India, it’s good for us.

    Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action and National Speedsport News) Nico Rosberg, at the start of the season the momentum was on your side; then it switched to Lewis. For the latter part of the season, how do you get it back onto your side? Is it just a matter of letting things unfold?

    NR: I’ve just had a few races now when it’s just not gone perfectly, a string of races and that gives a little bit of a dip but I’m really confident I can turn it around and get some good races again from now on.

    Q: (Abhishek Tackle – Mid-Day) Nico Hulkenberg, last year you were linked to a Ferrari drive; this year there was actually a contract on the table before the deal with Kimi was agreed. Is there any sort of resentment that you feel towards Ferrari, especially the way that you found out that you hadn’t got the drive, I think it was an SMS or something?

    NH: No, not at all to be honest. I think the relationship is as good and as positive as before. I think there has maybe been some understanding and that story has been blown up by the media. I read that too but no, I don’t feel that.

    Q: Were you not contacted by text message then?

    NH: No.

    Q: (Luke Smith – NBC Sports) Valtteri, at Singapore, traditionally, there is a high rate of attrition, lots of retirements, there’s been a safety car in every race here;  is this your best chance to score points this season do you think?

    VB: I think so, this should be the place to get the points. Like you said, a lot of things can happen in the race and safety cars etc. Like I said before, if some of the little updates work and we can get a little more speed and be a bit closer to the top ten in pure pace, then it’s always possible to get points and we need to keep pushing for that.

    Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Kimi, in your choice of Ferrari, is there also a technical reason? I’m thinking about the turbo era; do you think that Ferrari building both engine and chassis could be a better chance of being a competitive car than Red Bull or Lotus  next year?

    KR: Obviously I hope so. They built very good cars and engines in the past, they’ve won a lot of championships as a team and then you have to look on the other side at teams like Red Bull or Lotus with Renault who have done very well. It’s very hard to say which way it’s going to go with the new rules and who’s going to have the best package. There are a lot of stories about certain engines that will be much stronger than others but there are so many different things that you have to look at and go through and make sure that it works that I have no idea which team will  be strongest and which team will come out on top. We have to wait and see, really, for the first few tests.

    Q: (Chetan Narula – PlanetF1) Nico Rosberg, it’s a continuation of the last question for you: for 2014, teams are looking to get the two strongest drivers to get them more points, considering it’s going to be an unpredictable season. Lewis and your partnership was considered to be a very strong one, especially when Red Bull went for Daniel Ricciardo instead of Kimi. But with Kimi pairing with Alonso now, what are your thoughts on that?

    NR: I can just say that for us it’s working well. We push each other and also through a weekend, pushing each other, stepping up our game, learning from each other so it’s working really well and we get on well together. But that’s just for us. For other people, I don’t know, we need to wait and see.

    Q: Is it vital to get on with your teammate? Do you have to or can you still compete well on the track if you don’t get on with your teammate?

    NR: Well, get on, no, you don’t need to get on but you need to show a certain respect, I think, otherwise it can go a bit wrong.

    Ends

  • Sahara Force India back in points but falls behind McLaren

    Spa, 25 Aug 2013: It was mixed fortunes for Sahara Force India as Adrian Sutil raced to ninth place in the Belgian Grand Prix, while Paul Di Resta failed to finish after being hit by Pastor Maldonado on lap 27 in the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa Francorchamps here on Sunday. Though the Indian outfit managed to get back into points after a couple of disappointing races, the midfield team who were in 5th place before the start of the race lost vital points to McLaren and lost the position.
    The Sahara Force India team slid to 6th position and now have 61 points, four less than McLaren, who moved to 5th place with Jenson Button finishing 6th today.
    Adrian Sutil finished P9 to get valuable two points to the team and increased his tally to 25. After the race Adrian said: “An interesting and exciting race, and it’s good to come away with two points. At the start I didn’t make the best getaway and lost a few places, but after that I settled into the race and was able to get ahead of a few cars and move into the top ten. I always enjoy driving here at Spa and I had some exciting overtaking moves today, which felt very nice. The two-stop strategy was the best way to go and it worked out well because I think we achieved the maximum that was available to us. We are still in a close fight with McLaren so it was important to get back in the points today after a couple of tough races.”
    However, Paul Di Resta, who remains on 36 points was disappointed today. Yesterday, he almost made it to pole but with rain receding, the big guns caught up in the last few minutes of qualifying. Paul, who had a DNF today said: “I got a lot of wheel-spin at the start of the race and was down in about tenth place going into turn one, but during the first lap I managed to recover to seventh. After the second pit stop I was racing closely with Adrian and there was a train of four cars battling as we went into the final chicane. Pastor [Maldonado] went in deep and missed the apex so I tried to get the cut-back and was going around the outside of him. He then decided to try and enter the pit lane, which was impossible given his track position. As a result he hit me, which took the rear corner off my car. It’s a real shame because the speed was quite strong today and I think there was definitely a point or two up for grabs.”
     
    Team Principal and Managing Director Vijay Mallya, however was happy that the team was back in points He said:
    “I’m pleased to see Sahara Force India back in the points after a fine performance by Adrian. He clearly enjoyed himself out there today and his overtaking moves were a highlight of the race. The strategy calls from the pit wall helped him stay in the hunt for points and his race pace was good. The incident with Maldonado hitting Paul was very disappointing because Paul was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. It certainly cost us the chance to get both cars in the points. Going forward we will take the positives from the weekend and look to build on this performance level in a couple of weeks’ time in Monza.”
    ends

    Adrian Sutil finished 9th to get back Sahara Force India into points but the team fell back to 6th place behind McLaren. A SFI photo
    Adrian Sutil finished 9th to get back Sahara Force India into points but the team fell back to 6th place behind McLaren. A SFI photo

  • Paul di Resta qualifies 5th for Sahara Force India

    Spa, 24 Aug 2013: Sahara Force India came through a challenging qualifying session of varied weather conditions with Paul Di Resta qualifying in fifth place ahead of Adrian Sutil in P12.
    P5        Paul Di Resta    VJM06-04
    Q1:       2:02.338           
    Q2:       1:48.925
    Q3:       2:02.332
    Paul Di Resta said: “Fifth place on the grid is a great result. At the start of Q3 I knew that I wanted to go straight out on the intermediates. It was a brave decision and the team let me go ahead with it, while the others chose dry tyres. I knew it was our best chance to get up towards the front of the grid and it paid off. It’s a shame that the rain stopped a bit too early because there were only a few cars that were quicker than us in the wet and they just got ahead at the end of the session. The main thing is we are in a strong position for tomorrow and we will come back tomorrow ready to fight.”
    P12      Adrian Sutil      VJM06-03
    Q1:       2:02.749
    Q2:       1:49.103
    Adrian Sutil: “I’m feeling disappointed with how things ended up today because I think we had the potential to get a better result. In Q2 I was on my final flying lap a bit too early and the track was getting quicker all the time. So we should have waited a bit longer and I think that would have made the difference to make the top ten. Also, I had some traffic on my fastest lap and that cost me some time.”
    Vijay Mallya, Team Principal & Managing Director
    “As soon as it started raining before qualifying we knew that it was likely to be an unpredictable qualifying session. The track conditions were constantly changing from wet to dry and it was vital to be on track at the right time on the right tyres. With Paul we judged this pretty much to perfection and for a while we were looking good for a front row start. But the rain eased up and he dropped down to fifth, which is still an excellent result. Adrian looked competitive in Q2 but we didn’t maximise our time on the drying track and he missed out on Q3. The big question mark for tomorrow is the weather. We’ve looked more competitive in the dry, but whatever the conditions we will push hard to come away with a strong result.”
    ends

    Paul di Resta qualifies 5th at Spa on Saturday. A Sahara Force India photo
    Paul di Resta qualifies 5th at Spa on Saturday. A Sahara Force India photo

  • We will fight every race, but our focus is also on next year’s car: Andrew Green

    TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Andrew GREEN (Force India), Nick CHESTER (Lotus), Jean-Michel JALINIER (Renault Sport), Tom McCULLOUGH (Sauber), Pat SYMONDS (Williams), James Key (Toro Rosso)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    James, if I could start with you. I want to talk about the engineering challenges today, of developing new technologies, such as we have for 2014, but in a resource-restricted environment in Formula One, as we have at the moment. What are the key points in your mind?

    James KEY: That’s the secret to it in many ways, isn’t it, because we have a lot of new technologies and new things we have to do for next year. Fundamentally, it’s a case of getting the priorities right and understanding how best to pitch what technologies are going to be important and which aren’t, or which are going to be less important let’s say. Certainly when you have a limited budget as a team, you can’t iterate through everything. It’s very easy to spend a lot of money very quickly, so you have to circumvent certain things by kind of iterating and then take your best guess and move on from there. So to certain extent there’s a bit of knowledge you have to go on and in other respects it’s a case of setting priorities.

    Obviously you’re switching from Ferrari to the Renault for next year. Do you get the gearbox from Red Bull, presumably as part of all that package. Can you talk a little bit about how big a boost that is in terms of your efforts to move yourselves forward up the grid.

    JK: I think certainly it makes a huge amount of sense for us to have a few more synergies where possible with Red Bull – we fundamentally have the same ownership. I think that’s good for both teams. We will take the same engine as well. We’re working extremely well with our engine partners at Renault, who are doing a good job of supporting us. It’s a new experience for us, we haven’t worked with them in the past. In that respect it’s good. We’ll have to see for next year, there are so many unknowns still right now. But to move towards similar powertrain solutions to Red Bull Racing is a very obvious thing to do and can only be of benefit to both sides I think.

    Jean-Michel, at this stage, with just a few months to go before the end of this season and with testing starting in January, do you have any sense of where Renault is in terms of power and efficiency compared with your rivals Ferrari and Mercedes?

    Jean-Michel JALINIER: I cannot compare ourselves to our competitors but what I can say is that we have set very aggressive targets for all the parameters of the new engine and that we are achieving the targets one after one because today according to our plans we have some engines on benches, the results are now coming and they are in line with our targets.

    What is the first order of priority? Is it power? Is it efficiency? What do you see as the key for next year?

    JMJ: I think that for next year the two keys are going to be reliability, because it’s a brand new engine with high tech engine inside – internal combustion engine but also the two electrical engines, all the energy recovery systems – so reliability for this new technology will be key. The second key will be energy management for the race.

    Just finally, the latest on a deal with Lotus? Is there any more business to be done in terms of the teams you will supply next year?

    JMJ: We’re going to supply four teams. We have already a deal with Toro Rosso and Red Bull Racing obviously and the two other teams it’s just a matter of time to finish the contracts.

    Pat, great to see you back, welcome, in your new colour scheme. Mid-1990s, I remember you and Michael Schumacher at Benetton racing against Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve at Williams, they then were the arch enemies in many, many ways. How does it feel to walk to walk through the doors [of Williams] nowadays and be part of that team?

    Pat SYMONDS: Oh, realty great actually. Williams does have that incredible heritage and it’s a heritage I respect a lot. But we can’t live in the past. They were great times, of course they were, but my job now is to make the team today as successful as it was then. It’s quite a challenge but it’s a very enjoyable challenge. The fundamentals of the team are there. It’s a very well equipped team, it has some very good people in it. An analogy I often use is it’s like being the conductor of an orchestra. I think we have some very good instrumentalists in our orchestra. And now we just really need to get them timed together, playing the same tune and bring the success back.

    You said that the technical changes for 2014 are the biggest you’ve encountered in your long career. On the theme of technical developments in a resource-restricted environment, you’ve obviously worked for top teams, recently you worked for Marussia, a small team. Can you give us an overview of the impact of dealing with this change for the field in Formula One?

    PS: It is huge and I think James summed it up very well, because you’ve got to decide where to put your priorities. When we have reasonably stable regulations you iterate to those priorities. Arguably if you have very stable regulations, everyone iterates towards a very similar design. You also iterate to similar processes. Now when the rule book is ripped up and you start again, you really have to think about what processes are important – what’s going to bring you performance. And of course while everyone is focused on the powertrain and there are a lot of things to do there – cooling’s a huge challenger, energy management is a huge challenge – but of course we must not forget that it’s a reasonably significant aerodynamic change we’re making to the cars. It may not sound much – moving the front wing in a little bit, losing the beam wing at the rear and small changes like that – but in actual fact the aerodynamics of the cars are so inter-related now that it really is something you need to think about a lot. And, of course, we never ‘un-invent’ anything, we never forget what we’ve already done. So we’re not dropping any of our technologies in order to bring the new ones in, we’re just adding to the job.

    Thanks for that. Moving to Nick Chester from Lotus. Welcome, Nick. There’s a lot going on at Lotus at the moment. You’ve got the double DRS running this weekend. You’ve got a long wheelbase car, apparently, for Monza. Can you shed a bit of light on your thinking for this final part of 2013 and what kind of statement that makes?

    Nick CHESTER: Well, we’re still trying to develop very hard to give ourselves a very competitive run until the end of the year. The passive drag reduction system we’ve been working on for a while. We targeted it for Spa and we’ve run it through P1 and we’ve learned some more with it. I don’t think we’ll carry on through this weekend with it as we didn’t get enough dry running to get where we wanted in P1. We are targeting this strong development until the end of the year and the long wheelbase for Monza is part of that. So we are going to keep bringing developments through Monza and then the following races as well. There are certainly developments also planned for Singapore and Korea.

    Like everyone else here, you’re obviously juggling the requirements of 2014. Do you have what you need to build a winning car in 2014?

    NC: Yeah, we do. We started the design very early, we’ve been designing for over 18 months on the 2014 car. So that’s given us a good head start and in a way that’s meant that we could develop our 2013 car for longer through the year because we’re in such good shape with next year’s car. As Pat said it’s going to be a very interesting year in 2014. It’s the biggest rule change I’ve seen while I’ve been in the sport. Trying to optimise a car around what’s a very different power plant with very different cooling, it’s quite a big challenge. It is going to be interesting.

    Andrew, coming to you now. You’re in a tight battle in the Constructors’ Championship with McLaren. Fifty-nine points to you at the moment, 57 for them, battling for fifth. What’s the strategy then? Are you going to try to hold on to that fifth place, even if it costs you some performance in 2014?

    Andrew GREEN: Obviously we’re going to battle as hard as we can. The strategy at the moment is to extract as much as we can out of this car and take each race as it comes and try not to makes mistakes. That’s one of the things we have been guilty of in a few races this season. We haven’t really harvested the points we should have, we should be much further up. Now is the time to get our heads down and just not make mistakes, extract what we can, and not make mistakes and see where we end up. McLaren is… it’s going to be very difficult top keep McLaren behind us, they’re a huge team with huge resources and can carry on developing two cars simultaneously. We’re a much smaller outfit; it’s not something we can do. Our focus really has to be on next year, otherwise we won’t have a car next year, it’s as simple as that.

    On the subject of balancing the technological development with budgets, how are you existing arrangements in terms of powertrain? How are you existing arrangements in terms of powertrain for next year and how will that go forward?

    AG: Well, it’s nice to obviously keep the same engine partners. That does help. It is a massive change next year, there’s no doubt about it. Reiterating what the other guys have said, it’s the biggest change I’ve ever seen. And it is a challenge. We’re a small team, so it’s an even bigger challenge. There are lots of things we’d like to do. Lots of experiments we’d like to do, lots of information we’d like to take before we make some key decisions and we can’t do them all. It’s as simple as that. We have to make some best guesses and we don’t really want to be [doing that]. It’s a difficult place to be in and it can be very frustrating but it’s a challenge and we’ll see where we end up.

    Q: Tom, the same theme really. It’s no secret that Sauber has had some issues on the financial side. You’ve obviously got some new investment coming in – so where are you as a technical group in terms of how you plotted out your development of 2014 and how it’s actually unfolding as we go forward?

    Tom McCULLOUGH: Like the rest of the guys said, we started work on our car pretty early for 2014, mainly aerodynamically and then more and more during the year, working closely with our powertrain partner, developing that car. So, the two cars are simultaneously being developed still, at the moment. The current car is coming to an end at the factory. At the track we’ll still get bits later on this year. But it’s just a matter of splitting resources really.

    Q: Obviously the 2013 car hasn’t worked out the way you would have hoped. Does that push you towards an earlier switchover to 2014? Considering where you are in the constructors’, some way behind Toro Rosso, does that push you towards thinking you’re not going to catch them and focussing your attention on next year?

    TMcC: The start of this year wasn’t as competitive as we wanted. Understanding that is key to making a good car next year, so a lot of the work we’ve been doing on the car is in conjunction with next year’s car. So we couldn’t just stop designing this year’s car. We’ve worked very hard and we have made some good improvements. The update package we bought to Budapest, we were very happy with. We feel we’re understanding the car a lot better now. The wind tunnel programmes and the CFD programmes between the two cars help each other – and that process is still ongoing, especially with CFD. Overall that should give us a more competitive car next year.

    Q: So you have grounds for optimism?

    TMcC: Yeah! For sure. This year’s car, even though from a points point of view we were not scoring points and saw some of our direct competitors taking those points, in lap time we often weren’t far away. A small difference in lap time, different competitiveness from track to track, bringing improvements to the car… all of a sudden the points can come your way. I wish we’d started the year as we are now but we feel confident for the second half of this season.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Oana Popoiu – F1 Zone) Pat, as we are already halfway through the season, how will the team benefit from your work at this stage?

    PS: Well, I think with a lot of what I’m trying to do with Williams is still a bit of a process rather than the detail and that process can have an effect, reasonably quickly. Now, we are engaged in a battle this year as well, and there are still updates to come to the car: there’s a new front wing, there’s new bodywork, there’s quite a few major upgrades but of course they are things that are already well in the pipeline and not things that I will be influencing. So really my job is to try and look at the process of determining how we get the performance out of the car and I hope that that will have some influence this year but of course it’s not a five minute job and I think we will see a lot more in 2014.

    Q: (Kate Walker – GP Week) Andy Green, I wanted to go back to what James said earlier about balancing the development of the 2013 car versus 2014. Obviously you don’t want to sacrifice next year’s performance. Do you have a plan… I mean if McLaren pull ahead in the Constructors’ championship is that the point at which you switch more of your focus over? How much of your workforce is currently on 2014 versus 2013, because you’re the team in the middle with the hardest decision to make, it seems?

    AG: It is a difficult balance. I would say the point at which they have more points – they are further ahead than us there are points to score – then that’s obviously over. Like I said, we’ll keep pushing as hard as we can with what we’ve got, but we have to keep an eye on next year, there’s no two ways about it. It’s too big a challenge not for us to have one eye over there. McLaren are a huge, huge team, a championship-winning team and I don’t expect they thought they’d be racing with us at the start of the season, and I’m pretty sure they probably didn’t set themselves the target of fifth in the championship when they started the year. So we’ll do what we can. We know it’s going to be difficult, we’ll take each race as it comes. There will be no step.

    Q: Who will make that decision? Will it be the major shareholders or the technical people?

    AG: It is a joint decision.

    Q: (Mike Doodson – Auto Action) I guess my question is for Jean-Michel. Part of the success of the current V8 Formula One has been that the engine performance has been equalized between manufacturers. I’m wondering whether the FIA has informed you of when it intends to start imposing that same process, introducing controls to equalize the performance of the V6s and when that process does start, I wonder if you, as a highly competitive group, will try to resist it?

    J-MJ: There will be a process for convergence after – I don’t know – the first two or three years, definitely there will be a process of convergence. Regarding the V8, one of our strengths is to work with the team to make the quickest car. We have never claimed to have the most powerful engine, we claim to work with the team to make the quickest car and that’s the kind of methodology we are developing for the 2014 car with our partners.

    Q: (Mike Doodson – Auto Action) And the FIA controls?

    J-MJ: I think there will be some kind of convergence because we cannot sustain – in terms of cost – free competition with open technology, open choices and open engineering. We need to have some limitation in order to reduce and control the development costs per season, so we need it.

    Q: (Edd Straw – Autosport) Nick, the long wheelbase car, what’s the reasoning behind introducing that and how will you be doing it? Do you need to make some monocoque changes or can you do it a slightly easier way?

    NC: Well, we’ve  wanted to do it because we’ve seen there’s a performance gain associated with it. The way we’re going to do it is with a front suspension change.

    Q: But there’s homologation to be done?

    NC: Yeah, that’s already been done.

    Q: (Panos Diamantis – Car and Driver) Mr Symonds, you said that 2014 will see the biggest technical change you’ve ever seen in Formula One, and obviously Williams provides this energy recovery systems to other means of transport in London. Do you think that this will be a turning point in the history of Formula One to launch more ecological technologies?

    PS: Yes, I do. It really is a bit of a double-edged sword, the 2014 power train regulations. On one hand, I’m very very pleased that the FIA have had the foresight to really look at engine efficiency or powertrain efficiency and use F1 to push those technologies. I guess the downside for us is that it’s been a long process to introduce it and of course, from the time of starting to talk about it until introducing it we’ve been through a major worldwide recession which has made it difficult for all the Formula One teams to embark on such a big project. But we’ve managed to do it and I think what we need to do now is make sure that we capitalize on it. Formula One, I think, is guilty of far too often hiding its light under a bushel and a lot of the very great things we do as engineers in Formula One we like to keep to ourselves and I think it’s time for that to change. I think it’s time for the world to know what we are doing with Formula One powertrains in 2014 is really quite advanced. It really is something new, it really is the way of the future and therefore I think we can stop before it happens those who may wish to criticize Formula One and motor sport in general for carbon emissions, for use of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are here to stay, let’s use them efficiently and I think Formula One is doing that, and I think we should be very proud of what we’re doing and we should tell the world what we’re doing.

    Q: (Marc Priestley – F1 Times) Question for Nick and Tom: firstly, Tom, both you guys have used this passive DRS-type system on the car today. Tom, do you expect to use it any more this weekend. Nick, you’ve already clarified that you won’t, but is it something that you will continue working on? Do the 2014 rules mean that it’s a viable concept to continue developing?

    TMcC: So, today we performed a lot of tests on some new parts and the system actually performed better than we were expecting. It’s still not at the stage where we think we’re going to race it, even though we are pretty tempted at the moment, so there’s plenty of engineers looking at a lot of data. We’ll make that decision later on tonight. With regards to next year, any system that you can use to help reduce drag will always help you, so yes, it is part of the consideration for next year’s car.

    NC: And the same for Lotus; obviously anything that drops drag is a useful thing to have, so it’s an interesting direction to pursue.

    Q: Just for clarity, the reason not to continue with it for the weekend, is that because the downside of it, not switching properly, outweighs the possible gains of having it?

    NC: Partly, and also because we didn’t have a full dry session, we couldn’t get the normal feedback we would like on it and all the measurements we would like, so it just left us a little nervous after P1 that we didn’t want to go into the rest of the weekend with something that may give us a problem, particularly when the car’s already competitive and we didn’t want to risk having a problem in P3 or qualifying with it.

    Q: (Edd Straw – Autosport) Pat, you talked about the need for getting more out of the potential of Williams with better technical leadership. Do you, based on your preliminary examinations of the team, think that you need further recruitment in senior technical positions to work just under you to achieve that?

    PS: Well, the first thing to remember is that I’ve been there four days, so it’s very much first impressions, but those first impressions are that it’s a team with fabulous facilities, it’s a great factory, there’s most of the equipment that we need there and a lot of very good people. And of course, while I may have been there only four days, a lot of those people I have known for many years and worked with many of them, so there is a lot of quality and I think I would re-iterate what I said earlier, that I think that what we need to do at Williams is that we need to look at process and that’s really where my focus will be.

    Q: (Edd Straw – Autosport) Nick, the wheelbase change, any concerns that will have a detrimental effect on the good tyre management you’ve seen from your car? Obviously it will slightly change the way you’re loading up the tyres.

    NC: Yeah, we don’t expect so. If anything, it should make the car a little bit more stable, a little bit easier to drive, it could even give us a small tyre management advantage so we think it’s the right thing to do and we’re looking forward to bringing it to Monza.

     

    Ends

    Sahara Force India file photo of Andrew Green
    Sahara Force India file photo of Andrew Green

  • F1 2013 mid-season review

    As the motorsport calendar reaches its mid-point, FIA.com takes a look at the championships in a mid-season review. Today it’s the turn of Formula One.

    The first half of the 2013 Formula One season was dominated by talk of tyres. But with teams now on top of the new Pirelli constructions, the run to the chequered flag in Interlagos promises to provide dramatic racing between the grid’s top talents.

    Despite Red Bull’s strong lead in the constructors’ standings, the 2013 season has not been an easy one for the team. During the Malaysian Grand Prix, in-house politics were brought dramatically to the fore when Sebastian Vettel ignored team orders and overtook teammate Mark Webber for the win. And the team’s usual strategy of taking advantage of Vettel’s qualifying pace to put the German on pole with a view to securing a lights-to-flag win has not paid off this season, thanks in no small part to Mercedes’ Saturday dominance.

    Lewis Hamilton was roundly criticised for his decision to move from McLaren to the Silver Arrows this season, but the Briton has secured four poles, one victory, and three podium finishes, while teammate Nico Rosberg has three poles and two wins to his name. Those seven combined pole positions have proved to be a thorn in Red Bull’s side, and now that the Mercedes appears to have overcome its severe degradation issues the Brackley racers are in a strong position to remain in the fight during the nine races to come.

    But Red Bull are not an easy team to beat; they have proved themselves capable of both impressive car development and consistency where it matters – on track. Their 69 point lead in the constructors’ standings is not unassailable, but it does give the team a strong advantage heading into the second half of the season.

    Lotus started 2013 on a high, with a win for Kimi Raikkonen in Melbourne. But that early strong form has not led to further victories for the Finn or for the team, with Raikkonen collecting five second-place finishes while teammate Romain Grosjean has two third-places to his name. While Lotus have been in the fight at every race, thanks partly to a car that has run well on the 2013 tyres whatever their specification, the E21 has not had the outright pace in qualifying to make Sundays easy for the team.

    It has proved to be a disappointing year for Ferrari, even though the team are third in the constructors’ standings, with Fernando Alonso third in the drivers’. The F138 proved itself to be an early-season race winner, with victories in China and Spain, but poor qualifying results have hampered the team’s efforts to challenge Red Bull and Mercedes for wins since the European season began in earnest. Alonso should never be discounted from a title challenge, but the Spanish racer’s growing frustration is causing public ructions within the team. On the other side of the garage, Felipe Massa’s season has been moving in a downward trajectory after a strong start that saw the Brazilian outqualify his teammate on a regular basis.

    One of the biggest surprisesof the season was McLaren’s dramatic slump in form, with the usual front-runners finding themselves struggling in the mid-field. Thanks to a mid-summer improvement, the Woking racers left Budapest only two points shy of technology customers Force India in the constructors’ standings. Based on recent performances, the second half of the season should see McLaren back in the fight nearer the front, with Jenson Button predicting a podium finish in Spa.

    Force India have had an impressive season, building a car that far outshines the team’s resources – humble, compared to many of their rivals. Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta have both delivered on track, regularly finishing in the points and establishing Force India as the strongest of the mid-field contenders. The similarly budgeted Sauber have had a far more challenging year, arriving in Melbourne with a car that struggled with rear-end stability and two drivers new to the team. Nico Hulkenberg has done his best with the equipment at his disposal, securing the team’s seven points, while teammate Esteban Gutierrez has acquitted himself well for a rookie.

    Toro Rosso are not  a team fighting for titles and wins, although the Firenza-based team has shown significant progress this season, thanks in no small part to strong qualifying performances from Daniel Ricciardo and impressive race drives from Jean-Eric Vergne. The Toro Rosso battle has been between two teammates fighting it out for the chance to replace the departing Webber at Red Bull, and while Ricciardo is the top pick from the junior team, Raikkonen is also on the radar.

    Further down the grid, it has been a disappointing season for Williams, who brought home their first point of the year from Budapest. The car lacks downforce and has proved challenging enough for both Pastor Maldonado and Valtteri Bottas to drive that the Grove racers undertook a mid-season overhaul of their technical team. It may be too late for a 2013 turnaround, however.

    Marussia and Caterham continue their battle for 10th, with Marussia overhauling their rivals in the standings for the first time since the two teams joined the fray in 2010. Both teams started the 2013 with new driver line-ups, and Marussia’s rookie pairing of Jules Bianchi and Charles Pic were treated to a more stable car to drive than rivals Giedo van der Garde and Charles Pic. By the Bahrain Grand Prix, Caterham’s struggles were such that the team drafted in ex-driver Heikki Kovalainen to advise on improvements.

    While the first half of the season was dominated by the tyres, the second half promises much in the way of close racing and a thrilling fight to the finish in Interlagos.

    ends

  • Sutil’s 100th race ends in disappointment

    Budapest, 28 July 2013: It was a tough afternoon for Sahara Force India in Budapest as both Paul Di Resta and Adrian Sutil retired from the Hungarian Grand Prix. The team is still handing on to the 5th position in the battle for Constructors’ title but with both McLaren drivers finishing in points the lead was narrowed to just two points at the half-way stage of the 19-race Formula One World Championship. In the tenth race of the season at Hungaroring, Jenson Button of team McLaren Mercedes finished 7th with teammate Sergio Perez managing 9th to gain 6 and 2 points respectively. Now Force India has 59 points after 10 races to McLaren’s 57. The Benz team is expected to do well in the second half of the season.
    Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton has taken his first win for Mercedes in Hungary, using a three-stop strategy in some of the hottest conditions seen all year, with ambient temperatures peaking at 35 degrees centigrade. Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen was second with a two-stop strategy while Sebastian Vettel finished third for Red Bull to extend his championship lead over Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso heading into the Formula One summer break.
    Today, Paul di Resta, who started on P18, made a brilliant start and was on P12 at one point of time. But he lost balance and unable to manage tyres, retired. Sutil also retired much earlier.
    After the race Paul said: “I made a good start and was very aggressive on the opening lap. I think I was up to about P12, but from there on it was difficult because I was struggling with the balance and tyre performance. Without the speed we did not have the flexibility to make the strategy work and points were looking out of reach. Towards the end of the race the team called me to the pits because it seems we had picked up a hydraulic issue, similar to the problem with the other car. Over the summer break we will regroup, analyse things properly and take a fresh approach into the second part of the year.”
    Adrian Sutil had a disappointing 100th race of his career. “It’s disappointing not to finish, especially as the race was coming back to me after a poor start on the medium tyres. Just before my pit stop I had a problem with the gear shifts and I could not shift up any more. I came into the pits and it became clear we had a hydraulic problem so the team immediately told me to park the car,” he said.
    Vijay Mallya, Team Principal and Managing Director, said: “It’s not been the easiest of weekends for us and it’s disappointing to come away from Budapest without any points. Adrian celebrated his 100th Grand Prix this weekend, but he remained out of luck in Hungary and had to retire early with a hydraulic problem. His strategy was looking good so he missed a chance of points today. Paul’s race was quite straightforward, but we did not have the speed to make his three-stop strategy work – despite his superb start. With a few laps to go we noticed a similar hydraulic issue with his car and he also had to retire. With the next race coming up in four weeks’ time, we will analyse our performance and work hard to recapture our form in Spa.”
    ends

    Adrian Sutil poses before his 100th race at Budapest on Sunday. A Sahara Force India photo
    Adrian Sutil poses before his 100th race at Budapest on Sunday. A Sahara Force India photo

  • Sahara Force India has a busy Free Practice sessions

    Hungaroring, 26 July 2013: It was a busy day of free practice for Sahara Force India at the Hungaroring where it saw Adrian Sutil and Paul Di Resta work through a comprehensive tyre programme ahead of tomorrow’s qualifying session.

    Adrian Sutil      VJM06-03
    FP1:     1:23.390            P7        20 laps
    FP2:     1:22.304            P10      41 laps
    Adrian: “It was a positive morning session and quite early on I had found a good balance with the car. In the afternoon we were working mainly on the tyres and trying to get the most from them. I felt better on the soft compared to the medium, but it was tricky to get them working all the time. The main thing is that we got some good information and we can hopefully improve things for tomorrow. Apart from the tyres the overall balance is good: the car behaves well under braking and on turn-in, and I’m feeling comfortable.”
    Paul Di Resta   VJM06-04
    FP1:     1:24.608            P18      21 laps
    FP2:     1:22.526            P11      39 laps
    Paul: “It’s not been the most straightforward of days and right from the start of practice I was chasing the set-up of the car. We definitely made some progress this afternoon, but there are a lot of things to discuss tonight to try and get on top of things ahead of qualifying. Today was the first chance to really start doing performance work with new tyre construction and we managed to do 60 laps, which gives us lots of information going into the weekend.”
    Jakob Andreasen, Chief Race Engineer
    “Changing tyre construction mid-way through the season presents a lot of challenges so today’s programme was largely focussed on learning more about the medium and soft compound tyres. It proved tricky to find the right operating window consistently, but it has been a very useful day in terms of learning and gathering the right data. As for the car balance, we made steady progress. Paul had a difficult morning but was happier with the car by the end of FP2. Adrian’s feedback was encouraging and he was inside the top ten during both sessions. With the high temperatures set to continue over the weekend, it’s clear that we still have some work to do.”
    ends

    Adrian Sutil at Hungary on Friday. A Sahara Force India photo
    Adrian Sutil at Hungary on Friday. A Sahara Force India photo