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Force India will carry forward its form: Mallya
Montreal, 3 June 2013: Team Principal of Sahara Force India, Vijay Mallya, hopes the team can carry its form into the Canadian Grand Prix.“The emotions of Monaco are still fresh in our memory as our attention turns to Montreal for the Canadian Grand Prix. Both our drivers and the team performed superbly on the streets of Monte Carlo and it is very satisfying to see us fifth in the Championship after a third of the season,” Mallya said.“The race in Monaco showed the sheer class of our two drivers, and probably helped silence some critics of the team. Adrian’s moves on two former World Champions will stay in our memories for a long time, and so will Paul’s determined performance as he went from 17th to ninth,” he added.“I think we are now knocking on the door of our first podium finish since 2009, and it’s time to do that all-important step. Montreal would be a great place to do so – it is a track that favours overtaking and our car has shown the race pace to finish among the leaders, so everything is possible,” the Force India principal said.“I am proud of everyone in the team because we have achieved good results – and claimed 44 points – despite some very unfortunate occurrences. With a bit more luck, we would be even further ahead of McLaren: but the focus is on the future. We know our rivals will be more competitive in the next few rounds, but we have shown we can mix with the big teams and we intend to do so for the coming races too.“The Canadian Grand Prix also marks the 100th Grand Prix for Sahara Force India. When we started back in 2008 we simply had the ambition to break out of Q1 and we dreamed of scoring points. Seeing where we stand today is therefore extremely rewarding and motivates us all to continue working just as hard for the next 100 races,” the team Principal and Managing Director concluded.Paul di Resta provided his thoughts on CanadaPaul, Monaco was a mixture of emotions for you, but you picked up points in the end with an impressive recovery drive…I think it’s a sign of our competitiveness that we were a bit disappointed with ninth. I definitely felt we had the performance to be higher up the points, but the issues in qualifying put us on the back foot. That’s the thing with Monaco, it’s all about track position, but I did enjoy a few overtaking moves into turn one. Although more was possible I’m still happy to continue my run of points finishes.Canada will be the team’s 100th race – do you think you can give the team something to celebrate?We’ve been competitive on every track this year and that’s a credit to the team, so we expect to be at our usual level once again. It’s traditionally a track that has suited us, so we go there confident that we can fight towards the front once again. 100 races is a significant achievement and it’s great to see how much the team has grown during that time. It’s a credit to the commitment of the shareholders and hopefully we can give them something to smile about come Sunday evening.Tell us about the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve?It’s an unusual track but tends to produce exciting racing with some really good overtaking opportunities. It’s tight, because it’s a street course, so it’s another track where there is no margin for error. Straight-line speed is important, as is a car that’s stable under braking and capable of riding the curbs well.Adrian on CanadaAdrian, how good did it feel to finish fifth in Monaco – your best result in the principality…It felt very nice. After four difficult races I was ready to get this result. We had several missed opportunities, but I tried my best to stay positive because I could see the potential of the car. So it felt very good to have a race where I could deliver a strong result. But it was not the easiest of weekends for me because I lost track time on Saturday and I damaged my front wing on the first lap of the race. So, all things considered, it was very satisfying to come away with fifth place.Some commentators named you driver of the day for your ‘cheeky’ overtaking moves at the hairpin…I had the feeling from the first lap onwards that there was a possibility to pass cars at this corner. After the restart, when all the cars were bunched up, I saw the gap and went for it. I got ahead of Jenson first and then Fernando as well. Overtaking always feels good, but in Monaco it’s extra special because you have to judge things perfectly.What about Montreal? Do you think you will go well there?It’s definitely one my favourite races on the calendar because it’s a great city. It’s also an interesting and unusual track, and it can be a long race with different scenarios and strategy options. I like the circuit, but for some reason I’ve never had good results there. Hopefully we can change that this year.ends -
Mahindra Racing’s hard work pays off
Mugello, 2 June 2013: Mahindra rider Miguel Oliveira claimed the only Indian motorcycle grand prix team’s best yet finish at Mugello on Sunday with a hard-fought fourth place, and added a new lap record to the books.
But the Portuguese star was “a little disappointed”: after leading at the mid-point of the race he missed the top-three podium by less than half a second, a Mahindra Racing press release said.
The podium is the next target, but the team had more than enough to celebrate in Italy. The exclusive and all-new Mahindra MGP3O is in only its fifth race after being designed and built in just six months. Already the aim to join the front runners has been achieved.
The race was a thriller from the start, with the Moto3™ pack jostling for position on the fast and sweeping 5.245-km Mugello circuit. Oliveira started from the second row and was ninth into the first corner, but 7th and climbing by the end of the lap.
He set a new lap record on the fourth lap, and next time round was third. From then on played a major role in a six-strong group that broke away for an enthralling battle to the end. They swapped positions constantly, with Miguel taking his turn up front on lap 15.
The final shoot-out had the crowd holding its breath. Victory went to Luis Salom (KTM) by just 0.099 of a second, with the similarly mounted Alex Rins and Maverick Vinales in his wheeltracks, and Miguel inches behind. Alex Marquez and pole starter Jonas Folger (both KTM) were still close, the top five covered by eight tenths. Wild card and grand prix first-timer Andrea Locatelli was 22nd, in the thick of a tight pack chasing 15th position, with ten riders crossing the line in just over two seconds.
Team regular Efrén Vázquez, still recuperating from collarbone surgery less than two weeks ago, withdrew from the race, but expects to return in better condition at Catalunya in a fortnight. Mahindra Racing CEO Mufaddal Choonia explained: “The team decided Efrén needed a bit more time to recover, and it was prudent not to start, and risk further injury.”
Today’s result regained a clear third place in the Constructor’s Championship for the marque, while Oliveira gained significant ground, now lying seventh overall.
MIGUEL OLIVEIRA – Fourth Place
“It was a difficult race – on the limit every lap to stay with the front group. The slipstream is very important here, so I couldn’t risk losing contact. I’m a little bit upset not to reach the podium, but happy with the whole weekend: good qualifying and race. At the last race I fell while with the front group, and we were up front again here. It gives plenty of motivation to keep pushing for more.”Copyright © 2013 Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. All rights reserved.ANDREA LOCATELLI – 22nd Place
“My first grand prix was quite an experience, fighting with a big group of more experienced riders. The Mahindra was good all weekend, and helped me to keep my place. I am happy with this start.”MUFADDAL CHOONIA – CEO Mahindra Racing
“Delighted with the result. We were running a little thirsty this weekend because we had no points at the last race. For the moment, the thirst has been quenched. Hats off to Miguel with a fantastic ride, and hats off to the technical team who put together a bike that could help him stay with the leading group throughout the race, and fight for the podium. We know where we have to work to improve, and we will be back to the drawing board to find what’s missing. The bike is strong already, and it is always harder to find improvements when you are already at a high level. We look forward to Catalunya, and hope Efrén will be back to full fitness and racing at this next round.”ends
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Raj Bharath wins at Shanghai Circuit: Formula Masters
· Posts first win of the season under mixed conditions.
· Rounds off the weekend with a solid haul of points with a fourth place in race one, second place in race two and finally a win in race three.Shanghai (China), 26 May 2013
Podium photo from an earlier race when Raj finished second. : After getting on the podium with a second place yesterday, Indian youngster Raj Bharath went one better and posted his first win of the 2013 Formula Masters championship in the final race at Shanghai International Circuit here today.
Backed by Bangalore-based real estate developer Embassy Group and driving for Meco Motorsport, Raj had started fifth on the grid with an inspired strategy in mixed weather conditions which paid off. Afiq Yazid and Akash Nandy finished second and third respectively.
In the minutes leading up to the race, there was a faint drizzle but the entire field with exception of Raj decided to stay on slick tyres as the rain was expected to ease off in a couple of laps.
However, the team decided to put Raj on wet tyres, hoping that Raj’s pace advantage in the opening laps would help him get in the lead and build up a big gap by the time the rain eased off and drivers on slicks would be quicker once again.
The start didn’t turn out as planned though, since the race direction decided to go for a safety car start at the last minute – something which Raj wasn’t aware of as he didn’t have a radio in the car.
“I was thinking it was the formation lap when I suddenly saw everyone take off at the penultimate corner. Only after I came into the final corner that I realised it was a rolling start but I had already lost a place by then”, said Raj.
Having gone backwards already, Raj began to charge hard trying to get back in the pack and was passing cars by the end of the first lap.
Three laps later, he was firmly in the lead and pushing further to build up a gap before the rain subsided, which happened soon after and the track dried up quickly, rendering his wet tyres gripless.
“The wet tyres wear out pretty quickly on a dry track as their tread is meant to displace water, so all of a sudden I had no grip but only oversteer and understeer”, chuckledRaj.
Lady luck seemed to be in his favour though, as another faint drizzle came down two laps from the finish, cooling the tyres and disrupting the rhythm of his opponents behind as they had to be cautious on slicks.
“That shower gave me some much needed some room to breathe and we were only two laps from the finish, but I knew it was going to be tight”, he added.
The track dried out soon once again and his opponents began to gain hand over fist on Raj and the Indian’s advantage began to erode at a rapid rate.
Raj had to defend heavily on the final lap as his opponents were significantly quicker as their slick tyres offered far better grip than Raj’s worn out wet weather tyres.
“I could see two cars filling up my mirrors, but I kept focussed and made sure that I didn’t make any mistakes, as that would’ve put paid to all the hard work till then.
In the end, Raj crossed the line 1.1 seconds ahead of second placed Afiq Yazid and 1.2 seconds ahead of third placed Akash Nandy.
Surmising his thoughts for the weekend, Raj said, “I got my first win here in Shanghai last year so we were hoping to repeat that coming into this weekend.
“But understanding the new tyres and engine package took a little more time than expected, but I am happy we finally sealed that elusive win and scored a solid haul of points which helps the championship.
“I’ve been in China for almost a month so now I’m just looking forward to get back home and come back for round three at Ordos in another month’s time”, he concluded.
ABOUT RAJ BHARATH:
Born November 20, 1994 in Bangalore, Raj took his first steps in motorsport with karting in 2008 – like all aspiring F1 drivers. Then aged 14, he immediately showed glimpses of his potential in his debut year, winning the trophy for the ‘Most promising rookie of the year’ in the National Karting championship.
He eventually won the title in 2010 and progressed to Formula BMW Asia in 2011 followed by the Ferrari Academy supported Formula Pilota in 2012.
For 2013, Raj aims to participate in the Formula Masters China and win the championship before moving to Europe in 2014, and getting closer to his aim of making it to Formula 1.
Career highlights:
2008 Most promising rookie in the JK Rotax Karting championship.
2009 Second runner-up in JK Rotax Max Karting championship.
2010 Rotax Max Karting NATIONAL CHAMPION.
2011 Debut in Formula BMW Asia Pacific – five top ten finishes.
2012 Formula Pilota China – 10 podium finishes and three wins.Formula Masters China car specifications
Chassis: Tatuus FA010, FIA F3 homologated
Engine: Volkswagen Formula EVO 2.0
Gearbox: Six-speed sequential with LSD
Power: 180 PS
Torque: 200Nm
Suspension: Double-wishbone with pushrod activation
Brakes: Four-pot Dixcel calipers
Tyres: Front – 180/550 R13
Rear – 240/570 R13
Weight: 540kg with driverFormula Masters China calendar
Zhuhai (China) 10-12 May
Shanghai (China) 24-26 May
Ordos (China) 28-30 June
Inje (Korea) 2-4 August
Sepang (Malaysia) 13-15 Sep
Shanghai (China) 25-27 Oct
Macau Grand Prix 8-10 Nov -
Raj Bharath finishes 2nd in Formula Masters at Shanghai circuit
Shanghai (China), 25 May 2013: After completing a solid debut weekend at Zhuhai, Indian youngster Raj Bharath continued his charge in the Formula Masters championship as he clinched second place at round two of the series at Shanghai International Circuit.
Backed by Bangalore-based real estate developer Embassy Group and driving for Meco Motorsport, Raj had qualified fourth on the grid and finished race one in the same position before following it up with a second place in race two, according to a Meco Motorsports press release from Shanghai.
The weekend had started on a difficult note the team worked to find the right setup to suit the 4.6-kilometre layout.
The venue, which also hosts the F1 Chinese Grand Prix is a unique challenge on the setup front, as sectors 1 and 2 consist of high-speed corners, while sector 3 has long straights – the longest being over 1.1-kilometre long.
This makes the setup choice difficult since balance between drag and downforce become critical. High downforce offers an advantage in the first two sectors with high cornering speeds, but due to excess drag, top speed will suffer.
A low-downforce setup will make the car twitchy and difficult to drive in the first two sectors, but will benefit top-speed in a straight line so getting the balance right was crucial for a good lap time.
“Even though the chassis is same as last year, the car feels completely different right now”, said Raj, comparing his last year’s outing at the same venue where he scored his first international victory.
“The new tyres and engine package makes it a new car altogether, so we spent a lot of time chasing a good setup in the practice sessions. We knew that low-downforce was the way to go, even though it makes the car slightly more on the limit”, he elaborated.
Although Raj was able to muscle his way to the sharp-end of the grid in qualifying, he was unable to get close to pole position – a feat that he had achieved in Zhuhai two weeks back. As a result he had to settle for fourth on the grid but there were other contributing factors as well.
“It was quite weird out there. It felt like the track was changing every few minutes – sometimes we would just come in and go out, without changing anything on the car and it would behave differently.
“I’m not sure what the issue was, but it wasn’t just weather where we had a drizzle one day and hot sun the other. There are a lot of other types of race cars running on the weekend as well so I think the track kept getting rubbered in and out continuously with all different compounds and as a result there was a lot of dirty rubber on the track.”, he explained.
Race one turned out to be uneventful as Raj tried his best to gain positions from the second row but after losing out in the opening sectors, he was unable to claw back the difference through the long straights of the final sector.
After a brief dice with Akash Nandy who went on to finish third, Raj decided to focus on lap times which would enable him to study how he could get himself in a better position for race two.
“We made some small setup changes before race two but we stuck to the low-downforce philosophy while everyone else went with high-downforce for cornering advantage”, he revealed.
As lights went out for race two, Raj immediately managed to jump Akash Nandy to slot himself in third at the start, while his front-running rivals Aidan Wright and Afiq Yazid got away.
Slowly though, he began to haul in Aidan, who was running second and managed to get a good slipstream on the back straight before diving down the inside at the hairpin to relieve the Australian of second place.
After that Raj didn’t look back and put his head down to chase Afiq for the top spot, but it wasn’t to be as he fell short by two seconds at the finish line.
“Second race gave us confidence as the low-downforce approach finally paid off”, said Raj
“Rain is expected for tomorrow’s race so anything can happen, but I’m hoping for another podium which would help me stay in the top-three in the championship. Scoring consistent points is what we need but we’ll hopefully be able to seal that win soon”, he concluded.
ABOUT RAJ BHARATH:
Born November 20, 1994 in Bangalore, Raj took his first steps in motorsport with karting in 2008 – like all aspiring F1 drivers. Then aged 14, he immediately showed glimpses of his potential in his debut year, winning the trophy for the ‘Most promising rookie of the year’ in the National Karting championship.
He eventually won the title in 2010 and progressed to Formula BMW Asia in 2011 followed by the Ferrari Academy supported Formula Pilota in 2012.
For 2013, Raj aims to participate in the Formula Masters China and win the championship before moving to Europe in 2014, and getting closer to his aim of making it to Formula 1.
Career highlights:
2008 Most promising rookie in the JK Rotax Karting championship.
2009 Second runner-up in JK Rotax Max Karting championship.
2010 Rotax Max Karting NATIONAL CHAMPION.
2011 Debut in Formula BMW Asia Pacific – five top ten finishes.
2012 Formula Pilota China – 10 podium finishes and three wins.Formula Masters China car specifications
Chassis: Tatuus FA010, FIA F3 homologated
Engine: Volkswagen Formula EVO 2.0
Gearbox: Six-speed sequential with LSD
Power: 180 PS
Torque: 200Nm
Suspension: Double-wishbone with pushrod activation
Brakes: Four-pot Dixcel calipers
Tyres: Front – 180/550 R13
Rear – 240/570 R13
Weight: 540kg with driverFormula Masters China calendar
Zhuhai (China) 10-12 May
Shanghai (China) 24-26 May
Ordos (China) 28-30 June
Inje (Korea) 2-4 August
Sepang (Malaysia) 13-15 Sep
Shanghai (China) 25-27 Oct
Macau Grand Prix 8-10 Nov -
It does not matter how much else you do, you ‘ve to make the tyres work: Bob
TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Christian HORNER (Red Bull Racing), Paul HEMBERY (Pirelli), Gerard LOPEZ (Lotus), Robert FEARNLEY (Force India), Franz TOST (Toro Rosso), Alain PROST (Renault Sport)
PRESS CONFERENCE
Alain, it’s been a while since we last saw you in an FIA press conference, welcome. Explain a little bit about your role with Renault Sport?
Alain PROST: Well, my role is mainly is an ambassador for Renault, the brand Renault, since last year. Even if I have done many things with Renault in the last few years, for different things. Also this year I’m advisor for the strategy, being part of the executive committee.
In terms of 2014, how far advanced is Renault’s programme?
AP: Everything goes well. The engine should run in June on the dyno, the final version. But everything is belonging to the programme.
And when do you think that Renault Sport will be finalising its teams for 2014?
AP: I’m not myself negotiating with the teams but we all know that it’s going to be accelerating during this weekend. I don’t know. I cannot say all the dates for all the teams but I hope very quickly.
Paul, if I could turn to you next. An awful lot of debate and opinion in Formula One at the moment regarding the Pirelli tyres this year, some pro, some anti. What is your opinion on the way that the Pirelli tyres are influencing the racing, and also what changes will we see to the tyres from Canada onwards?
Paul HEMBERY: Well, obviously there’s a lot of different opinion, quite divided, among fans, commentators, teams and you’re never going to please everyone. That’s one of the challenges you have but from our point of view it’s the same for everybody, they have exactly the same tyres to work with and somebody’s going to end up winning on a Sunday. From Canada? Well, we’re still finalising the ultimate details for Canada. We’re trying to minimise the changes, for sporting equity reasons of course. We want to resolve the delaminations that we’ve seen, that have occurred when we’ve picked up debris. That, from a tyre maker of course is something that we’ve wanted to solve. It doesn’t look good. The tyres have stayed inflated but it still doesn’t look good from an image point of view. So that’s where we’re at. We’re trying to finalise that, working with the teams. We’ve had good collaboration. Of course, some people might want something different and again you’re not going to please everybody but we have to do what’s correct for the sport and what’s correct for Pirelli.
While we’re talking tyres I think it would be nice to get the reaction of the team principals and chairmen here on the panel. Christian, can I start with you. What’s your opinion on the Pirelli tyres and the racing this year?
Christian HORNER: I think we’ve been pretty consistent throughout the year really. The tyres, on occasion, have been a bit too marginal. That includes races we’ve won at in Malaysia and Bahrain. I think it’s good that Pirelli are looking at it. I think the most important and most fundamental thing is from a safety perspective, if you do have a delamination, if you have a big chunk of rubber, you don’t want that to hit a car component or worst case a driver. So, there are safety issues that I know some of the drivers are concerned about. Hopefully, Pirelli are a very capable company. I think they know what they need to do and hopefully that can be resolved very quickly.
Gerard, is that an opinion your share – that the tyres have been too marginal this year?
Gerard LOPEZ: Yeah, we’ve echoed the safety issues and said that whatever needs to be done on safety grounds is obviously fine with us, we’re not going to go against that. As far as the tyres being marginal goes, we’ve found them to be quite consistent. But then again – different cars, different drivers, different styles… they work for us. So we’re actually quite happy with the way they are.
Franz, what about you and Toro Rosso?
Franz TOST: I think the problems started in testing, because in February it was very cold when we were out the first time this year and if I remember only Jerez was an acceptable test but otherwise in Barcelona it was quite cold. There we couldn’t do a proper test for the tyres. I think if we had tested in a warmer country some of the problems we observe now could have been sorted out. Therefore, I hope that in future we will do these tests under other conditions, under conditions under which we are racing and then I think Pirelli immediately will react and will come up with a proper solution. So far we at Toro Rosso haven’t faced bigger problems.
Finally to you Bob. From a deputy team principal’s perspective: safety, racing, what’s your opinion:
Bob FEARNLEY: I think Pirelli have done a good job. Fundamentally we’re looking to try to average out at two to three stops per race and I think if you take the extremes in any 20-race series you’re going to have some that might do four and some that might do one. But overall were going to achieve the objective. I agree with Paul, it’s the same for everybody. I think some of the teams will have put in resource perhaps this time year to start looking at how they’re going to develop their car, what suspension programme they’re going to put in to optimise the tyres, other teams will continued to work on aero. That’s the choice of the teams at the end of the day and you’ve got to deliver what you think is the most competitive package. But there are four points of contact on a track, it doesn’t matter how much else you do, you’ve got to make the tyres work.
Alain, I’m sure you’ve been watching the racing quite intently. Has the sport got the right balance at the moment between exciting racing or tyres dominating too much?
AP: I think in the past and very recently it’s been very [much] criticised for not having a show or indecision. We should [feel] very lucky that we have these kind of races. In the last few years, we have the decision only in the last grand prix. Obviously, also think about next year when we have the new engine coming we will talk maybe a little bit more about the engine, the technology, about being much closer to the product of the automotive industry. But we still need to keep the show also. We need to keep the indecision so it’s going to be even better balanced but at the moment I wouldn’t criticize what we have today.
If I could move on and turn to you, Franz. Both of your drivers in their second year with Toro Rosso this season. What improvements are you seeing from Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo and as drivers who have been part of the Red Bull driver programme, do you see something in either of them that suggests that they could move up to the senior team?
FT: Yeah I must say that both of the drivers have increased their performance and their understanding of the car of the technik, of everything, much during the last two years and they are still learning a lot. But I must say that so far they have done a reasonably good job and if we provide them with a good car, a good package, they are always able to score points. Of course, Daniel Ricciardo has a little bit more experience as he did already 11 races with HRT and you can see this. Jean-Eric Vergne is coming up with good technical feedback. He is learning also a lot. I expect from both of the drivers a very competitive second half of the season, once more if we provide them with a good car and then we will see how the future will be.
Christian, I’m sure as Red Bull team principal you keep an eye on all the young drivers in the young development programme?
CH: Yeah, absolutely. Both youngsters have been members of the Red Bull Junior team for quite a few years now and or course we watch their progress with great interest. They’re both young, talented drivers, both developing very well. It’s good to see. They’re both racing here on merit. For sure they’re two guys we have a watchful eye over.
Q: We’re getting to that stage of the season where traditionally you sit down, Red Bull, with Mark Webber and negotiate a new contract for next year, it’s normally towards the early part of the summer. Has anything been the case or has happened this season that might influence those negotiations? Will you be sitting down with Mark soon? What’s your thinking for the future?
CH: Well, we’re sitting here at race six, so y’know there’s still quite a few to go. But at the relevant time we’ll sit down with Mark and see what he wants to do, what his plans are for the future. Our interest is quite simple: we want the best two drivers in our cars going forward. Mark and Sebastian has been a tremendously successful partnership. It’s won three consecutive Constructors’ World Championships for us and obviously Mark’s made a significant contribution to that. At the relevant time – which isn’t now – we will sit down and talk about the future.
Q: Gerard, can we talk drivers with yourself too? Kimi Räikkönen has hinted recently that there are maybe a couple of options open to him for next season. He’s certainly being asked an awful lot about his future. I assume Lotus would like to keep him but realistically how likely is that?
GL: Well I think Kimi’s quite happy where he is right now. Knowing Kimi well, outside of the track too, he could just as well announce that he’s stopping altogether. So, I wouldn’t take any bets whatsoever. I think we’re looking pretty good in terms of keeping him, as long as he gets what he wants, including a performing car, which is what he really wants. For the rest, we’ll see. He for sure will tell you there’s no such thing as a pre-contract, only real contract, and we’ll sit down at some point in time and discuss the future with him. But everything is wide open on the one hand but on the other hand everything is looking pretty good for us to stay with us. So we’ll see.
Q: Do you feel external and internal pressure then? A) to develop a car that Kimi – and Romain – can perform in and b) is there external pressure from other teams who would be interested?
GL: I don’t think we need to put on any additional pressure, I think I put enough pressure on them to perform – but I think it’s good if you have a driver that really wants to have the best possible package and actually can make use of it – and Kimi certainly can. The other thing with Kimi is that he needs an environment in which he can function, and he certainly has that with us.
Q: Bob, turning to you, it’s been a very positive start for Force India this season. I wonder if the start changes the target and your goals for this year? Is fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship a realistic target given what’s happened so far?
BF: I think it’s one that we certainly should aspire to. It would be very, very hard to continuously compete with McLaren through the year but they’re also going to have some issues in terms of when they switch over to the 2014 car and, like all of us, when do we move those resources? I think a lot will depend on how far they’ve got with this car when they actually do that. But for sure, we’ve already amended our programs and our team principal is very keen for us to ensure we stay fifth.
Q: Finally on the subject of drivers, Alain, for French drivers in Formula One this season, we’re here in the South of France for the Monaco Grand Prix, do you see anything in those drivers that might indicate to you that one day they could be the next French World Champion?
AP: Difficult question! Because the last 20 years there have been announced many, many times a new French champion. Just let them work, y’know? There are four, we are very lucky to have four, different competitiveness in teams. Romain for sure is in the best position to win at least maybe the first race very soon. And just wait and see. Don’t put them under too much pressure, they have enough.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Kate Walker – GP Week) Question for everyone except Monsieur Prost. Going on the subject of the tyres, one of the things, one of the theories that we’ve had in the press room is that the part of the difficulty has been the lack of a more modern test car. You know we haven’t got the DRS, the KERS, the… everything’s a bit different. Have the teams considered investing in a Dallara machine – or similar – that Pirelli might be able to use that you can all agree on? Then that way no one team would have an advantage.
Christian?
CH: I guess the fundamental thing is we can never agree. Everybody agreed for Lotus to do the testing when they weren’t so competitive. Now they’re competitive and probably there’s a few teams that aren’t so happy that they’re not doing the testing. So, it’s a difficult one. It’s a difficult one for Pirelli, it’s a difficult one for the teams but at the end of the day we don’t need to make it too complicated. I think the way things are at the moment is too complicated for the fans. It’s too difficult to follow races where you’ve got four stops, going on. It’s hard enough when you’re in the race. I think we need to just wind that back a little bit and more than anything make sure we eliminate any safety issues.
Q: (Kate Walker – GP Week) That isn’t really what I asked. I was wondering what sort of things you guys as a group could do going forward to try and make sure the y’know, the focus of the… wasn’t necessary criticisms of the tyres but how you could actually improve them as a group so that everybody was happy with what they were running on?
CH: Well, I don’t think you’re ever going to get everybody happy. Y’know, that’s the fundamental issue and unless you open testing up again, where everybody tests, it’s probably very difficult because people’s cars behave in different ways. So I can’t see a situation where the teams will say ‘yes, we’ll jointly fund and run a car for a tyre supplier.’ I’d be surprised.
Franz?
FT: No, we should use Friday morning, the first session or the first half-hour for testing new tyres – not sitting around like today, doing nothing. People in the grandstands, no cars out there. We just could use this – it was half an hour or 35 minutes as usually – to test new tyres. This is what I suggest since two years.
Gerard, your thoughts?
GL: My thoughts are… I would agree with Christian on the fact that it’s really difficult to get everybody to agree on anything in Formula One – be it tyres or be it anything else. And I think it’s going to stay that way just because it’s competitive both on and off the track and so on. I remember when, indeed, when we were asked to propose a car – and by the way, that car has nothing in common with what we’re running now – everybody agreed and now suddenly everybody thinks that’s the mystery to knowing how to use those tyres. And as I said, both cars are completely unrelated. So it’s very difficult to get anything done that everybody accepts. Maybe a solution like running Friday tests, I don’t know – but even that requires everybody to agree and some will and some won’t. And so I think that’s always going to be part of Formula One: The fact that this is agreement and disagreement and that’s the way forward I guess.
Bob?
BF: I think Franz’s idea’s got a certain amount of merit. I’d love to endorse that with the element of having young drivers in there as well, just so that it ticks two boxes. But I think that Pirelli have a great deal of resource, as we all do outside of actually track testing. And for instance, even with the incidents that we’ve had with the delamination, a lot of it can be done on rigs and everything else – and I think that’s where most of it will be done in the long term.
So Paul, how difficult is the job that Pirelli have without the facilities to test in the way that was traditional in Formula One?
PH: Well, it’s one of those cases where you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t. You’re clearly not going to get everyone to agree, and with a tyre, certainly if you design it around a certain application you can make a certain vehicle go quicker – and that’s clearly why we’re wanting to make changes now. Some people want more changes, some people don’t want any changes for example. The Friday is useful where you’re coming to a point of wanting to actually introduce a change – but you can’t go testing with 11 teams on a Friday with various specifications because it simply doesn’t work that way. I think a good step forward would be winter testing actually in hot conditions. Y’know, if we were able to get to Abu Dhabi or Bahrain before we get to Australia, at least you’d have an advanced indication. You’ve also got to remember, if we do find surprises, and I’m quite sure next season there could be – assuming we have a contract which we don’t have at the moment – but assuming we’re going forward, you could get to a situation with the new powertrain, which from the indications of the teams will have a lot of torque, and will increase wheelspin, tyre wear, overheating, you could end up in a situation with a surprise again. So there needs to be a balance. Teams have clearly got restrictions on resources. The test teams were got rid of for good reasons from their point of view – but some sort of mid-range solution would be useful to us, even if it means staying on after a few events during the season, then that would be extremely valuable from our point of view.
Q: (Dieter Rencken – The Citizen) Alain, as Renault Sport brand ambassador, how do you feel about the fact that the public perception is that in fact Infiniti won the championship last year as the engine supplier because if one looks at the team principal’s shirt, there are five Infiniti badges and two Renault badges, yet Renault seems to be paying it all. How do you feel about that?
AP: I know it’s very difficult… it’s always difficult to answer this kind of question for me. The perception you can have here is obviously the right one, could be the right one. The involvement of Renault in Formula One, is very clear over the last few years. As you can see, the market in Europe is not very good and they’re already aiming for having a new image, new visibility in new markets: Russia, Brazil, India and a little bit less in China, those are the big markets for Renault. Obviously everybody would like to maybe have a different situation for Renault inside Formula One, for example, again, a new team, a Renault team, but the strategy of the president and of Renault is very clear. They want to stay the way they are at the moment and I must say that in this country they were talking about how it’s working very well and they’re increasing the image of the brand and they’re selling more and more cars and they want to continue like this. As I said, the perception you can have here maybe is a bit different to what they achieve instead of having a proper team, more aggravation. Again, talking about strategy, if you see what Renault has done in the last 37 years, they went from the French national team to being a partner with Williams and Benetton and then another team and then now they are supporting a team with whom we have won the World Champion for the last three years. So they could change, they could maybe change in the future, but at the moment we need to keep to this strategy decided by the president.
Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action/National Speedsport News) A question for Alain: there’s a lot of talk these days that the drivers cannot drive 100 percent flat out for the whole race Let’s take a year when you had a good car, say 1985. How much of the race could you drive 100 percent flat out? When you weren’t driving one hundred percent, what percent were you at and what parts of the car did you have to conserve, to make sure they lasted the race?
AP: I think it’s difficult to compare, obviously, because today the cars are so advanced; normally the driver can push 100 percent in normal conditions. The tyres this year are very soft which makes it a little bit different. In our time, if you want to compare, we had to take care of the brakes and gearbox and fuel consumption and obviously also tyres because sometimes we had to be careful of the tyres, but the regulations were also very different and at one stage we had three types of rubber and we could make changes and I very often ran hard tyres on the left and soft tyres on the front. I even raced in Las Vegas in ’81 with qualifying tyres on the front, but that means we cannot compare, but that also proves that you need to adapt yourself, as a driver, as an engineer, to the regulations and obviously we’re experiencing complaints this year… in fact it’s not that different compared to last year, except that you maybe don’t want to see some rubber on the track and having accidents. But apart from that, you just have to adapt to the situation, drivers or engineers. It’s typically Formula One.
Q: (Alan Baldwin – Reuters) Christian, I may have misconstrued your comment earlier but do you seriously believe that Lotus have somehow benefitted from the fact that Pirelli are using a 2010 Renault for testing, and maybe Paul could answer whether privileged information has somehow been given to one team?
CH: No, I don’t think privileged information or anything in any way has been done underhand. At the end of the day, Pirelli needed a car to test, they originally came to Red Bull. At that time, it was almost unanimously agreed that Red Bull shouldn’t provide a car and then it was a matter of finding who could provide a car. Lotus was an obvious choice. Running had to be done by Pirelli with drivers that weren’t current race drivers. You can understand that that work has had to be done. I wasn’t trying to point out that there was any specific advantage from that, I was trying to point out that you’re always going to struggle to achieve compromise and agreement.
Q: Given the changes between 2010 and now, Paul, how different is your test car to what we would see on the track?
PH: They’re probably, in terms of performance, closer to the 2011 cars with the blown diffusers. They’re going, certainly, a little bit harder than we anticipated this season. We’re probably lapping our 2010 car three to four seconds slower, for example. That gives you an indication that we’re not stressing the tyres during our testing as much as the cars are today. But there’s not a perfect solution to that. We’re not going to get unanimous agreement from everybody. Next year, the cars are so different that there’s really nothing available today, even including today’s cars, that would allow us to simulate the effect of the new powertrain. I think if we just take a sensible approach, in terms as I’ve already mentioned, of the winter testing and the potential to make adjustments during the season, but bear in mind you need agreement, you need eleven teams to agree to adjustments so if we’ve something that’s affecting eleven teams, then that’s really often easy to do. If you’re making something that might affect some teams and not all teams or perceived benefit to others then you can imagine that’s difficult. So that’s a very strange balancing act that we’re trying to do. We agree, we set out this year for two to three pit stops over the season, we probably will average that still, we will get some races like Barcelona which was won this time with four stops. It was won two years ago by Red Bull with four stops so it’s not exceptional but I guess as commentators it’s harder to follow, it keeps you awake, you don’t have your afternoon snooze any more, and that’s one of the difficulties. It will be easier here for you.
Q: (Jerome Pugmire – Associated Press) Alain Prost, it’s not been since Olivier Panis in 1996 for a French driver. What advice would you give Romain Grosjean, for example or the other French drivers… the frustration about that long spell, what advice would you give to them?
AP: I don’t think you can give advice to the drivers to be honest. They know what they do, I’m out of Formula One as a driver for the last 20 years exactly and why should I give advice to… we all see what is happening, we see that Romain, for example, has a very good car, he should be able to win a race very soon as I said. But no advice from myself. If they want to have advice they can ask a question and I’m happy to answer but not giving advice like this, no. Mental is a very strong thing for sure, but also we give them a lot of pressure very often, but this is a cycle. As soon as one is going to be winning, it could snowball and I hope it works like this.
Q: (Bob McKenzie – Daily Express) Alain, every year someone says that Monaco is too dangerous. This week’s hero was Ralf Schumacher. I wonder, it hasn’t really changed much since your day. Do you think it is too dangerous? Do you think it’s still a relevant place for a Formula One to be held?
AP: I wouldn’t say that. It’s as dangerous as another race track can be dangerous. It’s different, for sure. You have to be a little bit careful, especially in the traffic with all the cars. Being alone is not being more dangerous than with another car. I must also say that the passive safety, what they do with the marshals and all the work they have done in the last thirty/forty years, is exceptional and yeah, there are some conditions… when it’s wet in some places where it could be a bit tough but it’s such a fantastic race for everybody, especially for the drivers obviously. That is part of the tradition and you should accept it, even if it was a little bit dangerous, obviously. You should accept that.
Q: On the pit wall, is that a bit of a worry when you send the cars out?
BF: I think that Monaco represents the ultimate of the man and machine around a very difficult circuit and if I was a driver, I would relish the thought of it and I’m sure most drivers do. From a team point of view, it’s wonderful to see the cars on the limit so close to the barriers. It’s what we should be doing.
GL: Yeah, Romain came close to the barriers too. On another race track we would have gotten away with it, just overbraked and instead of trying to go straight on, decided he could take the corner and just took off a little bit of the left front of the car. I think the drivers love it. It’s a different track, they love it for the atmosphere, they love it for the excitement. If you talk to the drivers it’s quite an amazing experience. I’ve driven it myself actually, it’s quite an amazing experience if you get really close. I remember one of Robert’s laps, he probably thought it was one of the best laps he ever did and it was here in Monaco, so I think drivers love it.
Q: (Rodrigo Franca – VIP Magazine) Speaking of 2014, what do you think about the improvement of the Formula One show and also, what is the biggest challenge for the teams and Pirelli for the new regulations of the V6?
FT: First of all, the new regulation is a big challenge from the technical side, because it’s a new engine, new air system, the complete car will be new and then it’s a challenge also from the financial side because everything is much more expensive. Whether the show will be improved or not I can’t say yet because it depends how good the different engine manufacturers work. If there’s one of them finding a special solution then we will not have such interesting races as we have now because these cars will be in front. If they are all nearly equal as is the case in the current races then I’m sure we will also have very interesting races in the future. Nevertheless, this is a new regulation and we have to get the best out of it.
Q: Challenge for Pirelli?
PH: A contract? A contract is probably the first one. If you follow the regulations, on the first of September we’re meant to define the specification for next year but as yet we don’t really have a full picture of what the cars are going to be like, so you can imagine there’s a certain element of shooting in the dark. Having said that, it’s a probably a year where we will probably step back, be cautious. There’s going to be enough going on for the teams next year as you just heard from Franz, all those changes. So I think it’s a year where we’ll be stepping back: zero degradation, no pit stops and they can do all the talking.
CH: It’s difficult to say. It’s a massive change, probably the biggest change Formula One’s seen for probably the last 25 years, I would have thought. It’s hellishly expensive, especially with trying to develop a car this year and design and produce a car for next year with the changes that have been introduced, the timing of which probably isn’t ideal for some of the teams further down the grid. It’s a big regulation change. I think you’ll probably see significant differences between the teams early on but that will then converge and engineers will undoubtedly be very creative with the solutions that they come up with. It’s going to represent a different challenge, a different type of racing as fuel economy will suddenly become a premium point. We’re yet to see what affect that will have on the racing. At the moment, we’ve very much got an open mind.
GL: I would agree, the timing is… I don’t know if it’s well chosen. It’s certainly odd. We can understand the engine manufacturers who are trying to have a product that is closer to what people are buying out on the streets. At the same time, there comes a point where Formula One was doing really well in terms of excitement, in terms of cars being matched, in terms of races being open, so let’s hope that it doesn’t reshuffle the cards in a way that is… unexpected would be good but unexpected with huge gaps would be really bad. I don’t think any of us can really say today what the effect is going to be, so that’s it, a little bit of an unknown for everybody.
BF: Yeah, I think that we won’t be having discussions about tyres next year, it will be a completely different programme.
Q: (Ian Parkes – Press Association) Paul, you’ve talked about changing or tweaking the tyres from a safety perspective yet when we discussed the matter in Barcelona, you said that there had been no more failures this year than in previous seasons, so are you genuinely changing the tyres for safety aspects or are external pressures being brought to bear from other more powerful teams?
PH: No, I think the team pressure is something that is really in the media rather than a reality. I think that if you’re a tyre maker and the mode of failure this year is more dramatic because the tyres aren’t deflating they’re actually cutting into what we have now is a high tensile steel belt, that creates an opening that overheats and then creates what you’ve seen with the delamination. That’s something that’s not very good from a tyre maker’s point of view and we wish to get rid of so we need to do it for good reason. I think every team would agree with that. So you’ve got to try and do it though with a minimum amount of change because there’s a number of teams that have taken an approach this year that’s different. They decided early on what the challenges of the tyres would be this year and quite rightly they’re saying OK, change but don’t make it so dramatic, so that’s the situation we’re in and we’re closer to finalising the changes for Canada and that should be the end of it.
Q: (Dieter Rencken – The Citizen) Alain, when we spoke a year ago here you said that what ultimately pushed your team, Prost Grand Prix, out of business was the engine costs. We’ve heard quite a few people here talk about engine costs next year. Renault, in particular has come out and said that their price will be between 20 and 25 million which is a 250 percent increase over the current price. What do you say to that? Is there a chance, do you think that teams could go out of business because of engine prices next year?
AP: It is a problem, it’s first of all part of negotiation and the price you’ve said is much higher than it is in reality, but again, I’m not the one negotiating. Your reference with my team is obviously a good reference. I was paying 28 million dollars for the Ferrari engine in the first year and I was supposed to give 32 million the year after. I had to pay this money but I had to give a guarantee and pay almost cash before. That was in September, October or November, I don’t know. Why I say that because it’s always a way of trying to get the best for the general interest and we will see what is going to happen in negotiation but also you need to know that the budget of Renault Sport F1 is 150 million euros per year, and you can imagine… if you just make a very quick calculation about the price you can imagine divided by four teams, for example, and you will realise that Renault is paying a big contribution.
Ends
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Monaco is very unforgiving, tricky circuit: Adrian Sutil
DRIVERS – Jenson BUTTON (McLaren), Adrian SUTIL (Force India), Jules BIANCHI (Marussia), Nico HULKENBERG (Sauber), Romain GROSJEAN (Lotus), Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)
PRESS CONFERENCE
A question to you all. Round six of a 19-race season coming up, the same points are up for grabs as any other Grands Prix. It’s just another race… or is it? Is Monaco the greatest race of them all?
Jenson BUTTON: Good afternoon. Is it the greatest of them all? I don’t know really. I think they’re all pretty special in their own right. Some of them have more history than others and Monaco is definitely one of them. A lot of us also live here, so it’s a very special race. But I think if you’ve had the opportunity to fight for a win and actually cross the finish line first, it’s a very special race, yeah. You feel as though you celebrate that win, obviously with your team, but also with everyone watching here, because it’s such a confined space. It’s a very special place to win. But there are so many other races that mean a lot to us and certain races that mean more to us as individuals than Formula One as a whole.
What about you Adrian – greatest race, or will it be when you finally get a good points-scoring finish?
Adrian SUTIL: It could be, yes, definitely. But I feel this as a normal race. Like every other race really. You try to the best possible. In a way it’s a bit different because you know from the past and from experience that there are more possibilities out there. It’s a very tricky circuit, unforgiving and easy to make mistakes, [see a] safety car. The risk is high here and that opens up some situations for you… it can work well for you or the other way. Having that in mind gives a nice race, a nice weekend. Starting last or starting at the front doesn’t mean you will win the race. It’s all up [for grabs]. You need to be on the point and just stay focused for the whole race, until the race is finished.
What about you Jules? You’ve raced here before, not in F1 of course but it’s like your home race. How up for it are you?
Jules BIANCHI: Yeah, of course I’m really excited to be in the car tomorrow. I think this race is special for me because I was born in Nice, which is not really far from here. It’s like a home race, as you said. I can’t wait to be in the car even if I know it is a tricky track. It’s not easy to be quick here. But anyway I had some good records in the junior categories so let’s see what we will do.
Nico?
Nico HULKENBERG: Like Adrian said, the approach is the same to every other Grand Prix. It’s definitely special. I’ve never won here. I’ve been on the podium in GP2 and that was certainly. Even in F1 to achieve a podium here or even a win would be special and I think it stands out a bit more than a normal grand prix let’s say.
Romain, another man for whom Monaco Grand is also a home race.
Romain GROSJEAN: Yeah sort of. Monaco is not France but basically it’s not far. A special race, with a special podium as well at the finish, when you get meet the Prince, which is nice. There’s 25 points, as every other grand, but I think Monaco is a special one to me.
Lewis, how special is this place?
Lewis HAMILTON: Good afternoon everyone. Yeah, Monaco is spectacular. As Jenson said, a lot of us live here. I don’t feel like it’s like any other race. Winning here is unique and special, in its own way. When you do win here, when you finally get that, you have the most incredible feeling. Every time you come here that’s what you’re chasing for every year.
Jenson, before we came to Monaco, news that Honda are returning to Formula One as engine suppliers to McLaren in 2015. What was your reaction to that news?
JBu: I thought it was good news. I think for us as a team it’s good news for the future but I also think for the sport as a whole it’s fantastic news. Having another engine manufacturer in the sport is good. We have three very strong… four, sorry, four very strong engine manufacturers in the sport and I think with the new regulations it’s going to bring in other manufacturers and Honda being the first to announce that is great and hopefully there will be more.
Was it good news for you personally? You had quite a long association with Honda before?
JB: I’ve got a lot of connections to Japan and Honda is one of them. I spent a lot of time working with them in the old days… it seems like a long time ago now, but a lot of very positive moments and I look forward to that in the future. But it’s a long way down the road still so we’ve got to focus on what we’re doing now at the moment, with Mercedes and in 2015 it will change.
This season, Adrian Sutil, started really well for you in Australia. Since then things haven’t gone quite your way. Do you think you’re suffering a huge amount of bad luck at the moment?
AS: There’s no good luck and no bad luck for me. It’s just certain things happen and then you have to get behind it and see where the problem is. Many problems we had… small, but they turned out to be absolutely important for the race. A little wheel nut in Barcelona, which was a problem and it caused a pit stop which was almost a minute long and the race was over – no question. It was very impressive how quick the car was again. The race speed was very good, and the pace. So, it’s good to know the car is fast; the package is fast. It’s like the little piece of the puzzle we need to put together. The most important thing: the problem we had, we solved it. It was a different problem to Malaysia. It’s just a question of time that I will have my results. I will not give up. I will fight hard for it and try to also be clever and make a good result soon.
Q: Jules, a lot of people are talking about you and paying you quite a few compliments given your start to Formula One. How would you assess the opening five races of your Formula One career?
JBi: Well obviously it’s been a really positive start for me – and for the team as well. Trying to do the best result that we can. We know it’s difficult, we have to be realistic – we won’t score… well, it will be difficult to score points for us. So, just trying to do our best, trying to push as hard as possible and yeah, the first five races has been really nice. Some improvement on the car, some improvement with myself, so I’m really confident for the next fourteen races.
Q: It’s been a good battle between Caterham and Marussia. The last couple of races Caterham seem to have had the upper hand. Will that change this weekend?
JBi: I’ll try my best to do it, yeah for sure. Caterham are a bit in front but we saw in Barcelona that we were a bit quicker in the race pace – so that’s positive for this race. Anyway it’s a bit special so we will see tomorrow – but anyway we will have a good fight with them.
Q: Nico – if one word were to sum up your season so far ‘frustrating’ might be right up there. Has it been a huge frustration for you since you moved to Sauber?
NH: Well, frustrating is maybe not the right word but it hasn’t been super-satisfying for sure. We’re not delivering the results we want to and the results we thought we could deliver. We’re just a bit too slow, it’s as simple as that and we’re not competitive enough. At the moment the whole team is pushing and everybody in the factory at Hinwil is trying his best to make the car quicker and solve the issues. And that’s where all the focus is, to be honest now. We have to improve this car and then I’m sure we can fight for points more often.
Q: Is it fair to say you would have expected more than the five points from the first five races with the team?
NH: Yes, that’s fair to say.
Q: Romain, qualifying: always important here in Monaco. This year your average grid position 8.4. If you qualify there that puts you in the thick of things again. How much of your focus and preparation this weekend is on qualifying – not just the race?
RG: I think here more than everywhere else qualifying is important. It’s not a secret that overtaking in Monaco in hard – unless there is a little bit more degradation than we had last year and you can try a different strategy. But yeah, we will work on it. We started quite slowly this season and we recovered pretty well from Bahrain onwards and that’s what is important to know. And yes, we can definitely improve that which is not as good as we would like.
Q: Can you be more aggressive personally, do you feel, going into the qualifying on Saturday?
RG: I don’t think it’s a question of ‘aggressivity’. It’s just the relation between the car and yourself. It’s very tight this year. The tyres have changed a little bit, you need to understand them fully and from there I’ll push.
Q: Lewis, talking of tyres, both you and your team-mate Nico Rosberg have suffered similar problems – but not at the same time in the last couple of races. Is it a puzzle? Whereas in Bahrain you had a better race than Nico, in Barcelona he had a better race than you. Is the problem easily solved?
LH: It’s definitely not easily solved. It’s something we’re working on internally. Just working as hard as we can to assess and understand where we went wrong: tyre pressures, temperatures and all of those kind of things. I don’t think it’s going to be as bad – hopefully – moving forward. It’s definitely something we’re trying to improve on. So hopefully we won’t have as many bad races as we did the last one.
Q: Given what’s happened in the last couple of races, some people say this is your best chance of a race victory. Do you share that view?
LH: Not particularly. Not particularly. I think it’s a good… we have a good opportunity this weekend but you never know what the others are capable of. Last year they were quite competitive, Mercedes was quite competitive here. Obviously our car is better this year so we should still be competitive this year. But the Ferraris and the Lotuses and the Red Bulls are massively competitive as well. So, we just have to wait and see.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Kate Walker – GP Week) Question for Lewis, obviously you had a very difficult weekend in Barcelona and we assume you will have gone back to the factory, studied all manner of data and drawn some conclusions. While you can’t necessarily tell us about those conclusions are you expecting an improved performance for the weekend? Do you think you’ve got a good level from which to build after, you know, what was quite a challenging weekend?
LH: I definitely do. I think a huge amount of work has gone into understanding where we went wrong. As I said, the guys have really kickstarted a lot of different discussions. Obviously it’s a real science trying to understand these tyres. Everyone’s trying to understand them but I really feel this weekend will be a better weekend for us compared to the last. And moving on from here I think we’ll just continue to learn and improve.
Q: (Alex Popov – RTR) Question to all the drivers except Lewis – because Lewis just tweeted a photo of new helmet especially for Monaco. Do you do something for this race specially? And for Lewis, another question, if you can comment about Paddy Lowe who will follow you from Woking to Brackley.
Helmets first, Jenson?
JBu: No more special than normal, no.
Romain?
RG: That means you don’t follow me on Twitter! I tweeted it yesterday. Blue, white and red.
Adrian?
AS: The only change I have on the helmet is a Uruguayan flag. Since many years I wanted to do it and now it’s on – because my father is from Uruguay but I will keep it on for the whole season and from now on for the rest of my career. It’s not special – not specially Monaco.
Jules?
JBi: Yeah, I have a special helmet for Monaco – but you will see it tomorrow.
Nico?
NH: No. No special – just the basic helmet.
Q: () What does Paddy Lowe bring to Mercedes?
LH: We’ll see, time will tell but obviously Paddy’s… I’ve had great experience of Paddy over the last five or six years. He’s obviously a great person and massively intelligent and will be a great asset for the team, so I’m really looking forward to working with him. We look forward to it.
Q: (Livio Orrichio – O Estado de Sao Paulo) Lewis, in 2002 David Coulthard started in pole position, he didn’t have the fastest car in race conditions and he won the race. Michael Schumacher was behind him with a car which was much faster but he didn’t get to overtake him. Do you think this is the reality this year, that you can repeat what Coulthard did?
LH: I think that if you were just watching last year, it’s very difficult to overtake. I think Mark won it last year and just controlled it from the front, even though he had a very competitive car, so yeah, overtaking is very very difficult here as I proved a couple of years ago. So if you’re able to get out in front, it’s more than likely if you’re able to manage your tyres that you can stay there. Definitely.
Q: On the subject of overtaking here, is it all about patience, Adrian? Do you just have to hope the moment comes but you’ve really got wait for it?
AS: Yes, well, overtaking is difficult but I don’t see qualifying being an important thing for the race. Just looking at all the last races, there have been several drivers starting from the back or in midfield and they were on the podium. I think Lotus have been a good example. You need to have the right strategy. Mercedes? Yeah, they’ve struggled. They were one and two in Barcelona and had big problems in the race. It just shows that the tyres are so difficult in the race and it’s a very different thing – qualifying and race – but I’m here to race and the points are given in the race. Qualifying… it doesn’t really matter where you are, you have to stay focused really.
Q: (Jens Walthers – German Radio) Lewis, how would you describe your relationship with your teammate, Nico Rosberg? Are you teammates, colleagues, friends, neighbours?
LH: Well, we’re neighbours, next door neighbours but we’re teammates too. We work hard together to try and push this team forward. Obviously we have a lot of history together from being teammates and friends since 1997, so we’ve known each other for a long long time so naturally we have a friendship but of course ultimately we are fierce competitors.
Q: (Ian Parkes – Press Association) Jenson, when the Honda deal was announced, it naturally raised the question as to whether you might still be around in 2015, but Jonathan Neale (McLaren managing director) said you have a job for life. Can I ask how that makes you feel first of all, and secondly, when he says for life, how many more years do you think you might have left as a racing driver?
JBu: Did he say a job for life or a job as a racing driver for life?
Q: (Ian Parkes – Press Association) Job for life.
JBu: Ah, OK. I don’t know what that means then. I don’t know. I don’t want to think about the future too much at the moment. I think that yeah, you’ve got to live for the moment and I don’t think that trying to agree a lengthy deal for the future is something that is interesting at the moment for me. I’m 13 years in the sport, I want to have freedom and that feeling that if it doesn’t feel right any more: stop. But I definitely don’t feel that yet. It feels that it is going to be a long way down the road. For me, that freedom is important in the future.
Q: (Paulo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Lewis, do you think that if the Pirellis do change slightly that it will help Mercedes in the rest of the championship?
LH: I definitely hope so, it can’t be any worse for us, that’s for sure. I think that if they do make some changes they will help everyone really and will definitely change the way the races will go, compared to how they have gone.
Q: Nico, Romain, do you welcome a few tweaks to the tyres, a few changes?
NH: I’m not sure what happens now. Obviously Pirelli provides the tyres and I understand that there are still some discussions there with the FIA and Pirelli, so I’m not sure what’s going to happen but we will go forward, we will work with what Pirelli will provide. Tyres are changing, some people deal better with them than others and I think we have to adapt.
RG: Well, it’s not able to change in the middle of the championship, even though it’s maybe only a small change, we don’t know but I think we were pretty competitive with the original ones and the team has been working well with that so we will see, we will do our best.
Q: (Gary Meenaghan – The National, Abu Dhabi) Question to all of you: could you just talk about your first memory of Monaco when you were growing up as a fan and what your impressions were and how they compare to how it was when you actually got here as a racer?
JBi: Obviously, when I was young, I was watching Formula One and that was my life because I was racing in go-karts and coming here to Monaco with my family to watch a race was something special, it was like a dream to maybe one day drive on this track. I didn’t expect that. Now I’m here, it’s a special moment for me and I can’t wait to be on the track and enjoy this moment with my car; for sure it will be a great moment.
AS: My first time here in Monaco was in Formula Three in 2006, I believe, when I raced with Lewis in the European championship. It was a great race weekend, yes, I really enjoyed it, but no contact before that. It was maybe a bit too expensive for my family at that time, we couldn’t afford it.
NH: Is that specially about Monaco or in general? First time I came here was in karting, there used to be a kart race here. I don’t know if that’s still on and then after that, GP2 in 2009, yeah, it was great, good fun, a very unique place, very challenging, one of the few circuits that we still have in the calendar which doesn’t allow any mistakes. I always really enjoy coming here for the track, for the atmosphere, for everything really so I’m happy to be here.
RG: One of my first memories was 1996 when Olivier Panis won, the last French driver to win, a long time ago. When I came here, I found it more challenging than what you think it is on the TV. A long time ago.
JBu: Well, my first memory was in 2000, my first year in F1 and it was all going well until Loews (now Grand Hotel) and I T-boned Pedro de la Rosa and caused a red flag. In those days we had spare cars – in those days, Christ, a long time ago – so we basically had a running race back to the paddock for who got the spare car. That was quite fun.
LH: I think for me, apart from watching Ayrton crash into the wall when he was leading by a long way, I think my first real experience here was the same as Adrian’s when we were both here in Formula Three. It was a great weekend. I remember I was planning to stay in Menton and then I called Martin (Whitmarsh) and he fixed me up with a hotel room in the Beach Plaza and it was just a ball all weekend, it was one of the best weekends of my life up to that point.
Q: (Ian Parkes – Press Association) Lewis, you’ve been asked about your relationship with Nico a few questions ago; what about your relationship with Adrian these days? Has that changed at all now since Adrian’s returned to Formula One? Obviously it ended quite acrimoniously not so long ago. Adrian, from your perspective, how are things between you and Lewis now?
LH: Things are different, definitely. We’ve spoken a couple of times and we’ve planned to get together at some stage and just have a chat basically. We’ve been great friends for a long long time and we’ve had some of the best times together along the way, especially, as you said, in Formula Three times. You can only really count your good friends on one hand maybe, so as people say, good friends are hard to come by, so I want to make sure we get things right.
AS: Well, as he said, yes, different and I’m still waiting for a coming together. I can’t say anything more.
Q: (Aleksander Tabakovski – Vecer Macedonia) Question for all drivers and especially for the German drivers, because this weekend will be the final of the football Champions’ league, between two German teams, Borussia and Bayern. I just want to hear your feelings about it and from each driver, who is their favourite soccer team?
JBu: I’m not a big football fan.
Q: Which B do you fancy most?
JBu: Whoever scores more goals, I’ll go for.
LH: I always like Bayern Munich. When I was playing football – I used to – when I was playing on the computer games I used to play Bayern Munich quite often, so I will say them.
RG: I’ll follow Jenson’s club.
JBi: I kind of like Bayern so I hope they will win.
NH: It’s kind of cool to have two German clubs in the final but strange as well at the same time. They’ve played twice in the German league and now they meet again in the European final which is a bit weird. I’m pretty neutral, I’m not a Munich or Dortmund fan but I’ve become more of a football follower recently and I just watch it, enjoy it, but I don’t really care who wins.
AS: OK, so I’m not a football fan but I’m from Munich, that’s the answer: Bayern Munich for me, yes. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
Q: More importantly, do either of you think you could be the back page headlines in the German newspapers on Monday morning or will it all be about the football?
NH: Probably be a lot about the football.
AS: I hope I make some good headlines after this weekend.
Ends
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Monaco holds a special place in our hearts: Mallya
Sahara Force India looks forward to round six of the season, the Monaco Grand Prix.Team Principal, Vijay Mallya, looks forward to the Monaco Grand Prix.“Monaco holds a special place in the heart of every Formula One fan. Its history, the unforgiving circuit and the unique atmosphere of the place make it a highlight of the season. As a venue, it’s one of my favourites and a track where our car has always worked well. We’ve scored points there for the last three seasons and will be aiming to do the same this year,” said Vijay Mallya.“In our first European race, two weeks ago in Barcelona, the team once again showed its form. A strong points finish by Paul Di Resta ensured we held on to fifth position in the World Championship, and we look capable of fighting at this level in the races to come. With a little help from Lady Luck, who hasn’t been much on Adrian Sutil’s side lately, we will be able to score points with both cars and firmly establish our position in the championship. So far our weakness has been failing to get both cars home in the points and it’s something we need to remedy,” he added.“As for Adrian’s race in Spain, he would have been on course for scoring some big points had it not been for the pit stop problem. His race pace was superb, but things are not going his way at the moment. The good news is that Adrian is mentally very strong and he will deal with it. In the cockpit he’s doing exactly what we expect and that’s why we put him in the car. With 14 races remaining there is plenty of opportunity for Adrian to get the results he deserves,” he concluded.Paul on MonacoMore points for you in Barcelona, and it is now time for Monaco. What do you expect from this race?
We are fairly happy with the end result in Spain: with the limited time we had in the car and the DRS problems later in the race, seventh was a good position to come away with. As for the next race, having more time to optimise the car with the upgrades should allow us to extract even more performance from it. Monaco was a rewarding race for us last year and we will try to go there and continue our run of points finishes.You live in Monaco, so this is a home race for you. How does it make it different?
It’s really interesting to see how busy the place gets when the race is in town and the atmosphere builds up throughout the week. Racing close to home is really nice because I can go back to my place every night. I sleep in my bed and enjoy my own space. It’s also a chance for my family and friends to come and stay with me, and when the weather is nice, there’s nowhere better.Both you and the team had a very strong start of the season. Is fifth place in the Constructors’ a realistic target?
McLaren is a strong team and they will keep improving, but in the races so far we have been fighting them and we’ve often been quicker. Realistically, though, we are doing a great job regularly beating our direct rivals – Sauber, Williams and Toro Rosso. Our strength has been our consistency – we have been performing well in each of the races so far, and we are now looking forward to the Sundays with confidence.Adrian on MonacoAdrian, you’ve been one of the quickest drivers of 2013, but also one of the unluckiest. How are you feeling after five races?Despite everything that has happened during the last four races, I remain positive. Most of the things that happened were out of my control, but still I believe we can improve certain things to avoid mistakes in the future. We as a team have to stay confident and work on solving these small problems. The car is fast and if we have a perfect weekend, which is our aim all the time, I’m sure the podium will come soon.Is the VJM06 the best car you’ve ever driven?I think so, yes. Wherever we have gone so far the car has looked competitive – and that includes some very different tracks. It’s a good sign for the rest of the season. Of course, Monaco will be the first real street circuit, but I think we will be quick there. The car is very strong in the front with a very neutral balance so it’s very driveable.Tell us what Monaco means to you…It’s a special place for sure. I’ve always liked street races and Monaco is the best street circuit of them all. There’s no room for even the smallest mistake and that’s why it’s different to other tracks. You have to give the walls so much respect and build up your speed. More than anything it’s a test of your mental strength because you keep your concentration for nearly two hours during the race.ends -
This car has the potential to win races: Andrew Green
TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Dave GREENWOOD (Marussia), Mike COUGHLAN (Williams), Mark SMITH (Caterham), Andrew GREEN (Force India), Nikolas TOMBAZIS (Ferrari), Adrian NEWEY (Red Bull Racing)
PRESS CONFERENCE
Mike Coughlan, if we can start with you. You won here last year but what conclusions are we to draw from your performances so far this season?
Mike COUGHLAN: Well, we’re disappointed. It’s a fast-moving sport, everybody’s progressing and we haven’t made enough progress. We’re making steps in the right direction. We’re making steps in the right direction but there’s a long way… there’s at least a second to catch up.
And what did you learn from today?
MC: We learned that the prototype tyres didn’t work on our car and we found that… we had an aero test last week, some things we learned have worked on the circuit here, but we’ve still got a lot of work to do.
Thanks very much. If we can move to Nikolas Tombazis. Obviously, a lot of discussions at the moment about the re-introduction of testing in Formula One. The vote this week didn’t necessarily go in favour of it, but do you feel that’s the end of the story or do you think there is a chance that will be revisited?
Nikolas TOMBAZIS: To be honest I think it’s something more for the team principals to be discussing with each other. I guess there will be more discussion about it but I don’t think it will be at our level of engineer to be honest that we discuss it.
And today? Obviously very close between yourselves and Red Bull. What conclusions do you draw from the running we saw this afternoon?
NT: I think it’s very difficult to draw any conclusions properly from a Friday. I think we are in reasonable shape but it’s impossible to know exactly what fuel levels each team is running. So, I think we’re cautiously optimistic but I couldn’t say more than that. In the morning obviously it was raining so it was not easy to test some of the components we were planning to test. So that’s an ongoing process that will go on for the next race to try and establish whether the new bits are actually faster or not, so it’s not possible to answer all the questions in one single session.
Obviously your old colleague James Allison is back on the market, do you fancy a reunion with him in Maranello?
NT: I’m very good friends with James, I think he’s a super bloke both technically and ‘humanly’. I think that any team having him would be making a good buy. Whether he is coming to us or not is a story to ask the team principals.
Okay, thank you for that. Adrian, your thoughts on today? Obviously, you and Ferrari look very quick but as Nik was saying it’s not always easy to draw conclusions from Friday. However, do you see it being a scrap between the two of you this weekend?
Adrian NEWEY: Well, If Nik would be kind us enough to tell us what his fuel load was this afternoon we’d have a better idea, but he probably won’t do that so, no, as Nik says then it’s certainly tight with Ferrari. Lotus I’m sure will be good, we’ve seen they have very good tyre degradation, and Mercedes are the outsiders I guess, so it’s the usual story of the last few races.
Obviously Red Bull was one of the teams calling for a change to the tyre specifications. Pirelli has made one change, to the hard tyre that we have here this weekend. That was the preferred tyre here in the race last season. Can you give us your take on the changes that have been made? Did it go far enough as far as you’re concerned?
AN: The changes to the tyre relative to last year are two-fold, one has been construction and the other has been compound. As you say they’ve gone back to the compound that we used in some of the races last year but that still leaves a very significant construction change, so it’s still a very different tyre to what we had last year.
Moving on to Dave Greenwood from Marussia. Obviously Marussia have taken a clear step forward this year in performance. Can you quantify it for us and tell us where the major gains have come from?
Dave GREENWOOD: Well, it’s difficult to put exact numbers on it but definitely we’re a per cent or so closer to the front. We no longer worry about anything like 107 per cent, those days are long gone, so it’s much more looking towards the midfield, where we want to go. Obviously, as anyone else would say, the main advantage has come in aerodynamics – better correlation in the wind tunnel – and perhaps slightly more creativity in that area. That’s where really most of the lap time has come, coupled with improvements in the mechanical installation of course.
We spoke earlier about the possibility of in-season testing returning. As one of the teams with a smaller budget how would feel about that?
DG: It’s a tricky one isn’t it? As an engineer you’d want to go testing but obviously there’s a resource issue there to consider as well. I think as Nikolas said, it’s probably one more for the team principals. But I think for us it would be as long as it was in a measured, controlled way and not an absolute free-for-all then maybe it would be something that would enable us to slightly catch up by having a little bit more testing.
Moving on to Andrew. Obviously, first of all, we have to start by asking about Paul Di Resta’s left-rear tyre failure. What can you tell us about that from second practice this afternoon?
Andrew GREEN: Well, completely unexpected, in the middle of a high-fuel run, it was on about lap six or seven. That’s all we know at the moment. It’s currently under investigation by Pirelli and I’m sure they’ll release something as soon as they know but it’s early days yet.
What’s the protocol when something like this happens, in terms of how you as a team interact with them, in terms of moving forward from here?
AG: We’re completely with them. We’ll give them everything they need to understand what happened with the tyres. It’s one of the reasons why we stopped the car straight away – to not damage the tyre and give them as big an opportunity as possible to understand what happened.
Obviously it’s been a competitive start to the season fro Force India; you’re beating teams with larger budgets. How is that done?
AG: How’s it done?
Yes.
AG: We’ve got our own programme. We’ve been on a stepped improvement every year for the last three or four years. We do our own thing. We try to understand the car as much as we can and move forward in areas where we see the performance gains. We are massively resource limited in our team. We haven’t got the big budgets, we’ve got to pick and choose where we develop the car and make sure we develop it in areas that give good rewards and we’ll continue to do that. One of the key things for this year, which we identified last year was race performance on Sunday, tyres life. Understanding the tyres was a big part of this car and has given us a big opportunity to set the car up for all different conditions, all different tyre types. So that’s helped us on the Sunday for sure. But it’s everywhere; it’s a little bit of everything. The wind tunnel guys are busy trying to add performance from their side, and on the tyre side we’re trying to manage the tyres mechanically.
Moving on to Mark Smith from Caterham. We’ve seen in the past Caterham talking a lot about upgrade packages when they come along, but there seems to have been hardly any talk about this one at all. Can you tell us what you’ve done and why you’ve decided to keep quiet about it this time?
Mark SMITH: The strategy that we had, for a number of reasons, was to introduce a car for the first four races that was probably 30 per cent of what would ordinarily be the new season’s car. So, yes, it’s an upgrade but in actual fact it takes us to the point that ordinarily this would have been our roll-out car. And that has to do with understanding the way we model things and not committing to things. We felt that had we have done the car in the normal timescale we would have been taking parts to production and to the car that we weren’t particularly ready with in terms of our understanding and modeling and so on. So it’s more a case that this is the new car.
Can you tell us what the impact the return of Heikki Kovalainen in a development role has had on you in the past month or so?
MS: It has been very useful. Obviously, Heikki worked with the team previously. We lost driver continuity. So that in itself, when Heikki ran in FP1 in Bahrain, was a positive. There were some minor set-up directions that we were considering and in fact Heikki endorse those independently, so that was useful. So in terms of having some continuity, having some connection to the previous car, which actually the car he drove in Bahrain was only a minor development of, has been useful.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOORQ: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action and National Speedsport News) All of you have upgrades here; could you tell us what the new parts are on your car and please be specific?
MC: New front wing, some forward floor changes, but that’s it.
DG: New front wing, new floor, new suspension parts on the front suspension, so not just aerodynamic. Reasonably comprehensive I would say.
MS: Front and rear wing, floor, some bodywork parts.
NT: Sorry, but I think I will be a spoilsport and won’t specify. You can look at the photos.
AN: I think it’s a bit of an unreasonable question really. It’s all part of the sport isn’t it, to find out what we’ve done?
Q: But presumably there have been plenty of boxes arriving overnight from England.
AN: Well, we’ve got to keep the boys in sandwiches.
AG: Bit of everything, really: aerodynamic and mechanical.
Q: Is it as significant an update package here at Barcelona as it has been in the past?
Is it one of the most important milestones?
AG: Not as big as it has been, but it’s still significant, yeah.
Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Tombazis, the upgrades that you brought here, are they working reasonably well and do you think they are going to help you to try to catch pole position tomorrow?
NT: As I said before, because it was raining in the morning, we haven’t had the opportunity to do all the back to backs as we would have liked. It’s quite difficult to get good answers on a Friday even if it’s not raining because of the tyres and the various other things one has to do on a Friday. So we were are still analysing and it’s an on-going process. I would say that some things are working, some things are not but we will have to also re-test some things at the next race, before we decide properly.
Q: Fernando was saying that qualifying pace was something that he wanted more of from the Ferrari. Did you set that as a first order priority for this upgrade?
NT: Yes, I think it’s quite clear we want to improve there, but obviously if we improve there we don’t want to give away some of our race pace so the race pace is still more important in some ways for the end result but sometimes when we start further back it makes things a lot more difficult, so yes, qualifying is a priority.
Q: (Mike Doodson – Auto Action) From time to time, the idea of having a point for pole position comes up. I understand the idea has been discussed recently and rejected. Without putting all of you to any trouble, could I ask perhaps Nick and Adrian if they are first in favour of that or why was the idea rejected?
AN: To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t aware that it had been discussed again lately. Certainly, when I was in IndyCars, and that was the standard procedure it always seemed to me to be a good thing. It gives a little bit more emphasis to qualifying, bit more to the show if you like and qualifying’s all part of the TV spectacle. It seemed like a little extra bonus at the end and seemed sensible. That’s my personal opinion.
NT: Yeah, I must say that I don’t think it’s a bad idea provided it’s clear from the start what the rule is then one can make one’s assessment between performances in qualifying and the race. I’m not against it, personally. I also wasn’t aware of it being discussed. It’s possibly a good thing.
Q: (Alex Oller – Associated Press) Mr Coughlan, regarding Pastor Maldonado’s struggles this season: do you think you might be pressing a little bit, due to a lack of confidence in the car and also, might there be an adjustment due to the change with the personal engineer?
MC: No, I don’t think so. It’s a fast-moving sport, there’s lots of little things. This time last year we had a good balance here and the driver was very confident on the Saturday but not so good on the Friday, so there’s a lot of work to do. We have a good team, Pastor’s very focused, working hard. It’s just going to come down to hard work and small steps.
Q: (Sam Collins – RaceCar Engineering) Looking at this car and next year’s car, some of you guys have got a bit of a challenge of resources, some from the RRA and some from your own team’s resources. At what point are you going to switch off development of the 2013 car and switch on to the 2014 fully, and what’s going to be the thing that makes that decision happen?
MS: I don’t know that there will be an absolute switch off. I think these things… obviously 2014 represents a big change so in terms of resource, everybody’s resource-limited, you’re just given the level that you work at, so to a greater or lesser extent, I think every team will have been looking at 2014 for a while now. The time at which you switch the majority of resources will be different for all teams because all teams will be facing different challenges in the championship. For us, 2014 is a very significant thing and I suspect that the majority of our resources will have moved over after Barcelona.
DG: Well, in terms of resources, yeah, obviously we are one of the resource-limited teams but that’s not to say we don’t have big ambitions for 2014, so we’ve done quite a big change-over to that already, in terms of specifics of wind tunnel times, detailing and even design time, there’s a lot going on for 2014 already. It’s a tricky one because we still keep where we are in 2013 with one eye on it, more from the point of view of ensuring that if the opportunities are there to move up, then we’ve still got to keep a development going, so probably similar to what Mark says, it’s about that point now where it’s all or nothing basically.
AN: It’s a hugely difficult problem. In an ideal world, you kind of try briefly to increase your work force to deal with the resources needed for this and then shrink back down but that’s neither feasible not practical really. I think that certainly for us, we have to put effort into the ’14 car, we can’t just ignore it. We are putting effort into it at the moment. This is actually about how that percentage varies throughout the year. Well, to some extent it depends on how our championship programme is.. Clearly, if you’re in a tight battle for a championship, you don’t want to turn your back on that. Equally… it’s a juggling act, there’s no magic formula to it.
Q: (Matt Youson – RaceTech) Nick, how does the 2014 power unit dictate the aero of next year’s car?
NT: It’s a hugely complicated project from a mechanical point of view, the installation of the turbo with all the energy recovery and the completely different looms and also all the other issues my colleagues spoke about – in terms of resource allocation make it very difficult to focus on this project as much as one would like. So one of the challenges is to make sure that apart from the work that the engine people need to do to make sure that they get the most efficiency/power/fuel efficiency etc, is to also make sure that one doesn’t take any wrong turnings in terms of the packaging of this new power unit into the car. It would be a big shame if one discovers, from the start of the next season, that one has missed some trick and has to live with a sub-optimally packaged power unit. So a lot of the early aerodynamic work has to do with answering basic fundamental questions about that installation and obviously the engine being so different, there’s also a lot of other things that are… one loses points of reference compared to the previous year. For example, the cooling could be one of them, or gearbox or whatever. So there’ s a lot of importance in being good at your simulations at this stage so as to be able to not over-design or under-design some particular aspect.
Q: (Luis Vasconcelos – Formula Press) For all six of you: we’re coming to the end of this set of regulations after five years. For all of you, which was the most satisfying car you had in this period and why, and what was the car which you felt you could have done a better job with, and again, why?
AG: This car is going to be the most satisfying car, to be honest. It’s got all the potential to be and we’re really looking forward to this season. I think there are some really strong races ahead. I would say this car, for sure. And the one we could have done more with? Every other one, for sure.
AN: I think to pick out one car is difficult. I think overall I’ve certainly enjoyed the challenge of the regulation change from 2009. I think we didn’t win the championship in 2009 but in some ways I’m most proud of that, as a team, not me personally, but I think as a team we did a good job with that car. We didn’t have a double diffuser which is still a matter of contention about the legality of that, which is obviously all history and that, without doubt, to some extent, cost us the championship together with the fact that as a team we just weren’t mature enough at the time to know how to operate the car to a championship-winning level really. But I think it’s the catalyst that gave everybody in Milton Keynes the confidence to step forwards and out of the ex-Jaguar ‘always seventh in the championship’ –type position that people felt a bit beaten into and put a spring in their step and launched us into the following cars.
NT: Well, obviously for Ferrari, this set of the regulations, the last five years have been quite difficult. We’ve had some years that we were very disappointed with and I’m hoping that at the end of the season I will say that this year is one that we are most happy with but clearly we have to wait and see for that.
MS: I think for a number of reasons which generally revolve around the way we’re working as a team and the way we are going about our business, I would say that it’s the current car.
MC: Obviously last year’s car returned Williams to winning ways and we perhaps didn’t make as much use of it as we could have done but certainly here last year and that car.
DG: Obviously this year’s car for the reasons we’ve come a long way since we entered in 2010 but I would say this is the biggest step we’ve made year on year and the most significant one.
Q: (Kate Walker – GP Week) We’ve recently had quite a bit of discussion that’s since fallen by the wayside about integrating young driver tests into the race weekend. How do you guys feel about that? Do think it’s good for bringing on talent or are you wary about these young guns damaging your precious new parts?
NT: It’s not exactly the sort of topic I normally think about much. I think the way of testing makes it very difficult for young drivers to really get started so to find a solution to that would be a good idea. Whether that would work at a race weekend I’m not sure, unless it’s the Monday after a race or something like that.
AN: I think the first problem actually comes from the lower formulas inasmuch as we seem to be in a situation where now in GP2, for instance, experience counts hugely and quite often it will be drivers in their third or fourth season that win the championship, which seems to me quite an unhealthy way to be. I think also now, with the way the tyres are behaving, then to have junior formulas where the tyres are lasting three or four laps before they’ve gone off heavily, young drivers need mileage, they need seat time and it concerns me that the way the lower formulae are going they’re just not getting that.
AG: Well, from Force India’s point of view, we’ve got a track record of bringing young drivers through and it’s something that we’re very proud of, something we’d like to have the ability to do more of so we definitely look towards a change in regulations so we can bring young drivers through without compromising the race weekend. We put forward a motion in the meeting yesterday but I’m sure there will be further discussions on it. Hopefully we can come to some agreement because I think it’s probably a little bit short-sighted of the sport not to recognise that these young guys do need time in the car.
Q: Do you have a Friday driver in the pipeline?
AG: Yes, there’s one coming through. Hopefully we will announce something shortly.
DG: This is something we actively participate in, in using young drivers in an FP1 session but I think tyres is key at the moment. Perhaps one set of tyres in FP1 is not quite enough for these guys and maybe we need to look to giving them a few more sets of tyres.
Mike, Williams is another team that has run Friday-morning drivers, you’re not doing it at the moment, are there plans to do that this year?
MC: Not at the moment, no. I think our experience, although it’s improved Valtteri tremendously last year, Bruno [Senna] would argue he probably suffered a little bit from it. So it’s a difficult call. I don’t really have an answer.
…and Mark?
MS: It’s a general philosophy. When we have the opportunity we’ve given young drivers a chance in FP1. It’s not something… going beyond that in the way you describe is not something I’ve given a lot of thought to – but in principle, as Adrian says, there’s a shortfall in terms of opportunity for guys new to Formula One to get to grips with it. So there could be something positive there, yeah.
Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action / National Speedsport News) Nik, a question for you: when you’re designing and developing a car, how do you take into account and balance the fact that your drivers might have different driving styles and might want different things from the car?
NT: The differences are not that massive. The both want more downforce and less drag and so on. So the basic parameters are not too different. But they do have some slightly different characteristics: what they feel makes it more difficult under braking for example, or mid-corner or whatever. But we try to establish an average condition so as to have an overall car that’s best – and then what the drivers prefer is dealt with in car setup.
Q: (Ted Kravitz – Sky Sports) Question for Mike: Mike, this is the first year you’ve been back in Formula One full time, even though you did do some races last year, first year I should say since the events of 2007. Has it been like a fresh start with Williams?
MC: I’ve enjoyed it tremendously. I did work all last year doing it too. I’ve enjoyed it. It’s a great engineering challenge. If you’re an engineer, Formula One is a great engineering challenge, so I’ve enjoyed every moment of it. Even though we’re struggling a little bit now, the challenge is to get back.
Q: (Nicolas Carpentier – F1i) Back to 2014. Mark Smith talks about the big change, will these cars look very different from this year’s cars in their shape? I guess you already have an idea: a shorter engine cover or something like that…
DG: The initial rules framing the regulations of where bodywork exists etcetera have been out now and published and a lot of discussions have taken place in the technical working group meetings and I think everyone has now got the confidence to start laying cars out and initial wind tunnel tests and CFD etcetera. The version I’ve seen looks very much like… the cars won’t look immensely different once you get used to them. The first time you see then, you’ll decide they’re a lot different and then by three races in you’ll think they always looked like that. There are some areas that have gone. Like the beam wing, which is probably the most significant but the rest of them, you’ll still think it looks like a current Formula One car.
Adrian, your thoughts.
AN: So much of the shape of the car is dictated by the regulations, and that kind of hems you in. Visually, as was said the lack of the beam wing, the low nose which is again forced by regulations and a slightly narrower overall front wing – 75mm a side narrower. Those are the other things you’ll notice. The other thing, depending on how good a job everybody manages to do, is probably slightly bigger sidepods to accommodate the significantly increased cooling requirements.
Are these regulations that excite you?
AN: They’re different and I think it’s always good to have something different. I think the whole philosophy of the engine and the KERS unit and energy storage is altogether another matter – but that’s more for the engine group.
Q: (Alan Baldwin – Reuters) Mike, talking on the technical side about Williams. Since Mark Gillan left, how much has the team suffered from that and are there any plans for you to bring in another heavy-hitter to help you out and bounce ideas off?
MC: No, I don’t think so. As soon as somebody moves on there’s always somebody younger and fresher who wants to take that place. Obviously change is something we try to avoid – especially with somebody of Mark’s calibre – but at the moment, no, we don’t plan to bring anybody else in.
Ends
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Sahara Force India feels podium-finish is not far away
Bangalore, 7 May 2013: Sahara Force India, the only Indian team in the Formula One World Championship, began the 2013 season on a bright note with a double finish at the season opener in Australia but despite bad outings in Malaysia and luck deserting Adrian Sutil, Paul di Resta matched his career-best fourth-place finish in Bahrain for one of the best starts to the season for the Silverstone-based team.In a press release received here ahead the fourth round of the FIA F 1 World championship to be held at Barcelona next Sunday, team Principal Vijay Mallya was in upbeat mood and hopes that the team will do much better this year. At home in India, Vijay Mallya was in financial troubles with his popular airlines, Kingfisher grounded for many months and even Sahara in trouble with SEBI, the securities exchange board of the country. With the application for revival rejected and employees of the airlines yet to be paid their arrears, there were rumours that the F1 team might be in trouble, but the `King of Good Times’ repeatedly denied that the F1 team would be affected financially.The team is currently in 5th position, 3 points ahead of Vodafone McLaren Mercedes but will have to switch gears to keep the slot as McLaren is expected to zoom past as the F1 bandwagon arrives to its favourite desitination of Europe after four fly-away races. Paul di Rest scored 12 points in Bahrain after being in contention for a podium finish for better part of the race but had to manage his tyres with a two-stop strategy. He now has 20 points in the Drivers’ Championship and is in 8th place while teammate Adrian Sutil with the six points he earned in Australian GP is in 12 place.Team Principal and Managing Director, Vijay Mallya, reflects on the team’s best-ever start to a season saying: “The return to Europe after the first few flyaway races is an excellent moment to catch our breath and evaluate where we stand. Overall the balance is extremely positive for Sahara Force India with our best ever start to a season. In terms of points scored we are nine points up compared to last year and we’ve been up at the sharp end fighting with the big teams.“After the pit stop problems in Malaysia, points finishes in China and Bahrain have set us back on the right path, but nobody in the team is taking it for granted and we will not rest on our laurels. At both the factory and at the track, everyone is working hard to ensure we can build on these good results. We intend to hold our ground and remain in the hunt for points and podiums.“Looking at our drivers, the performances of Paul Di Resta confirm just how much he has matured as a driver. He’s delivering consistently every week and we are reaping the rewards of all his hard work. He suffered a difficult end to the 2012 season, but he’s shown great mental strength and determination to regroup over the winter and recapture his best form. He’s pushing the team on and demanding the best from everyone, which is what we need.“Adrian Sutil has also shown his speed so far but the luck has not gone his way. The last two races have been very frustrating because he’s been the victim of other drivers’ mistakes. Without these incidents he would surely have scored well in both China and Bahrain. His race pace in Bahrain was remarkable because he was one of the fastest cars on track,” he added.“Having come so tantalisingly close to the podium with Paul last time out, we head to Barcelona full of optimism. The hard work everyone is putting in is paying off and we hope to see the rewards this coming weekend,” Dr Mallya concluded.Paul Di Resta responds on Barcelona GP:Paul, you’ve enjoyed your strongest start to a season – what’s your feeling after four races…We’ve got to feel very happy with how things are going and I want to congratulate everybody in the team. We took a very sensible approach to the winter and focussed on understanding the key areas that drive performance, which seems to have paid off. It’s important to pick up good points early in the season against our competitors and to be ahead of McLaren after four races is a credit to the team and a nice feeling. Of course we want to be on the podium and it was very close in Bahrain, but I’m sure it will come soon enough.Do you feel you have a car that will be competitive on any type of circuit?The car is performing well, especially in the heat, and we were also strong in the cooler conditions of China – so that’s a good sign. The key is making sure you find the right operating window whatever the conditions because that’s what makes the difference. We need to keep doing what we’re doing, but at the same time we know the return to Europe always sees every team bring more upgrades. Hopefully we can stay fighting with the big teams and keep picking up the points.With two tests already completed in Barcelona do you feel well prepared ahead of this weekend’s race?I guess we have more data around Barcelona than anywhere else, but at the same time the temperatures will be much higher at this time of year. So I’d expect that to change things quite a lot and impact on the tyres. Also, it’s one of those tracks where you’re constantly chasing the right aero balance to cope with the long, high-speed corners, especially turn three. But when you come to the end of the lap you need the mechanical grip for the hairpins and chicanes.Adrian on BarcelonaAdrian, four races in, how do you sum up the start of 2013?The start of the season was good, especially if you consider I had only two or three test days to prepare. Australia was a strong race and the best way to come back to Formula One. Since then I’ve been unlucky with being hit in China and the puncture in Bahrain, and I definitely missed out on a few good points. On the other hand there are lots of positives, especially the performance of the car and the experience of the races. It is still early in the season so there is more to come and the car is really fast. I’m sure we can recover the points we lost in the last few races.How hard is it to accept the disappointment when you’re simply in the wrong place at the wrong time – as was the case in China and Bahrain?These things happen all the time in Formula One – sometimes you benefit from them and sometimes it goes against you instead. They all balance by the end of the year. I try not to spend too much time thinking about the negatives, I try to move on and focus on how to do better. If something happens, I think whether I did anything wrong, learn from it and avoid doing it again.What do you expect from the upcoming race in Barcelona?I know Barcelona really well from all the testing we’ve done there over the years. It is important, after three difficult races without points, to finish the race without any incidents. If I do that, I should have the pace to be among the front-runners. I have to do my job, avoid mistakes and hopefully my luck will change. Wherever we have gone so far, the car has been competitive, so the next few races should see us scoring points and close to the podium.To watch the latest video interview with Adrian Sutil use the following link: http://youtu.be/4a_2_drbK1Iends -
Sarath eager to begin campaign in Catalunya
Bangalore, 27 April 2013: Sarath Kumar, the first MotoGP rider from India, will take a giant step in his efforts to come back into the big league, by competing in the double-header on Sunday in the 2013 Moto3 CEV Repsol Spanish Championship with reigning champions Monlau Competicion at the Circuit de Catalunya, near Barcelona. Supported by SK-Sarath69 Sports, the Chennai-bassed 22 year old rider will take part in the qualifying sessions on Saturday before the twin races on Sunday.
Sarath who made his MotoGP 125cc class debut in 2011 and went on to win a podium at the 2012 Italian championship at Monza, will become the first Indian to participate in the Moto3 Spanish Championship this weekend. The first round this week-end received a stunning 56 entries, who will race in two groups `A and B’ after 12 riders are eliminated in the qualifiers later tonight.
For the 2013 season, he will be seen riding the Suter-Honda Moto3, a 250cc 4-stroke prototype race bike developed for the Spanish Moto3 world championship. This championship has nurtured many champions like reigning world champion Jorge Lorenzo, Dani Pedrosa, Casey Stoner and also upcoming star Marc Marquez. Sarath is eager to use this opportunity to realise his dreams of being on the MotoGP grid once again.
Mohan Nagarajan, CMD, Sidvin Coretech, said: “SIDVIN has always been in the forefront of promoting motorsports, be it 4-wheelers or 2-wheelers. Our involvement with Sarath Kumar as a support sponsor is only an extension of our commitment to developing and promoting world class riders from India.”
“After his golden ride in the MotoGP, he had to drive a taxi to make a living and we wanted to do our bit to give him a chance to ride again in a competitive international racing event, always a dream for Sarath. Let’s hope Sarath will try his best for the Indian Tri-colour to fly high on Spanish soil,’’ added Nagarajan,
Sarath has been preparing for this season intensively in Barcelona, Spain with his team both physically and mentally and is very confident of his upcoming performance in the debut race.
Riding a Suter Honda Moto3 from Monlau Competicíon, Sarath is supported by SK-Sarath69 Sports Pvt Ltd an initiative by Actor/Politician R. Sarath Kumar. He will be India’s first representation in the prestigious and toughest Championship.
For the first time a few Indian sponsors have signed up with Sarath to support him in the Spanish Championship. Hello FM, Sidvin & British Nutritions are the key sponsors for this season.
Sarath69: “ I would like to thank Mr R Sarath Kumar for making this day possible as this is a great step for me to learn and progress in my career. My team Monlau Competicíon has been working with me through the off-season and their efforts are showing results in the form of competitive lap times.’’
Team Manager, Jose Carrion said: “We are very happy with Sarath’s progress over the last two months. He has been a fast learner and has improved step-by-step to provide competitive and consistent lap times during the testing. Now it is important to see his performance during the race and we are confident Sarath will gain enough experience and grow steadily.”
R Sarath Kumar: “I am very proud that Sarath will become the first Indian to participate in the CEV Spanish Championship. It’s a very prestigious and tough race and I am confident that Sarath will learn and progress to bring laurels to our country. I am hoping that this initiative of mine will create many such opportunities for young sportspersons like Sarath from India and give them a opportunity to live their dream.”
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