INDIA in F1

Tag: McLaren

  • I’m pleased and relieved; I look forward to racing with Red Bull: Ricciardo

    5 Sept 2013:

    An F1 Steering wheel. Photo from FIA photo gallery
    An F1 Steering wheel. Photo from FIA photo gallery

    DRIVERS – Max CHILTON (Marussia), Daniel RICCIARDO (Toro Rosso), Jenson BUTTON (McLaren), Felipe MASSA (Ferrari), Mark WEBBER (Red Bull Racing), Fernando ALONSO (Ferrari)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Let’s start with the man of the moment, who I don’t expect has stopped smiling since the announcement was made a few days ago that he is going to be joining Red Bull Racing next year. A fantastic moment for you Daniel, but how easy is it going to be for you to concentrate for the remainder of the season? How will you keep that focus?

    Daniel RICCIARDO: Good afternoon everyone, how’re you going? I think it’s a bit of a relief now that there’s no more speculation and no more dodging questions and all the rest of it. Everyone knows what’s happening, including me. It’s nice. It’s something to look forward to and obviously I’m very pleased with the news but I have eight more races this year and looking forward to giving Toro Rosso a nice farewell I hope and I’ll put all my energy into that. I think this weekend will of course be a bit hectic because the news is fresh but I think from this point on it should start to settle down and get back to normal stuff.

    Mark, I guess you’re very pleased it’s gone to your compatriot, but also it must be quite difficult for you with these remaining races. This one for example hasn’t always been kind to you. Talk about your end of season in some ways.

    Mark WEBBER: The writing was on the wall for me. I knew once I made the decision that the season was going to come to a close eventually. The clock doesn’t stop in Formula One and I’m actually happy about that, otherwise I wouldn’t have made the decision. Looking forward to getting as much silverware and the best results I can before the year’s out and Brazil Sunday night, the next chapter. Yeah, it’s all good.

    Pleased for Dan?

    MW: Of course, yeah. It’s very, very rare to have any Australians in Formula One but to have us I suppose handing the baton over in a very, very successful team… it’s great for Dan obviously, he thoroughly deserves it. The junior categories for him in Europe initially is a great test. Not easy for us to come from that part of the world, which he’s done brilliantly with. It’s the perfect scenario I think for the team, it all fits very, very well. After DC and myself they’ve finally got another driver from the junior programme, which is what it’s all about. So that fits in very, very well. Perfect age. It’s all in his corner. So he can do a tremendous job and yeah, it works out well for him.

    Jenson, what’s your situation contract wise?

    Jenson BUTTON: Good afternoon everyone. As all contracts are, confidential.

    Have you signed?

    JB: Not yet.

    Are you happy to stay with McLaren?

    JB: Yes, I’m very happy to stay where I am. I think it’s very easy, when times are difficult, to look elsewhere but when you’re in a team like McLaren that has been fighting at the front for so many years it’s definitely the wrong move to move elsewhere. I feel I have a very good family in the team and at the end of last year we had the quickest car on the grid. We don’t now but it could easily come our way again next season. I feel we are making good progress so this is the right place to be.

    Max, similar question to you. You just had your best qualifying and best result as well, what’s your situation with the team at this stage?

    Max CHILTON: Good afternoon everyone, I hope you’re having a good day. My situation is the same as it’s been all year. I’ve got a one-year contract. Obviously I’m a rookie and so is Jules and we’re here to learn as much as we can. You learn a lot before you get to Formula One but there’s an awful lot when you do get to Formula One as well. So the main thing I’m trying to do is focus on my skills, get the most out of the car and do the best job for the team. I think for the last couple of races it has been difficult for us but we still have got that 10th place in the championship, so it’s key for us to get the most out of the car when we have the opportunity to get a good race result and if we can get another 12th or 13th that would really help us in the overall championship.

    And is there a deadline?

    MC: For contract?

    Yes.

    MC: Not that I know. All I know is the team are happy to keep both of us and I’ll just keep trying to do the best job I can.

    Felipe, I guess a similar question to you: what have you got to do to continue with Ferrari?

    Felipe MASSA: Good results are always important, so I’ll just concentrate on that. There is a big opportunity to carry on with Ferrari, so I just need to concentrate, trying to do the best we can over the car and that’s what I’m looking for.

    We’ll move on to Fernando. This is the next step in your fight-back for the championship. Is the car getting better? Are you optimistic? What’s the feeling as you come to this Italian Grand Prix? You’re a two-time winner here?

    Fernando ALONSO: I’m optimistic. For sure I think in Spa we saw some step forward from us and we hope to continue that direction and keep improving here in Monza. The characteristics of the track should help our performance as well. We have everything in place to do a good weekend. We need to deliver when comes the time in Sunday in the race but we arrive with some good confidence and ready to fight. I think for us it will be a stronger test at the Singapore race when we come back to the maximum level of downforce etc and there we will see how much of a step forward we did but let’s concentrate on this weekend. Let’s try to do the maximum and let’s try to finish in front of our main rivals.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action and National Speed Sport News) A question for Daniel. At Spa the team told us they had not officially signed anybody. Between Spa and now when did you learn you had the seat?

    DR: To be honest, in Spa, as I said, I still didn’t know – that was the truth. I found out, I think it was Wednesday that following week, so a few days before the announcement took place. I can confirm I still didn’t know at Spa, so no lies being told there. Yeah, that’s it.

    Q: (Miguel Angel Sainz Bernardino –  Marca) Question for Fernando. What result do you need here and in Singapore to avoid Ferrari stopping the development of the car this year? Two wins?

    FA: I don’t think two wins is something that we can put up like a target, y’know? We’ve won two grand prix until now in the championship so we will be a little bit too optimistic if we really think that we can win the next two races. We will try to do so and we will hope for the best but more realistic targets are to finish in front of Sebastian. I think it is a target that we want to do in the last couple of grands prix, we didn’t arrive to a situation to close the gap, we only close the gap in Silverstone when he retired. So, we need to change this situation. We will be happy finishing in front of him, I think, here in Monza and in Singapore. Finishing in front of Sebastian means being on the podium. Minimum. Because we know how strong he is and how competitive Red Bull will be. So, two podiums and finishing in front of Sebastian is, I think, the target for these next two grands prix. If we cannot do so, if we keep losing points, obviously we need to start thinking about the 2014 project because we’ll be only six or seven races remaining with massive points [deficit] so important weeks coming for sure.

    Q: (Anne Giuntini – L’Equipe) Fernando, you just bought a cycling team. Considering the amount of work you have to do as a racing driver, how can you imagine to commit yourself into this team?

    FA: Well, it was one week with a lot of work, to be honest. Two or three batteries, telephone every day and it was some things to do. Now, more or less, that’s everything complete. All the decisions and all the work that we need to do for the cycling team will be passed to other people, some managers and some sportive directors that we need to find. We need to find sponsors, we need to do a lot of things in the next month, let’s say, because the first race is in the middle of January in Australia. It’s not something that we can delay much more. It’s a very ambitious project with a lot of hopes on it. I will not, as I said, put too much percentage of my days on the bicycle team, especially now that we are fighting for the championship. But when I arrive in wintertime, or something like that, hopefully we can create a solid project. Not so much for 2014 because I don’t think there are many riders now with possibilities to sign but for 2015 onwards we need to create something big. So we will work a little bit.

    MW: I think Adrian will design the bikes…

    FA: …he’s too busy

    Q: (Pablo Grau – F1Aldia.com) Jenson, you did a good job in Spa, what do you expect in Monza, a very fast track?

    JB: Yeah, Spa was alright. It’s quite difficult to get excited about sixth place but in terms of the pace of the car it was pretty good. Fourth after turn one and finishing sixth isn’t so bad. So yeah, we’re hoping for a bit more of an improvement. I think we’ve unlocked a little bit of performance with the car and we’re pretty close to challenging the cars in front. Whether we can do that here or not I don’t know. It’s a very low downforce circuit here and I think we have a pretty good low downforce package, so we will see. I think after three or four laps tomorrow we’ll know where we stand in terms of how the downforce is working and the efficiency of it.

    Q: (Adrian Huber Rodriguez – Agencia EFE) Fernando, it’s certainly not match-point right now but how would you describe the situation? Could it be like a set-point? How do you feel yourself, psychologically? Are you worried, are you anxious, are you angry, are you optimistic, how are you?

    FA: For what?

    Q: The situation in the World Championship

    FA: I’m relaxed. I think when you do the maximum and you maximise normally the potential of the car and of yourself, finding the limits every time you are behind the wheel, you feel relaxed yourself and happy with the work. Of course we want to fight for the championship like we did last year until the last race, and this year we see that slowly the gap in the championship is increasing every weekend, so we want to stop that. We need to change that situation and hopefully this weekend is the starting point. It’s still plenty of races, plenty of opportunities, plenty of points to play. We believe that we can do it. So let’s start from this weekend.

    Q: (Silvia Renée Arias – Revista Parabrisas) Felipe, this is a very, very important race for you, you said before, that these two races were important for you, Spa and Monza. How do you feel in terms of the performance of your car? Is it important to have a car good enough to prove and do something well?

    FM: I feel that the car was more competitive in Spa than in Hungary. I think it was important for us. I believe we can have a good car here. In the last years, even last year maybe, the car was not so competitive in the season but we had a good race in Monza. We find a good direction for this race, so I hope we can have a good car here so that we can fight and have a great race. Not just here but the second part of the season much better than the first part.

    Q: (Michael Neudecker – Süddeutsche Zeitung) Fernando, again a cycling question, can you talk about your new team, if you have a name already? And can you talk about your passion for cycling and your relationship to Alberto Contador?

    FA: Not name yet. As I said, we are waiting for sponsors – you want to write that – what we want is to have a team that can fight for the best things. My passion for cycling has been from a very young age and I do cycling as part of my training and also as part of my life. I’m always in front of the TV or checking the results. Very good friends in the cycling world. We talk of relationship with riders. Alberto is a good friend of mine. This project tried to best things of the two sports. I want to bring to Formula One the best things that cycling can teach me in terms of sacrifice, determination, discipline, training. And I want to bring to my cycling team the best things of Formula One. There are many and hopefully in the team next year, in the cycling, we can see some of the great things of Formula One, in terms of organization, image marketing, professionalism. Let’s try to put the best for the best.

    Q: (Livio Oricchio – O Estado de Sao Paulo) Daniel, what can one realistically expect from you at the beginning of next year? Do you expect to start the season very close to Sebastian or do you have any plan to be there in the second part of the season?

    DR: Obviously, I would love to be as competitive as I can as quickly as possible, so for me, I’ll obviously finish the season as strongly as possible with Toro Rosso, but as soon as it’s finished, switch my focus to 2014, try and put in a really good off-season, at least do as much as I can to prepare myself to be there for the first race. I know it’s obviously not going to be as easy as it seems but the best thing I can do is push myself as much as I can. I have one of the best teammates in the world now to measure myself against so no better man to have but him and push myself as hard as I can.

    Q: (Jaime Rodriguez – El Mundo) Fernando, next Saturday in Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Tokyo, Madrid fight for the Olympic Games in 2020. What are you feelings about Madrid, a city that you know very well and why do you think Madrid deserves the Olympic Games?

    FA: Well, let’s hope so. I think Madrid deserves finally to host the Olympic Games. This is the third time that they try to host it and this time, hopefully, it will be the good one. I think the effort that the city and the country is making is quite good, there is a lot of success in Spanish sport in the last eight or ten years, that hopefully can convince the people. There is the enthusiasm from the whole country to host it, maximum support and we really want it. I know that it will be close. In Spain, we think that the Spanish possibilities are very high. I know that outside of Spain they are relatively less and maybe the favourite is Tokyo but we keep our fingers crossed until Saturday.

    Q: (Luis Vasconcelos – Formula Press) Felipe, last year you struggled in the first part of the season  but you could identify what was wrong and after the summer break you were very competitive. This year you started very well, but after Monaco, your results haven’t been up to the same standard as before. Can you pinpoint what’s gone wrong in this second part of the season?

    FM: I think that what is important to say is that this year the performance was good at every race. We couldn’t put together the results at the end of the race. I was not very lucky in so many things. I had two races where I had problems with the tyres. I spun at the Nurburgring, problem with the suspension in Monaco. For sure so many things happened that I couldn’t finish where I was supposed to but the performance was there. I think that’s important. I just need to put everything together and finish races where I’m supposed to and then I think the performance will be there and the results will be there as well.

    Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Felipe, how long do you want to wait for Ferrari’s decision about your future?

    FM: I think you need to ask this question of Stefano (Domenicali).

    Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Fernando, you’ve bought this ‘bike team; I would like to know if there is any possibility that you might take a year off, concentrate on the bicycle team and then maybe take the opportunity for the future when the turbo era builds up and we know how the situation is between teams? Is this crazy or is there a realistic chance of this?

    FA: Never an option. I’m in the best moment of my career, I’m with the best experience and performing at the best time. I will not miss any opportunity now. I know that I’m still in very good shape for maybe four, five more years so for sure I will give 100 percent of my passion that is motor sport and my career. After these four or five years, I will see what condition I am in and if I’m performing well. If I’m not feeling good any more, maybe I will think but as I said, I will be 100 percent committed for the next four or five years.

    Q: (Kate Walker – GP Week) Daniel, changing teams always involves a bit of transition and adjustment. Moving to a team like Red Bull involves that transition under an awful lot of pressure. Are there are any steps you can take this year to ease the transition, given the relationship between the two teams, working more with the engineers,  learning more about how to operate inside the big Red Bull team?

    DR: I think I’m pretty fortunate to spend some time with Red Bull Racing in the past as a reserve driver.  At Toro Rosso, we still go to Milton Keynes to use the simulator so I see a fair chunk of the team, also away from race weekends. Obviously, now that the news is out I will try and if I get some extra time to start to mould a relationship with the crew for next year, yeah, so I’ll ease into it and by December when we really start, I will already try and establish a good relationship with the guys and understand the way they work. As I say, I’m quite fortunate, I already understand a little bit about it, so a little bit of a head start.

    Q: (Mineoki Yoneya – La Vie Creative) Question to both of the Ferrari drivers: talking about Suzuka, how can you make the difference from the other drivers in terms of driving, and do you have any plans to visit somewhere in Japan?

    FA: Well, Suzuka is probably the most enjoyable race track of the year so it’s always very special to go there but as I said, for the fantastic layout of the track, also for the fans, also for the passion that we always live when we are in Suzuka. We race after Korea so we will spend from Monday to Thursday probably in Tokyo, relaxing a little bit and preparing for the race and then in Suzuka, just concentrating on the weekend. No special plans to do crazy things but every thing there is a little bit special so we will try to enjoy it as always.

    FM: Yeah, I think it’s  the same. Suzuka is a fantastic place, fantastic track to race on, one of the best, so it’s very nice to be in Japan. I love to go to Japan. As Fernando said, we’re going to spend a few days during the week after the Korean race in Tokyo, a great place to be as well, so really looking forward to racing in Suzuka and having a great race there for the fans as they are some of the best fans in Formula One.

    Q: (Giorgio Pasini – Tuttosport) Mark, do you have any suggestions for Daniel in order to manage the relationship with Sebastian; maybe the knife from Crocodile Dundee?

    MW: Daniel will handle it fine. He knows how to handle himself so he’ll be OK.

    DR: I think that’s obviously for me to figure out. As Mark said, I’ll be right.

    Q: (Luigi Perna – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Fernando, what do you think about teams with two top drivers? Also looking at the past, what is your opinion? What are the positive things and negative things in this kind of situation?

    FA: I think it’s a good thing. There is always,  in the top teams, the need to have two very good drivers because they fight for World Championships, they fight for Constructors points and they fight for winning every race they go to,  so you cannot have only one driver. This has always been the case in the top teams, always the case in Ferrari, in McLaren, Red Bull now. At the end, or in the middle of the year, there is always one driver who has scored more points than the others and maybe a year later it’s the opposite, the other driver has scored more points. This is the way it is and you need to start or reset to zero every winter and start in the same conditions again and try to build up the points a little bit. So I think this is quite normal in our sport.

    Q: (Luigi Perna – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Felipe, what kind of result do you need here in Monza to hope to stay with Ferrari next season?

    FM: Well, I think I definitely need a good race. That’s always important. I think it’s important to try to use the car in the maximum way it is possible. I think that’s what gives you pleasure, even if you don’t win the race but you did the best you could. I think that’s always the most important thing. The team can see that, race by race, all the time. You cannot forget that Ferrari knows me very well. It’s the team that knows me most. About experience, we know how important next year is as well. Everything starts from zero: different car, different rules, everything, so the driver’s experience is important as well. Sometimes you just look at the results of this race; that’s not what counts the most. I think it’s everything together. But anyway, it’s always important to do the maximum we can in this race and try to use the best of the car that we’re going to have this weekend.

    Q: (Bob McKenzie – Daily Express) Fernando, your name was mentioned a few times in the Red Bull situation. Were you at all interested in the Red Bull seat? Would you have gone up against Vettel or do you think you’ll finish at Ferrari? Would you be interested in going to Red Bull at any time in the future?

    FA: It was only rumours, a lot of rumours. There were rumours about Red Bull, there were rumours in Italy about a sabbatical year, there were so many rumours. I still have three and a half more years with Ferrari which I intend to respect and hopefully to increase a little bit, and as I said, finish my career in the best team in the world which is Ferrari. We are not at the moment achieving the results that we want but we are working very hard and next year will be completely new rules which obviously open the door for many teams to stop the domination that Red Bull seems to have had in the last couple of years so we have high hopes also for next year’s challenge. About the news that now Red Bull have two drivers, it’s very good news that Daniel has signed, also for our country because it has opened up a good possibility for Carlos Sainz to join Toro Rosso, so that was the best news for us.

    Q: (Sergio Lillio Martinez – Revista Scratch) Max, it’s a hard season for you because it’s your first in F1; where do you think you deserve to be in 2014 and how do you face the next races?

    MC: The next few races are going to be pretty challenging. I think we’ve got seven after here and I think I’ve only driven one of them, and that was Singapore so it’s going to be a little bit challenging. Actually, sorry, we’ve got Abu Dhabi as well so there’s five I haven’t driven of the final seven so it will be challenging but it is my first year. As I said earlier, I’m still learning but I’ve done half a year in Formula One, you can’t expect much longer to up your pace and learn and for the last few races the pace has been a lot better, especially qualifying. We did a great team effort in Spa so my focus is just to keep doing what I’m doing and learning and I think for the second half of the year my speed will come through more and hopefully we can keep that tenth place (in the Constructors).

     

    Ends

  • Sahara Force India back in points but falls behind McLaren

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

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

  • Vettel fastest in both Free Practice sessions

    Hungaroring, 26 July 2013: Having been fastest in FP1, Red Bull Racing continued that form into the afternoon with Sebastian Vettel again going quickest, though this time by a much smaller margin over team-mate Mark Webber ahead of the 10th race of the season at the Hungaroring circuit here on Friday.

    Romain Grosjean was third fastest for Lotus, ahead of the Ferrari’s of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa. Behind them the Mercedes pair of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg were sixth and seventh, Kimi Räikkönen was eighth quickest in the second Lotus. Jenson Button was ninth for McLaren and Adrian Sutil rounded out the top-ten for Force India, an FIA release said.

    Vettel’s time of 1:21.264 was set at the half-hour mark. He was already P1 at that point, having been the quickest man in the opening exchanges on the medium tyre. Having changed to the soft compound he improved by 1.2 seconds, setting his fastest time on his first flying lap with the yellow-banded tyre. Webber slotted into P2 a lap later.

    The final hour of Friday practice was dominated by long runs, with drivers conducting race simulations. With track temperatures above 40°C tyre performance fell off quickly and no one threatened to match Vettel’s headline time. The circuit remained slippery and, as had been the case in the morning, many drivers struggled with grip, sliding over the kerbs and into the run-off areas.

    Hungarian Grand Prix Free Practice 2 results

    1 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 1:21.264
    2 Mark Webber Red Bull Racing 1:21.308 +0.044
    3 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:21.417 +0.153
    4 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:21.426 +0.162
    5 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:21.544 +0.280
    6 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:21.802 +0.538
    7 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:21.991 +0.727
    8 Kimi Räikkönen Lotus 1:22.011 +0.747
    9 Jenson Button McLaren 1:22.180 +0.916
    10 Adrian Sutil Force India 1:22.304 +1.040
    11 Paul di Resta Force India 1:22.526 +1.262
    12 Sergio Pérez McLaren 1:22.529 +1.265
    13 Pastor Maldonado Williams 1:22.781 +1.517
    14 Esteban Gutiérrez Sauber 1:22.837 +1.573
    15 Nico Hülkenberg Sauber 1:22.841 +1.577
    16 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:23.369 +2.105
    17 Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso 1:23.411 +2.147
    18 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:23.646 +2.382
    19 Charles Pic Caterham 1:24.325 +3.061
    20 Giedo van der Garde Caterham 1:25.065 +3.801
    21 Jules Bianchi Marussia 1:25.143 +3.879
    22 Max Chilton Marussia 1:26.647 +5.383

     

    ends

    File photo of Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull. Photo courtesy FIA.
    File photo of Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull. Photo courtesy FIA.

  • Concorde agreement not in sight; Drivers’ penalty system approved

    London, 28 June 2013: The Goodwood Motor Circuit, part of the 12,000 acre Goodwood Estate, originally opened its gates to the public in September 1948 to host Britain’s first post-war motor race meeting at a permanent venue, said an FIA press release.

    The second World Motor Sport Council meeting of 2013 concluded the inaugural FIA Sport Conference Week, a new event on the Federation’s calendar developed to provide a global platform of networking and business exchange for the motor sport community.

    Jean Todt thanked Lord March and the staff at Goodwood for their hospitality in the magnificent surroundings of the Goodwood Estate, which provided an excellent venue for the first Sport Conference Week. With Delegates from more than 70 countries in attendance, the event was universally hailed by the motor sport community as a huge success.

    The following decisions were taken by the World Motor Sport Council:

    FIA FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

    The FIA President and the Commercial Rights Holder advised that negotiations regarding the Concorde Agreement were close to conclusion with the intention the contract between the FIA and FOM will be signed in the near future.

    The following summarises the changes made to the 2014 Sporting Regulations:

    Further to a request from Mercedes, it will be permitted to supply engines to a maximum of four Formula One teams in 2014.

    A penalty point system for drivers will be introduced. If a driver accumulates more than 12 points he will be banned from the next race. Points will stay on the driver’s licence for 12 months. The amount of points a driver may be given for infringements will vary from one to three depending upon the severity of the offence.

    The procedure for a driver to be given the chance to give back any advantage he may have gained by leaving the track has been adopted.

    A significant reduction in the amount of wind tunnel testing and CFD work has been imposed to help reduce costs and potentially allow two teams to share one wind tunnel.

    Four two-day track tests will be allowed in season in place of the current eight one-day promotional days and the three-day young driver test. These will take place at tracks in Europe on the Tuesday and Wednesday after a race in order to ensure minimal additional resources are necessary.

    Track testing will now also be permitted in January 2014 in order to allow earlier testing of the new power units.

    For safety reasons all team personnel working on a car in a race pit stop will be required to wear head protection.

    Each driver will be provided with one extra set of tyres for use only during the first 30 minutes of the first practice session on Friday, to encourage teams to take to the track at that time without having to worry about using valuable tyre wear.

    A number of new regulations have been confirmed to govern the new, far more complex power units. It is agreed that only five power units may be used by each driver for the whole season. Any use of an additional complete power unit will result in that driver having to start the race from the pit lane. Any changes of individual elements above the permitted five, such as turbocharger, MGU or Energy Store, will result in a 10 grid place penalty.

    No manufacturer will be allowed to homologate more than one power unit during the homologation period from 2014-2020. Changes to the homologated unit will continue to be permitted for installation, reliability or cost saving reasons.

    Drivers must now use a gearbox for six consecutive events, an increase from the current five.

    No car may use more than 100kg of fuel for the race, from the time the lights go out at the start of the race to the chequered flag. This will be monitored by the use of an FIA approved fuel flow meter.

    The pit lane speed limit, which is currently set at 60km/h for the free practice sessions and 100km/h for the qualifying practice and race (60km/h for the whole event in Melbourne, Monaco and Singapore), has been amended so it is set at 80km/h for the whole event (except the three races mentioned which would stay at 60km/h for the whole event). This is for safety reasons, as most accidents happen during the race when the speed limit is higher; drivers also have very little chance to practice stopping from 100km/h until the race.

    The following summarises the changes made to the 2014 Technical Regulations:

    Measures have been put in place to ensure that the cars do not incorporate a step in the chassis behind the nose. These changes will also ensure that a genuine low nose, introduced for safety reasons, is always used.

    The minimum weight limit has been raised by 5kg, as the power unit is now likely to weigh more than originally expected. The weight distribution has also been changed accordingly.

    Electronic control of the rear brake circuit is permitted in order to ensure consistent braking whilst energy is being recovered.

    In order to ensure that side impact structures are more useful in an oblique impact and more consistent, they will become standard items made to a strictly laid out manufacturing process and fitted to the cars identically. The impact tests currently carried out will be replaced by static load push-off tests and squeeze tests. This will also help reduce costs as no team will need to develop their own structures.

    In order to ensure that the cockpit rims either side of the driver’s head are stronger, the amount of deflection during the static load tests has been reduced from 20mm to 5mm.

    FIA WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP AND RALLYING

    With immediate effect and for budget reasons, WRC Team and WRC 2 entrants are not obliged to use the latest ‘joker’ parts when competing in WRC events.

    In order to promote the entry of R-GT cars in FIA rallies, with immediate effect tuners will be permitted to develop cars, in accordance with the criteria defining eligible cars. The FIA will issue a technical passport, allowing the car to be eligible for events accepting R-GT cars.

    With effect from 1 January 2014:

    As a general rule, organisers of WRC events must ensure a minimum of 25% competitive special stage distance in relation to the overall distance of the event.

    Manufacturer and WRC Team cars from the same entrant will be permitted to enter Flexi-Service at the same time, having their service times counted independently.

    In order to give more flexibility, WRC Teams will no longer be obliged to nominate a tyre manufacturer for the season.

    In order to extend the life of World Rally Cars, manufacturers will be permitted to re-homologate 2011, 2012 and 2013 cars without any modification, except one single chassis and engine joker for 2014. In order to facilitate the replacement of S2000 Rally cars with Group R5, S2000 regulations will not be continued after 2013 and will be replaced by new R5 homologation regulations. Existing S2000 homologations will be frozen and may no longer receive an extension for the rest of their homologation period, except for one single engine and chassis joker.

    The minimum weight of R5 cars has been increased from 1200 to 1230 kg to avoid the use of expensive options and keep the cost of the complete car within the stated limit.

    From 2015, classes R1, R2 and R3 will be permitted to use super-charged engines, in line with the evolution of series engines.

    With immediate effect, the number of permitted tyres for events in the FIA European Rally Championship has been set at 20, plus an additional four if shakedown is included in the itinerary, for cars in Classes 2 and 3. In addition, hand cutting will not be permitted, unless authorised in very special circumstances by the Stewards for safety reasons.

    From 2014, the number of coefficients allocated to the events in the European Rally Cup has been reduced to three, namely 20, 15 and 10.

    FIA WORLD ENDURANCE CHAMPIONSHIP

    In order to preserve the historic date of the Le Mans 24 Hours, which this year celebrated its 90th edition, the date of 14/15 June 2014 has been retained to ensure that a Formula One Grand Prix is not hosted the same weekend.

    FIA WORLD TOURING CAR CHAMPIONSHIP

    Following the cancellation of a race on 28 July, it is confirmed another race will take place on 4 August at Termas de Rio Hondo in Argentina (subject to the confirmation of the circuit homologation).

    The technical regulations for the Super 2000 cars for 2014 were confirmed. The new cars will look more spectacular with bigger aerodynamic devices and will have greater performance through the power to weight ratio. In order to ease the introduction of the new cars, the homologation procedure will be similar to the 2014 FIA World Rally Championship, but with an additional two jokers. 2013 cars will also be accepted in 2014.

    FIA FORMULA 3 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP

    The event scheduled for 25-27 October at Paul Ricard has been cancelled and replaced by an event on 11-13 October at Vallelunga, Italy.

    The Technical Regulations for the 2014 FIA Formula 3 European Championship have been updated and amended, specifically in relation to engines and chassis, in order to further reduce costs for the teams and drivers.

    The Sporting Regulations relating to the 2013 FIA Formula 3 Intercontinental Cup in Macau (13-17 November) allow for the use of engines according to the 2012 specification only.

    A FORMULA 4

    A registration process has been established for engine and chassis manufacturers in order to supply the ASNs with a potential list of suppliers in the championships. Approved manufacturers will be permitted to have cars participating in a championship from 1 January of the following year.

    The FIA has committed strong support to ASNs launching national championships, in order to provide for a standard technical and sporting framework for single-seater championships in each territory. Subject to compliance with a policy based on four main pillars – securing organisational consistency, technical fairness, sporting relevance and the stability of the championship – an “FIA Certified” label will be granted to the ASN for its national Formula 4 Championship.

    FIA FORMULA E CHAMPIONSHIP

    Technical and Sporting Regulations for the FIA Formula E Championship were agreed in principle, and it was confirmed that the Championship season will run from September 2014 to June 2015. The regulations, along with the calendar comprising a maximum of 12 races, will be presented to the WMSC at its September meeting.

    A new registration period for car manufacturers applying for the 2015-2016 Championship season will be open from 1 July 2014 to 1 February 2015.

    HISTORIC MOTOR SPORT

    A number of Sporting Regulations for the FIA Masters Historic Formula One Championship and the FIA Masters Historic Sports Car Championship have been clarified for application with immediate effect.

    FIA WORLD AND EUROPEAN RALLYCROSS CHAMPIONSHIPS

    The WMSC has taken note of the intention of the promoter of the FIA European Rallycross Championship to develop the competition to World Championship level from 2014. Subject to the promoter’s proposals, the final decision on the project submitted will be decided at the September meeting of the WMSC.

    With immediate effect, the starting grid composition for the first two races of the series of Qualifying Heats has been amended in order to aid spectators’ understanding of the progression of the event. In addition, a strict limit on tyre quantities per driver per event has been clarified for cost-saving reasons.

    An invitation to tender for a three-year single tyre and fuel supplier to the Championship has been launched by the FIA.

    FIA HILL-CLIMB MASTERS

    As part of the strategy to develop the hill-climb discipline, a new FIA Hill-Climb Masters event has been ratified by the WMSC. This annual one-off event, commencing in 2014, is intended to close and celebrate the hill-climb season. The Masters event will be a high-profile tournament for the national and FIA hill-climb Champions, many of whom do not normally compete against each other. There will be a Nations Cup awarded, as well as medals for individual drivers.

    KARTING

    In order to enhance the electric kart class and to provide a perfect entry point for young drivers wishing to progress to the FIA Formula E Championship, the technical regulations for this class have been updated to take into account the latest standards set by the CIK.

    FIA DRIVERS’ COMMISSION

    The first meeting of the FIA Drivers’ Commission took place in June under the Presidency of Emerson Fittipaldi and Vice Presidency of Sébastien Loeb. On this historic occasion, which represents the first time drivers have had their own forum within the FIA, a number of recommendations in the areas of communication, safety, anti-doping, standard driving procedures and stewarding were discussed and proposals will be submitted to the WMSC in September.

    FIA EUROPEAN DRAG RACING CHAMPIONSHIP

    A selection process will be considered to source a promoter for the FIA European Drag Racing Championship.

    FIA ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGY

    Following the initial work undertaken by a dedicated Working Group mandated to develop a Sustainability Programme, the WMSC approved in principle the implementation of the FIA’s ‘Action for Environment’ programme. The FIA’s goal, within a decade, is that motor sport will be recognised as an exemplar of best practice in environmental sustainability and a world leader for environmental innovation creating a positive impact on both the track and road. Its strategy will focus on measuring and improving innovation and promotion.

    MOTOR SPORT DEVELOPMENT TASK FORCE

    The first action concluding the Sport Conference Week has been the creation of the Motor Sport Development Task Force under the Chairmanship of Mohamed Ben Sulayem. The Task Force will be presented at the next WMSC in Dubrovnik on 27 September.

    SPORTACCORD

    Following its provisional recognition by the International Olympic Committee, the FIA is pleased to announce it has now been elected as a Member of SportAccord in St Petersburg, Russia, in May.

    ends

  • GSK, McLaren announce winners of schools’ challenge

    GSK and McLaren announce winners of schools’ challenge to inspire next generation of scientists as survey shows only 8% of students planning a career in science

    WOKING, 20 June 2013: Teams of students from across the UK competed today to be crowned champions of a joint initiative between GSK and McLaren Group, designed to encourage the next generation of scientists. The initiative, named Scientists in Sport, is based on a survey that found that young people are not seeing the connection between school science lessons and future career opportunities. The survey of over 400 11-16 year olds showed that fewer than 1 in 20 young people pay full attention to their teachers in science lessons and that only 1 in 25 are definitely thinking about a career in science.

    Waldegrave School from Twickenham beat nearly 100 schools from across the country to win the national final of this year’s Fast Forward Challenge, an exciting competition which supports the Scientists in Sport initiative. In keeping with the aim of bringing science, technology, engineering and maths to life through sport, competition entrants were asked to design a test to help Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Formula 1 drivers improve their performance.

    Students who took part in the Scientists in Sport online survey about young people’s perceptions of science said they would like the opportunity to interact with people who have a career in science as part of a classroom activity.  When presented with a list of science-based careers, over three quarters of students felt that developing a life-saving drug to help people live longer made science seem more interesting. Over half of students surveyed were interested in using cutting-edge technologies to develop equipment to help sports people. 

    At the final, held at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, students from six shortlisted schools presented the tests they had designed to help improve McLaren drivers’ reaction times and concentration, to a panel of judges including: Clayton Green, Human Performance Manager at McLaren; James Wilding, young engineer on GSK’s Future Leaders Programme, and Kerry O’Callaghan, Head of Global Brand Communications at GSK.

    Patrick Vallance, President of R&D at GSK, said: “As a science-led organisation our ongoing success relies on continuous innovation and that is led by the next generation of scientists and engineers. It’s important that young people can make the connection between the science they learn in school and  the job opportunities they may have in the future – that could be developing the next vaccine to help save children’s lives, or helping a Formula 1TM team like McLaren win races. Through the Scientists in Sport programme we hope to open young people’s eyes to the careers that science can offer.”

    Martin Whitmarsh, CEO of the McLaren Group said: “It’s a genuine concern that young people still do not view science as their career of choice. The young people of today are the innovators and creative thinkers of tomorrow and we will all rely on them to address major international challenges. As a technology company, we at McLaren feel a responsibility to help improve the perception of scientific careers and are proud to partner with GSK in the Fast Forward Challenge. All the finalists came up with highly innovative approaches and performed well under pressure. There is a wealth of talent in our schools; we now need to inspire bright young people to take up science and to excel.”   

    Kay Penly, teacher at Waldegrave School, said: “We’re delighted to have won the national final and the whole school is extremely proud of the team. The competition has been great for science at our school. It has inspired our students to think differently about science as they have been able to apply the things they learn in the classroom to something as big and exciting as Formula 1 racing.”

    Waldegrave School will receive £1000 worth of science equipment and the chance to have their test carried out by a member of the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes driving team. All finalists were given an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of the McLaren Technology Centre, which is not usually open to the public, and the chance to quiz some of the scientists and engineers responsible for the innovation behind a Formula 1 TM racing team.

    Ends

  • 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

  • Vodafone McLaren Mercedes launches new Twitter handle

    WOKING, SURREY (UK), 10 May 2013: Vodafone McLaren Mercedes has unveiled the next chapter of its digital engagement strategy with the launch of a new Twitter handle.

    The move, which has seen the industry-acclaimed @TheFifthDriver modified to @McLarenF1, will be marked at this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix with the new handle appearing on the front wing endplate of Jenson Button and Checo Perez’s MP4-28.

    The change will make it easier for McLaren’s global fanbase to identify and engage with the team on Twitter and reflects the wider digital engagement strategy to make the team as accessible as possible to a greater number of people – in turn providing them with a unique insight into the heart of a living and breathing Formula 1 team.

    Over the last 12 months Vodafone McLaren Mercedes has seen strong growth in follower numbers and engagement across its social media channels, owing to a revised approach to content strategy, social media campaigns and entering new and emerging digital platforms:

    • ·         During the last 12 months, the number of followers on the official Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Facebook page has increased by 40% to over 700,000.
    • ·         In the same period, Twitter numbers have grown by 80% to almost 350,000.
    • ·         Since entering Google+ in December 2012, follower numbers have surpassed the 100,000 mark.

    As part of a holistic digital engagement strategy, the official Vodafone McLaren Mercedes website was also re-launched at the start of the 2013 season. Developed in a responsive format, the new website further empowers fans to stay up to date with the latest from the team across multiple devices. As part of the relaunch, the team’s long-standing adaptation of a second-screen viewing experience – now rebranded McLaren LIVE – continues to add to the race-day experience for fans.

    McLaren.com/Formula1 will also be launching in Spanish, reflecting McLaren’s increasingly global fan base, which has been boosted by the signing of the latest Vodafone McLaren Mercedes driver, Sergio Perez.

    These developments are the latest in a series of achievements for a team that has developed a reputation for its forward-thinking approach to digital and social media – a fact that has been proven over the past four years. McLaren were the first Formula 1 team to offer fans the opportunity to view live telemetry during races and practice sessions, the first front-running team to start using Twitter, and more recently the team has embraced the full breadth of its social media platforms to spectacularly live-stream the MP4-28 car reveal.

    Martin Whitmarsh, Team Principal, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes said: “Our fans are at the heart of our digital strategy. We’ve strived hard to develop world-leading digital platforms that our fans can enjoy, while creating compellingly insightful content that draws them in and makes them feel part of our team.

    “@TheFifthDriver has not retired. Through the new handle of @McLarenF1, the mysterious micro-blogger will continue to give our fans unique access to the inner workings of one of the most successful teams in the history of Formula 1, the pinnacle of global motorsport.”

    Ends

  • I always enjoyed racing at Shanghai circuit: Button

    Shanghai, 6 April 2013: The McLaren facts & stats Shanghai International Circuit are released by the F1 team on Friday. The third round of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, the UBS Chinese Grand Prix will be held on March 14 after a gap of three weeks.

    The Shanghai International Circuit was built on marshland to the north west of Shanghai in 2004. The scale of the project, with its two nine-storey pit buildings, 29,000-seat main grandstand and ornate paddock pavilions, was bigger than anything previously seen in Formula 1; it was what circuit designer Hermann Tilke described as “a race circuit for the new millennium”.

    The 5.451km track has an eclectic mix of corners and one very long straight, at the end of which lies the best overtaking point on the lap. The circuit’s technical demands are similar to those of Sepang, scene of the last grand prix in Malaysia, but the cooler ambient and track temperatures expected in China are going to place greater emphasis on tyre wear.

    Turns 1 and 13 are particularly demanding on man and machine. The cars enter Turn 1 at 185mph and scrub off more than 140mph while turning right through 180 degrees towards the blind apex. Turn 13 is another 180-degree right-hander that opens up towards the exit as the cars accelerate throughout. Both corners will be a stern test for Pirelli’s Soft and Medium compound tyres.

    McLaren has a good record at the Chinese Grand Prix, having won the race three times (in 2008, ’10 and ’11) and taken a total of nine podiums since the inaugural race in 2004.

    Race distance       56 laps (305.066km/189.568 miles)

     

    Start time               15:00 (local)/07:00 (GMT)

    Circuit length        5.451km/3.387 miles

    2012 winner           Nico Rosberg (Mercedes W03) 56 laps in 1hr 36m 26.929s (189.778km/h)

    2012 pole               Nico Rosberg (Mercedes W03) 1m 35.121s (206.301km/h)

    Lap record             Michael Schumacher (Ferrari F2004) 1m32.238s (212.749km/h)

    McLaren at the Chinese Grand Prix

    Wins                       3 (2008, ’10, ’11)

    Poles                      2 (2007, ’08)

    Fastest laps           3 (2005, ’08, ’10)

    Car 5: Jenson Button

    Age         33 (January 19 1980)

    GPs         230

    Wins       15

    Poles      8

    FLs         8

    “In a funny way, the Chinese Grand Prix almost feels like something of a reboot of the start of my season. Taking home two points from the first two races obviously wasn’t what we had in mind at the beginning of the year, but I think everybody in the team has picked themselves up and really attacked the task of addressing our car’s issues. We know where we’re losing performance, so I think we’re actually all looking forward to seeing just what we can achieve in Shanghai.

    “As far as the circuit goes, I’ve always enjoyed racing here: our car has always performed well around this circuit and we’ve always seemed to be able to find a good balance between the slow stuff, the high-speed changes of direction and the drag-loss needed for the long straight. It’s a pretty good place for racing, too, because that straight offers such a good opportunity for slipstreaming and overtaking. I think we can have a pretty good race next weekend, too.

    “The important thing for us as a team is to go into the weekend with clear focus, hone our strengths across the sessions and increase our understanding of the car. I definitely think there’s everything to play for with this championship, and I can’t wait to get back into the cockpit to start the fight again.”

    Car 6: Sergio Perez

    Age         23 (January 26 1990)

    GPs         39

    Wins       0

    Poles      0

    FLs         2

    “I think there’s been a little time to breathe after the first two races of the season. That’s been important for us, as we’ve been able to get back to MTC and really throw all our efforts behind the modifications we need to make the car perform more consistently. For me, it’s been incredible to not only see the speed of the team’s reaction, but also the positive way that everyone has pulled together to make those changes. It’s been an incredible team effort.

    “So, we go into round three, and I feel there’s a lot of positivity within the team. We know that we somewhat under-performed in Australia and Malaysia, but, Jenson and I nonetheless managed to score some points. We may not have been as far up the order as we’d have liked, but those points-finishes mean the team has now extended its unbroken scoring run to 60 races – that’s pretty incredible, and a nice record to be able to maintain.

    “Like everyone within the team, I’m really looking forward to China – it’s a great track with a little bit of everything – and I think it’ll be a good test of the car.”

    Martin Whitmarsh

    Team principal, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes

    “Clearly, our performance in Australia and Malaysia fell below the high standards we’ve come to expect at Vodafone McLaren Mercedes. However, the three-week break between rounds two and three has been a useful one; we have been fully engaged in further developing our understanding of the MP4-28 and are confident of being able to implement a number of changes this weekend that will widen its operating window and, potentially, improve its performance.

    “The team’s ability to respond has been exemplary; as I’ve already said, the behaviour of both Jenson and Checo has been superb. They have shown themselves to be true, inspirational leaders, and they have held themselves high, as real ambassadors for our team. The engineers, designers and mechanics, too, have worked tirelessly and painstakingly to unlock the car’s potential, and we feel confident that we are starting to turn the page.

    “Formula 1 is an unpredictable beast. We’ve enjoyed some very competitive weekends in Shanghai in the past – with some equally unexpected results – and I feel confident and excited that we head to China next week with the hope of making further progress and eating into the advantage currently held by the leading pack.”

    A McLaren 50 classic moment

    Chinese Grand Prix, 18 April 2010

    Jenson Button takes his second victory in four races for McLaren. As was the case at the Australian Grand Prix a few weeks earlier, he proves the master of mixed weather conditions.

    Light rain before the start mixes up tyre strategies at the Shanghai International Circuit. Most front-runners opt for intermediates, but Jenson – starting fifth – fits slicks and that decision lays the foundations for his success. Soon after the start, the rain eases and Jenson benefits when all but one of the cars in front of him peels into the pitlane for dry tyres.

    Race leader Nico Rosberg makes a mistake on lap 19, allowing Jenson to take the lead that he never loses. However, it isn’t plain sailing for the British driver. The Safety Car is deployed mid-race while marshals remove debris from Jaime Alguersuari’s Toro Rosso, once again bunching up the front-runners.

    At the re-start, Jenson gets the jump on the field and he leads the final phase of the grand prix convincingly. When more rain falls in the closing stages, all of the cars pit for intermediate tyres and Jenson crosses the line 1.5s ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton to give McLaren’s its first 1-2 finish since the 2007 Italian Grand Prix.

    ends

  • Splitting strategies is to attack for points: Bob Fernley

    TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Bob BELL (Mercedes), Cyril ABITEBOUL (Caterham), Robert FEARNLEY (Force India), Sam MICHAEL (McLaren), James ALLISON (Lotus), Pat FRY (Ferrari)

    FIA Friday PRESS CONFERENCE

    James, can we start with you? A great win for you and the team to start the year off in cold conditions in Melbourne and from what we saw this afternoon can we conclude that you’re pretty quick in the heat as well?

    James ALLISON: The weekend will tell but it’s been a good day so far and the car seems quite happy here.

    Is there any circuit that you fear from here?

    JA: All of them! You just take them one at a time. It would be good to come away from here, if we can, competitive. So I think doing well in cold and doing well in hot would be good.

    Will you able to maintain that development throughout the 2013 season against your main rivals?

    JA: I think our team has got a reasonable history of keeping up with, and sometimes exceeding the general development race that happens during the season.

    Can you say anything about the way Kimi Raikkonen drove in Melbourne. There seems to be a surge of confidence really. He’s gone up a level has he, since last year?

    JA: He’s certainly very, very relaxed and confident this year. He drove the race incredibly patiently. I think he knew he had a good car under him. He knew he didn’t have to scamper up behind the group in front and he looked after the tyres, only going quickly when he needed to. It was just a very mature and smooth, fast race.

    Bob Bell, last year the Mercedes was very good in cold conditions, perhaps less good at places like this. Have you addressed that with this car?

    Bob BELL: Yes, I think we very much hope we have. We put a lot of effort in over the winter to really understand what the issues with last year’s car were. We had a pretty reasonable winter test in cold conditions. Of course Melbourne, as you said, was cold as well. We’ll see when we come away from here whether we’ve actually got on top of those issues. I think we’re pretty upbeat, pretty confident we’ve achieved that.

    What differences have you noticed in the way you’re operating as a team with the arrival of Lewis Hamilton?

    BB: Lewis, no question, is a new dynamic for us and that always happens with the introduction of a new driver, particularly one as competitive as Lewis is, so he’s a real motivational force in the team and indeed for his own team-mate. I think he’s lifted all of our game. He’s driving us; he’s clear about what he wants, what direction he wants to go in, and that is sympathetic to where we were going anyway, so I think it’s going very well.

    What effect do you see he’s had on his team-mate Nico Rosberg?

    BB: Team-mates naturally always want to outdo each other, so if you bring a new one in, if that raises his game then I think his team-mate will try and follow suit. It’s perfectly natural healthy competition.

    Pat Fry from Ferrari – second place finish in Australia, ahead of Red Bull. You’re leading the Constructors’ Championship going into this race. What was the feeling, the mood like in the post-race debrief?

    Pat FRY: I think people were pleased with the race pace of the car. It was quite obvious that Kimi was going to be two-stopping. I think you could see him two seconds back from the group, as James mentioned. I don’t think we could have followed suit and competed on a two-stop which is why we went for the aggressive three-stop, which got us through the traffic. All in all, it’s one those… with that and the 60km/h pit lane limit, it’s always that balance between two-stop and three-stop. We weren’t brave enough to make the two-stop work. Kimi was, so good luck to them, or well done to them. We just need to keep on working on the pace of it. It’s nice being second but you always want to win don’t you.

    What are your thoughts about the pace of Lotus, the way they’ve started the season?

    PF: It is very good. I don’t think we would have been brave enough to have attempted a two-stop there, so yeah, I think they’ve done well.

    Can you talk a little bit about the renaissance of Felipe Massa? Obviously he was strong in the second half of last year, he out-qualified Alonso in Melbourne and raced ahead of him for two stints. What is it that’s changed in him do you think?

    PF: It’s hard to say really. He’s got a good attitude. He’s driving very well. Very sensible not overdriving the car. If you look at last year the first half was a bit of a struggle, the second half was a lot better and he’s continued that form into this year, which is obviously good for us as a team in the Constructors’ [Championship].

    We’ll come to Bob Fearnley from Force India. Force India obviously led the last race of 2012 in Brazil and you led twice in Melbourne last weekend en route to seventh with Adrian. What’s the outlook, do you think, for the year ahead?

    Bob FEARNLEY: I think the Brazil race was on merit to a degree what we did in Melbourne obviously was tyre choice. It was very nice to be there but it was the result of strategy more than anything else. Overall, I think the performance of the car and team is quite good at the start of the season.

    Q: And what was the problem for Adrian Sutil? We saw him in his shorts with half an hour to go.

    BF: We had an oil seal problem. We just needed to stop it to make sure there was no damage to the engines.

    Q: Can you talk a little about Sutil, his return from over a year out of a Formula One cockpit, very little testing. Were you surprised by his performance?

    BF: I wasn’t surprised after his test in Barcelona. I think in Barcelona, when Adrian came in, if anybody could have put together a perfect assessment of a driver coming in for a test it was that occasion. I think Adrian did a great job and didn’t surprise me at all in Melbourne.

    Q: Cyril, Caterham one of I guess three teams that were perhaps a little disappointed with performance in Melbourne – perhaps along with Williams and McLaren – what’s going on behind the scenes at Leafield that gives you confidence going forward?

    Cyril ABITEBOUL: Clearly, I think that we have chosen to go for a strategy that is a little bit different from other teams, in the sense that we do not operate our new car for now. We have strategies that will make the car evolve according to different packages, the first of which will come in Bahrain. So we are running right now on hybrid car, so we are pretty much where we expected it to be. It doesn’t mean it is where we wanted it to be. Having said that, we have been analysing clearly the difference, the gap between Marussia and our car. First we want to diminish a little bit the fight between Marussia and ourselves. We are just competitors and we would like to make our way up through the grid, not backwards but up towards the front.  Clearly we see most of the developments that we did over the last year, the last 12 months, we think they made two-thirds of the difference over the last 12 months and only one-third over the winter. And of that one-third only half is coming from KERS. So I think that we have a real chance to be optimistic. Some good stuff is happening in the wind tunnel. Obviously we want to make sure this is translating into reality in Bahrain.

    Q: Obviously it’s a home race for your Malaysian shareholders. How’s it looking for this weekend?

    CA: It’s looking pretty much similar to the last weekend in the sense that it’s going to be on the edge with Marussia. I think the utilisation of tyres and driver familiarisation, driver mistakes also can make a difference so this is what we are getting ready for. We are going to have our shareholders present, so we want to make sure we have a good show at that moment.

    Q: Sam, the team and drivers were very open in Melbourne about the problems that you were suffering with the car. Can I ask you what went well that weekend?

    Sam MICHAEL: I think we got close to extracting most out of the car. First of all it goes without saying that we’re not… there’s no-one in McLaren who’s satisfied with where our performance is. So we’ve spent a lot of time in the last few weeks – before Melbourne as well because we had all the signs there from winter testing – going through data and analysing exactly what we need to do to improve the car. We’re about winning races, as we proved at the end of last year. We made some quite substantial changes to the car with a view that over the course of the season they would pay us back in terms of wins. I’d say that we… all of the people inside the group at the moment are focussed on understanding the 28 and turning it into a winner as soon as possible.

    Q: Presumably you’ve considered – you won the last two races of last year – you’ve considered bringing last year’s car? Have you now ruled that out as a plan?

    SM: All of our focus is on the current car. That involves understanding it, doing tests, we’ve done a lot of testing today actually on the circuit, we’ve done a lot of work in the factory in the last four or five days since Melbourne, making some encouraging progress in those areas, so right now all of our efforts are concentrated on the current car.

    Q: What does your experience tell you about how long it will be before you’re challenging the two gentlemen [Fry, Allison] to the right?

    SM: As soon as possible – but it’s very hard to make predictions because when you’re trying to unlock two or three different areas on the car, my experience tells me it’s very unpredictable to know when that’s going to happen. What I will say is the past history of McLaren as a group to recover from situations like this is extremely strong and consistent. They’ve done it before and I don’t see any reason why the engineers won’t do it again this time – especially based on the activity that I’ve seen and we’ve all been involved in over the last couple of weeks. I think it won’t take long for us to be back up there – that’s the target.

    Q: It looked like Jenson Button in particular was a bit closer to the pace when the conditions got more changeable after the rain. Are you hoping for more of those conditions over the weekend?

    SM: Hopefully. That was a trend that we saw in Melbourne as well – that we were extremely competitive on intermediate conditions. Not so much on full wets, and the slicks… we know where we are. We’ll see what happens. Normally here it’s full wet or nothing. It’s one of those one zone-type tracks.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – The Citizen) To the two engineers plus anyone else if you’d like to contribute: last week we had qualifying delayed and then run on Sunday. We’ve had races red-flagged here and postponed – it’s been happening more and more recently. Is there any way the sport can put together regulations where we can minimise the number of either red flags or postponements to give the fans what they really come here to see and pay for?

    PF: I think that with the conditions you sometimes get here, there’s so much rain, it would just be impossible to run so I think we can try and make the cars safer to run and I think we have but purely down to the… is there a tyre good enough for the conditions… there was a downpour in 2009, wasn’t it… you’re never going to make something that can survive that kind of situation.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – The Citizen) Sorry, I’m talking generally, not just about here, because we’ve had it in Canada and all over the place. So I’m saying should we not be looking at a committee to investigate some way of overcoming this, not necessarily just here in Malaysia?

    PF: I just think that for me, personally, I just think it’s a very difficult thing to overcome. With that much water, it’s not safe to run. Whether the FIA want to get a committee together to try and understand and see if it is possible to run in that, that’s entirely up to them.

    JA: I haven’t got a lot to add. You know, you’ve seen it. The spray becomes impenetrable very quickly and the cars start to aquaplane. You could do something about the aquaplaning to an extent, with a different set of tyres, but the spray would still be an issue and there would still come a point where the aquaplaning would dominate, especially at places like this so I don’t think technically there is much of a solution. We just have to wait for when there are conditions that a car can run.

    BF: Not unless anybody’s got a quick connection to the man upstairs, no.

    BB: No, I don’t think I can add anything to that. I think the teams are genuinely busy enough trying to design the car to meet the existing regulations. I’m sure the FIA have it within their power to investigate these things and see whether something could be done but as far as the teams are concerned, we’ve just got to get on and do the best job we can within the regulations as they currently stand.

    Q: (Kate Walker – Girl Racer) Mr Fernley, over the last few races – last season, we saw it last week as well – you guys seem to have made a deliberate decision on the pit wall to split your strategies and do almost opposite things with your two drivers. Is this a lack of confidence in your strategic decisions, or is it something more deliberate?

    BF: I don’t think it’s a lack of confidence. I think I would have thought that Melbourne was obvious, that you’ve got one driver that’s qualified on a supersoft and then you’d be the first of the contenders running on the medium. I didn’t think there was anything risky in that at all.

    Q: (Kate Walker – Girl Racer) It just seems that with that kind of approach, it’s not just in Melbourne, we did see it in 2012 as well, that it will give one driver the opportunity to finish really well and the other less so. Not that you’re favouring one over the other, it was an even split. I was just wondering what the thinking behind that approach was?

    BF: Well, I think in 2012 you’ve got a slightly different process there because obviously we were defending – not defending, actually we were attacking and trying to get our position back from Sauber, so what you’re trying to do is maximising the opportunities for optimum points and that would be the reason for the main split of the strategies. But where possible, you’re always going to go for an optimum strategy for both drivers and we would do that. I think in Melbourne that was an optimum strategy for both drivers.

    Q: Speaking of two different drivers, James, what’s the situation with Romain Grosjean? He’s not been quite on Kimi’s pace in the first Grand Prix and obviously again today he seems to be a bit behind; what’s your analysis?

    JA: Romain showed us over and over again last year that he is a driver with a lot of pace. That’s the one really valuable commodity that a race driver has and he’s got that. He’s not had an easy weekend either here or there, because we haven’t been able to provide two cars in exactly the same configuration on either occasions so in Melbourne on Friday he was running a step behind Kimi in terms of his aero package, and then he had the upgrade for Saturday morning but then Saturday was disturbed by the weather as we all know.  Here, once again, we only have one set of kit and we’ve chosen to run that with Kimi and Romain is disadvantaged for that. It’s a feature of not having in-season testing that you try to upgrade the cars as fast as you can and generally speaking, that means that you’re always going to have one set of kit ahead of the second set and that almost inevitably means that one driver gets to try it before there is a second one available. We will always try to get two sets available but not always possible. So he’s had a difficult set of circumstances and he’s also up against a teammate who is really firing on all cylinders so those are the two things.

    Q: (Alex Popov – RTR) Cyril, can you clarify the story of a possible merger with Marussia?

    CA: Yeah. I think we provided a comment – both Marussia and ourselves – regarding the fact that there have been some discussions over the Christmas period but clearly I think we all know that business, we all know Formula One, we know that it’s quite a fluid and versatile environment. To be honest, I’m not that old and since I’ve been in F1 I think I’ve maybe heard ten times about mergers, including four big names, so there is nothing very big in that. We looked at that, we looked at whether it was making any sense, it didn’t make any sense, it didn’t happen. End of story.

    Q: (Luigi Perna – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Pat, are you confident you can have the same pace as Lotus or even better in this race compared to Melbourne?

    PF: I think our race pace should be OK here, similar to Melbourne. In terms of tyre degradation I’m not sure yet. We need to go and look at the numbers. Obviously today’s running was a little bit mixed up. When everyone was doing their long runs this afternoon, there was rain in turns six and seven, so we need to see. Hopefully we will be able to get the degradation under control as well.

    Q: Is it likely to be another race where doing one less stop than your rivals is one of the keys to success, do you think?

    PF: I’m not sure how close we are to a three to four changeover or a two to three changeover. We need to have a look through the data and see really. I’d like to see James try and two stop here on Sunday.

    Q: James, do you fancy it?

    JA: Generally speaking this track is one stop more than Melbourne, so I think that might be a bit brave.

    Ends

  • Button calls on young people to become scientists of sports

    McLaren logo

    To coincide with national science and engineering week, Jenson Button has called on young people to stick with science and maths in school.

    The Vodafone McLaren Mercedes driver is backing a campaign run by GSK, in partnership with the McLaren Group, called ‘Scientists in Sport’, which uses the excitement of sport to inspire young people to study science, technology, engineering and maths.

    Part of the campaign is a ‘Fast Forward Challenge’, where budding scientists are challenged to devise a test which could be used to improve a Formula 1 driver’s reactions.  Winning schools will be given an opportunity to visit the McLaren Technology Centre and put their test into action with one of the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team.

    Speaking from the Australia, where he is about to begin the 2013 Grand Prix season, Jenson Button said: “The speed, drama, noise and glamour of Formula 1 may seem very different from a school science lesson, but our sport wouldn’t exist without the tireless work and dedication of some of the world’s cleverest scientists, engineers and mathematicians.

    “That’s why I think it’s so important for young people to stick with maths and science at school. In the future they might just find themselves designing a new grand prix car, or working in the pits analysing telemetry data. And, while not everyone can be a racing driver or work in Formula 1, maths and science can open up some amazing opportunities.”

    GSK’s Scientists in Sport campaign was officially unveiled at the Big Bang Fair – the national science fair, which runs from the 14th – 17th March and will be attended by around 60,000 secondary school students and their teachers.

    A new, interactive Scientists in Sport website is now live, visit www.scientistsinsport.com for more information and follow the campaign at @GSKScience.

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