Quotes Roundup – Week Ending 17th January

The very best from the mouths of those in the know.

Preparing to Test

The teams are starting to get ready for pre-season testing…

• “We have been given special dispensation to have six straight line/full-scale tunnel days, rather than the four to which all the other teams are limited. It is an example of how the FIA and the teams have gone out of their way to make us feel welcome.” Peter Windsor
• “I think there is no other sport in the world where you test for seven days before the championship. I cannot imagine a tennis player testing seven times before Roland Garros, or a football player training seven days before a world cup, so this is something strange in our sport.” Fernando Alonso
• “All of the cars on the grid have had incredible reliability over the last few years – on the first day of running with the RB5 we did 90 laps. We’ve got high expectations in terms of track time with RB6 so we feel that it’s a plan that suits us and it’s one that we plan to execute.” Christian Horner on skipping the first test

Bernie Ecclestone’s Opinions

The FOM chief has been sharing his thoughts again…

• “Obviously when you speak to these people they say everything’s fine and there’s no drama. But I’m sure there is drama. I honestly believe that one or two of these new teams that are now coming in will be much better off running one car which is supplied by any of the other teams” Bernie Ecclestone
• “My idea was to make a much bigger gap between first and second, and maybe second and third. What I was trying to do was give people the incentive to overtake, not to sit there getting points.” Bernie Ecclestone
• “The other thing I’ve been pushing like crazy with people is that brakes these days are so efficient that – I’ll say this and it’s probably wrong – I could brake as late as anyone else if I saw the braking markers” Bernie Ecclestone

Talking Silverstone

The legacy that Donington has left behind…

• “Donington is a fabulous circuit and I think it’s such a tragedy frankly that it’s been buggered up so much. I’m afraid Simon Gillett’s done that circuit no favours whatsoever. An awful lot of promises, very few of which ever came to anything.” Jonathan Palmer
• “We are building the new Arena circuit. It has gone into the FIA for [F1] homologation so we should be able to run FIM MotoGP and F1 on it. The issue really for 2010, is whether we can do that logistically. So we have issues with maybe Paddock Club, and Paddock Club parking and things like that to resolve.” Richard Phillips, managing director of Silverstone
• “The facilities at Silverstone are already better than a lot of other grand prix circuits. We were at Barcelona for Formula 2 and the paddock area and buildings were far shabbier than Silverstone is now. Silverstone has worked really hard in the last year or two to smarten that place up and I think they’ve done a good job.” Jonathan Palmer