Desire For Revenge

Flavio Briatore discusses matters with Pay Symonds during the Grand Prix weekend at the Nurburgring in 2006. This week, information regarding Briatore and Symonds’ case against the FIA has leaked into UK newspapers, and the FIA have condemned whoever is releasing the details. They defend their position, but won’t say much more until the hearing later this month.

Credit: Charles Coates/LAT Photographic

On Your Bike

Flavio Briatore training in Kenya. Renault confirmed today that Managing Director Briatore and Chief of Engineering Pat Symonds have left and the team are not disputing the charges against them when it comes to the hearing on Monday.

Credit: Renault F1

ING Renault F1 Team Statement

The ING Renault F1 Team will not dispute the recent allegations made by the FIA concerning the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.

It also wishes to state that its managing director, Flavio Briatore and its executive director of engineering, Pat Symonds, have left the team.

Before attending the hearing before the FIA World Motor Sport Council in Paris on 21 September 2009, the team will not make any further comment.

16-Sep-09: Briatore and Symonds Leave Renault

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Welcome to F1 Minute, it’s the 16th September 2009.

Just when you thought there couldn’t possibly be anymore Renault news before the hearing next week, today the team confirmed that Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds have left. A statement by Renault said: “The ING Renault F1 Team will not dispute the recent allegations made by the FIA concerning the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix. It also wishes to state that it’s managing director, Flavio Briatore and its executive director of engineering, Pat Symonds, have left the team.” Of course, this raises so many more questions than it answers, but the team have said they won’t comment further until after the hearing on Monday.

Elsewhere, Luca di Montezemolo has said that a FOTA conference later this year must address the falling ticket sales, and lack of testing to make Formula 1 more attractive to fans again. He also talks about the three teams thing again, but I prefer the other stuff!

That’s it for today, please join me tomorrow for another F1 Minute.

15-Sep-09: Lotus F1 Get 13th Grid Slot

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Today is the 15th September and this is F1 Minute.

The FIA have announced that the Lotus F1 Team will take the 13th place on the grid next year, with the company not the old Lotus but actually a partnership with the Malaysian government and businesses. The FIA did say they had reviewed the BMW application and found it impressive but they were concerned about the uncertain future of the team.

As it turns out, BMW announced they had found a buyer today, in the form of Qadbak Investments – a Swiss company who will take over for 2010.

Given this, the FIA are thinking about expanding the grid to 14 teams to allow for the ex-BMW team as well.

The FIA have been busy today as it has emerged that Pat Symonds of Renault has been given immunity by the governing body if he answers all their questions about what happened in Singapore last year. We don’t know whether he has accepted the offer or not.

That’s all for now, I’ll be back tomorrow with another F1 Minute.

09-Sep-09: More Details Emerge on Renault Case

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Welcome to F1 Minute, it’s the 9th September 2009.

AUTOSPORT have done some digging into the Singapore Renault investigation and found that the initial complaint has come from Nelson Piquet Sr, and subsequent information has come from his son. There is talk of a meeting between Piquet Jr, Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds on the day of the race, in which the plan to throw the race for a convenient safety car was discussed. Apparently, Piquet says he was instructed to do so, whilst the other two insist that it was actually the young driver’s idea.

Two quick snippets, Ferrari have confirmed that should Fisichella wish to drive for another team next year but still retain reserve driver status with them, they’d be all for that. Presumably they have learnt that having an active driver on standby can be useful.

Finally, Williams and Force India have been allowed back into FOTA, following a meeting of the association today.

That’s all for now, please join me tomorrow for another F1 Minute.

Renault to Race in Valencia

Pat Symonds, Bob Bell, Rob White and Flavio Briatore of Renault gather in the paddock ahead of the Australian Grand Prix this year. The team attended a Court of Appeal hearing in Paris today, against their suspension from the European Grand Prix. The court overruled the penalty and issued a hefty fine against Renault instead.

Credit: Charles Coates/LAT Photographic

17-Aug-09: Renault Hearing Gets Underway in Paris

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Today is the 17th August and this is F1 Minute.

The FIA Court of Appeal are gathered in Paris today for the Renault hearing. Bob Bell and Pat Symonds are representing the team and arguing that they should not have been given a suspension from the upcoming European Grand Prix. Charlie Whiting is there on behalf of the FIA, saying the penalty should be upheld, as releasing Alonso from the pits with an unfastened wheel was unsafe and therefore against the rules. We should hopefully find out the result of the hearing tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Ferrari’s Luca Badoer is keeping himself busy by running the F60 around their Fiorano test track, with promotional tyres on. Badoer will be taking part in this weekend’s Grand Prix after Schumacher confirmed his neck injury wouldn’t allow him to fill in for Felipe Massa. Ferrari are circumventing the testing ban by shooting a promotional video that allows Luca behind the wheel of this year’s car. He won’t get much useful information from the super-hard tyres, but any chance to turn corners will help the Italian.

That’s all for now, I’ll be back tomorrow with another F1 Minute.

FIA – German GP Press Conference – Friday

FRIDAY PRESS CONFERENCE – July 10, 2009

TECHNICAL DIRECTORS:
Paddy LOWE (McLaren Mercedes),
Sam MICHAEL (Williams),
Adrian NEWEY (Red Bull),
Pat SYMONDS (Renault)

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q: A question to you all. Obviously the pace of development is very important in Formula One at the moment. Can you give us an indication of the pace of development and the new parts that you have brought to this particular race?
Pat SYMONDS: Well, as always the emphasis is on an aerodynamic development. The pace is high but it needs to be high for us as we try and catch the guys at the front. We have got a lot of new parts here. We have got a new front wing, a new engine cover. We have got modifications to the floor. The pace is relentless and it needs to be because when people like Red Bull put sort of 0.6 of a second on the car at Silverstone, it just makes it that much harder for us all to catch up.
Paddy LOWE: Actually we have pretty much the same package that Pat has just described although we have got a completely new floor and new front wing and top body. Yes, the same and it has been for some years now absolutely relentless. To give an example, the package we brought here, we accelerated that by more than a fortnight to get it here in time. I know of a guy that worked a machine 36 hours non-stop, without sleep, early this week on our floor. But that is the spirit of Formula One and the great competition that we have.
Sam MICHAEL: Actually, listening to what the other guys have been saying it sounds like we are all doing the same thing. We have got a new engine cover, front wing and diffuser modifications as well. I think it is relentless but it is good for Formula One. The racing has been unbelievably close in terms of lap times, probably a lot more so than what I expected it to be with such a big rule change because all the cars are still in an early stage of development relative to the cars we finished with last year. We know how much pace we are putting on our car at every race. I would say on average you are having to put on 2 to 2.5 tenths every race just to stay where you are. That tells you everyone is developing very hard. I think that will continue all year. I don’t think it will be the same as last year as some teams gave up early to concentrate on their new cars. This year really I think everyone will be developing to the last grand prix as 95 per cent of it should carry over to next year’s car, so I think that development race is going to go all the way through.
Adrian NEWEY: Yeah, I feel a bit left out having put a fairly major update on the car for Silverstone. We have actually got very little here apart from a new, what we call, pod vane which is the vertical vane at the front of the side pod but other than that the car is the same as at Silverstone. On average the pace is very high as everyone has said. A big regulation change as we have had then there is a much steeper learning curve than there would be perhaps at the end of the old regulations where we had had a stable set of regulations for between five and 10 years depending when you look at the previous big change.

Q: Another question to all of you. The overtaking situation. People have talked about what more work needs to be done on overtaking from the Overtaking Working Group. What are your thoughts on that? What can be done? Can it be closed up?
PF: I think that the work that the Overtaking Working Group did was good. The evidence to support that is sparse, unfortunately. We have had some wet races and we have not had much in the way of cars that are out of position on the grid and things like that. But actually I was having a look at this very subject the week before last, well, straight after Silverstone. I think that, as I put things together, I could see that give or take a little bit we had achieved a fair bit of what we set out to do. I think that there is no doubt that the cars can follow a little bit closer. Statistically, if you analyse the races that are worth analysing this year there has been a little bit more overtaking. I think we probably didn’t go as far as we wished or wanted to. We were setting out to try and halve the time difference needed to produce a successful overtake and maybe we haven’t quite got that far. But equally I think – and I don’t know whether Paddy would agree with me – I think we set a very low target for the downforce knowing that once the teams got working on it 24/7 they would rapidly bring that downforce up but I have to say it went up a little bit further than I expected it to which is not condusive to overtaking amongst other things.
PL: Yeah, I agree with Pat. We always need the level of downforce. It was important as obviously that affects the weight more significantly than anything else and the fact that the downforce that has been achieved by the cars this year is significantly higher than anticipated means inevitably that some of the work we did has been eroded in effect. I think the other factor that is worth bearing in mind, which is quite fundamental, is that as Formula One has become, I would say, more thoroughly professional from end to end and better resourced from end to end on the grid the performances have closed up, so in actual fact the spread of lap time performance from end to end of the grid is about half what it was five years ago. Now if all the cars are that much closer it just means they will always find it more difficult to overtake, so it is quite a difficult problem to crack.
SM: I think the cars are definitely better than what we had last year. It is very difficult as Pat said to quantify that and put a number on it. I think some of the improvements have come through from tidying the cars up, so you don’t get as dirtier a wake behind the car if you look at the cleanliness of the side pods and everything now. It has definitely made a difference. When we went through all of the preparation for the court appeal on the diffuser a couple of months ago we looked a lot in CFD at different devices on the car that either made the weight better or worse and there were two or three things on there which made it significantly worse, not just because of the total level of downforce but because they were quite bad for the wake. I think it has been a step in the right direction but it is one of the things you have got to keep working on. You are not going to get to some magic solution in one step I don’t think unless you make something false and I don’t think anyone wants to do that. One of the things that have been discussed for next year is to remove wheel fairings and not have static or rotating wheel fairings and that, coincidentally, was one of things that, when we did CFD studies two or three months ago, showed quite an adverse effect on the following car. It won’t be a night and day. It is the sort of thing where you need to find three or four little things like that and that will add up to a difference, so I think it is going in the right direction but it just needs more.
AN: I think fundamentally the circuits are probably the biggest influence. Everybody keeps to conveniently forget about that as it is deemed to be easier to change the cars than change the circuits. That’s the first point. I think the second point is that people have this rose-tinted idea that overtaking used to be fantastic and now it isn’t. I think that is selective memory myself. You still occasionally get some great overtaking manoeuvres, just as we always used to. I don’t see the need to make it a lot easier to overtake really otherwise if overtaking becomes too easy the car that is quicker behind simply goes past and disappears again and you don’t even get the excitement of two cars battling each other for quite a number of laps. Personally I don’t think it is as much of a problem as people are making out.

Q: Pat, Nelson Piquet has said that there is going to be no late surge as there was last year from the team. However, technically speaking, are you going to be able to keep Fernando Alonso happy?
PS: To keep Fernando happy we have got to be winning races and that is difficult. I would not accept that there is not going to be a late surge. We are working extremely hard. There are a lot of new parts here as we said earlier. As Sam said it is very different to last year. Last year we did hang on and we did have a good end to the season. We took a few risks in doing that as a lot of what we were developing aerodynamically had no relevance to 2009. This year it is a much more normal year. We switch over to our 2010 car but every now and then we see a bit as we develop it we say that that actually is still applicable to 2009, so as that process occurs we will still be trying to push things onto the 2009 car. We are working as hard as we can. We don’t find it acceptable to be in the position that we are. The grid is extremely close this year, so it makes it both more difficult to move on but at the same time it means that small changes are worth doing. It is a bit of a double edged sword. I can assure Fernando, Nelson and every employee at Renault that we are pushing hard.

Q: Paddy, I don’t know how many times since the end of the session I have been asked is this the return of Lewis Hamilton and McLaren Mercedes? Perhaps from a technical point of view you can give some indication of this afternoon’s performance?
PL: Well, it is always great to find yourself at the top of the time sheets especially at the Mercedes home grand prix. I think we all realise that, as Pat said, the performances are very close and the noise that you get within the data Friday is often higher than the differences between the cars in terms of unknown weights etc. But absolutely delighted to be back there at the top of the sheet. I think the job now is to translate that into some points on Sunday. But definitely we have made a step with the car. Lewis is very happy with it. The pieces that we brought all work. We hope to see that that will translate to a real difference. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough pieces for Heikki (Kovalainen) to have the same package, so that is why the difference is reflected between the two drivers.

Q: Will he get the same bits tomorrow?
PL: He will get some of them but not all of them unfortunately which is something we always try not to do but in exceptional circumstances which these are then we have had to do that.

Q: Sam, we were talking about the pace of development. Is it an expensive operation especially for an independent team such as yourselves?
SM: It is part of your normal budget, I wouldn’t say it was expensive. You just do what you can afford to do. We pretty much predicted that there would be an update every race. That is budgeted for and accounted for. It is part of doing F1.

Q: There aren’t financial constraints then?
SM: No, we make sure that we manage it, especially for things like updates and bodywork, that we are not restrained at all in that area because we make sure that is where we have got our most budget freedom as that is the first impact on car performance.

Q: Adrian, extraordinary performance from Mark (Webber) this morning. Mark has always out-qualified his team-mate but he has come up against Sebastian (Vettel). What is the state of Mark from a technical point of view and how buoyant is he and how obviously very determined?
AN: I think determined is the right word. Mark is a very determined person. He has been around for a while. He had a rough winter which didn’t help his preparations with his broken leg which I think, although he would never admit it publicly, probably compromised his pre-season preparation and I think it probably compromised him a little bit in the early races. But he is very determined. I think he was unlucky at Silverstone in Q3 as I think he had a real chance of putting it on pole there. He keeps trying and actually although the statistics are that Sebastian has out-qualified him every single time it is not actually quite as simple as that. He is a good guy.

Q: And this morning’s performance?
AN: It is the first session on the first day, so it is difficult to know how it will carry through. But Mark is very much on it every time he gets in the car and that was clearly demonstrated this morning.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Alberto Antonini – Autosprint) Concerning the meeting last Wednesday. With the exception of Sam, gentlemen, were you aware of the reasons why you were denied the right to vote?
PL: I think that the simple answer is no. I think the FOTA teams all felt that they had an unconditional entry to Formula One since on the press release from the World Motor Sport Council on the 24th of June the asterix had been removed from our names, so in actual fact we had prepared an awful lot for the meeting on Wednesday. The FOTA teams have been working for almost a year on changes to the technical and sporting regulations which would save costs and we have been working independent of the FIA on those measures in a group we call the TRWG which is a FOTA body. We reached a point where all those measures had been unanimously agreed by the FOTA teams and we had even taken them to a high level of details in terms of texts for the regulations next year and the meeting on Wednesday, which was confirmed once we felt our entries were confirmed, was the point at which we would bring all of these proposals to the table and vote them through for next year which in theory should have been a very easy process because we had all agreed them in advance. It was a bit of a shock to come to the meeting having got up at 4.30 in the morning or so and find that we didn’t have a vote because it really made it quite difficult to see how we would really make good use of that time, so we don’t fully understand the reason for that. That being the case we decided… firstly Ross (Brawn) sought to defer the meeting to a later date which would have really managed the matter in a softer way but that idea was rejected, so we were really obliged to just not take part in the meeting.

Q: Pat, Adrian, do you have anything further to add?
AN: I was wise enough not to come in the first place.
PS: Not really. As Paddy said, we had put an awful lot into these new rules over the past many months. We had a very long telephone conference I think on Tuesday of last week when we were trying to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. A great deal of work had gone into it and I think I was fully aware that we were a little bit in no-man’s land but I hoped that goodwill would prevail. We all understood that we had unconditional entries and while we are not naive enough to believe that press releases have any value in terms of regulation we understood that the process was well underway. We understood that a new Concorde Agreement was in preparation. I certainly hoped that we would perhaps pre-empt that and behave in a responsible manner but it wasn’t to be. I think we really had no option but to move away from the meeting. It has been said that we knew about this beforehand but I think that that is not exactly true. I had received a copy of a letter about 8 o’clock the previous evening which wasn’t explicit that we would not have a vote. It may have indicated that but it was a little bit late for us to make decisions.

Q: Any comment, Sam?
SM: I think from Williams’ point of view obviously it did seem like quite a bit step backwards on Wednesday for the eight FOTA teams not to take part in the meeting. I can understand their reasons why. I think you have got to separate into two different areas. The first one is the 2010 Sporting and Technical Regulations that were published that five teams, us being one of them, signed up for unconditionally. The first thing that had to happen was the five of us had to go through the differences between 2009 and 2010 and decide what we would be happy to change in exchange for another document that is being prepared called a cost regulation document. In exchange for that all of the references to cost regulated teams will be removed from the Sporting and Technical regulations. That is what was agreed with the eight FOTA teams in Paris in the letter Paddy referred to two weeks before. From our point of view technically and sporting wise it wasn’t going to be a big problem to do that, to go through that process. The problem was that that process hadn’t happened at that stage until the Wednesday, so that was the first opportunity for us to do that. In some ways that should have happened before. Once the FOTA teams left the meeting that is exactly what we did and we went through all of the differences and I think we pretty much agreed 100 per cent on almost everything. In fact, sorry I said I would split it into two. There is that section first. We did agree 100 per cent on that, on all the changes going back to what the regulations were before the 29th of April with the exception of the 620kg weight limit. The second part to it was all of these FOTA proposals which Pat and Paddy referred to. Now what we decided to do in order to keep the meeting productive was try and show that we are trying to come to a solution for Formula One. We knew that everything in the TWG agenda that had FOTA written on it was unanimously agreed by FOTA, so the only thing that then required that to go through was the unanimous agreement of the five other teams. We didn’t cover any of the other items on the agenda that were not FOTA. We didn’t discuss those, we left them off, because obviously the agenda probably had about 50 per cent of FOTA proposals and 50 per cent of things that were historic like a normal TWG agenda does. We decided there was no point in covering that stuff as the other eight teams needed to be there, so we would have to do it again. We went through all of the FOTA proposals and I would say there was quite a lot of agreement on almost all of it which was quite another thing which is what I thought would happen anyway because ultimately we are all racing teams, so most of the things we want to do are the same. I don’t want to go into the details of most of those proposals because that is Charlie’s (Whiting) job to communicate that to FOTA and it is not for here. But there was a high percentage of things that were agreed completely with exactly what FOTA worded. There was a low percentage of things that needed more discussion and there was an even lower percentage of things that we thought that is probably not the best cost saving overall. But what I hope happens now is that all of the things that we agreed on will get communicated to FOTA. The things that we think need further discussion – some of them were things that if there was someone from FOTA in there he may have been able to explain to the five non FOTA teams very quickly why certain things were the way they were. But we couldn’t go into that detail as we did not understand the background of some of them, so it wouldn’t mean that necessarily those things would not have been accepted with further discussion. It was just the fact that we stopped on them. So after that I thought it was quite a productive use of the afternoon, not for the eight guys that left obviously. But we did it in an attempt to get things on track. Charlie was obviously a driving force behind doing that and I think as far as I understand it, there are three things that need to be settled out of Paris: the Concorde Agreement, the cost regulation document and the regulations. I think the regulations are very close and I understand the Concorde Agreement is very close as is the cost regulation document, so from Williams’ point of view we want it to be solved and we are hopeful that barring any further hiccups it will just be a matter of days before things are tied up.

Q: (Marc Surer – Premiere) One question about the regulations: in Paris they said we go back to this year’s regulations but there was no refuelling for next year. What cars are you going to build now, with a big tank or will refuelling come back?
SM: It’s not quite clear because when it says 2009 regulations in Paris, they mean 2009 with changes that were agreed up until April 29.

Q: (Marc Surer – Premiere) But you know which cars you’re going to build?
SM: Yes. For next year it will be a no-refuelling car. There’s a lot of minor things in there that we had already agreed at TWG such as changes to front wing endplates, changes to the fuel specification. There were probably seven or eight things which are just general things that were already in there.

Q: (Anthony Rowlinson – Red Bulletin) Question for all of you: the FIA has positioned itself very strongly as the main driving force for cost cuts in Formula One as we go forward. Would you all accept that position?
PS: Well, I think that FOTA has delivered cost cuts. We’ve had some big cost-cutting exercises in terms of restrictions on aerodynamic testing, restrictions on circuit testing, extending the initiative, started by the FIA, on longer life engines. FOTA is very committed to making the business a more viable business, to both look at reduction of costs but also increase of income, and above all, putting on a good show. I think it’s wrong to say that the FIA is leading. I think it’s a co-operative process in which FOTA has played a very large, active and demonstrable part.
AN: I would completely agree with Pat. I think FOTA has delivered, through its association between the teams, huge cost savings. The ban on in-season testing has meant that we’ve been able to disband our test team and build less monocoques, less parts. That in itself has been a big cost-saving. As we all know, a lot of the costs of development of the car are driven by aerodynamics, be it principally wind tunnel testing but also CFD testing and the limits that the teams have come up with for wind tunnel and CFD has limited the bigger teams already and with further limitations coming in, limits all of us, so that will be a big cost cut. And not only does that mean cost cutting in terms of the number of aerodynamic model-makers and so forth that you employ but if you’re doing less research then the chances are that you will be pushing less parts on the car, so that you will have a manufacturing saving. And equally for new teams coming in it means that they can now go off and buy a single wind tunnel or indeed perhaps rent one of the ones that becomes available from one of the bigger teams that have more than one. I think that’s been a big cost saving. As a privateer team ourselves, where we have to buy our engines from a manufacturer, the engine costs have come down tremendously over the last two or three years to probably about a quarter of what they were about three years ago. So I think the FOTA teams can demonstrate that they’ve delivered a lot already in a very well thought-out and deliverable manner that has worked in a fair way. There’s no accusation amongst the teams that somebody is getting an unfair advantage as there might be with some of the other proposals.
SM: To be honest, I think a lot of the FOTA changes have come in recently because it didn’t exist twelve months ago. I think the FIA obviously started a lot of that process with long-life gearboxes, long-life engines. Four or five years ago we were using six engines a race weekend, so it went from twelve over two race weekends down to two, so the change to engines was triggered a long time ago. But I also think that what FOTA’s done, more so for us on the engine supply – the engine costs for Williams as a private team have come down massively – and that’s a direct initiative from FOTA. I think, to be honest, both FOTA and FIA are pushing for cost reduction.
PL: I think the others have mentioned all the key points. We’re all technical people and we love the product, the cars and the show that’s put on, and above all else, that’s what we always seek to preserve. I’m much more in favour of measures such as reducing the number of wind tunnels that you can use because that represents a real cost saving throughout the business, and yet, as long as you’ve got one wind tunnel, at the sharp end at the circuit, we will still see the sort of rapid development of the cars that makes a part of the spectacle. So that’s a good example. The others have been mentioned. We’ve taken out track testing. That’s actually put an onus on more testing on a Friday. We’ve all been busy today with that. In a way that’s improved the show at the race and yet the cost of the test is no longer borne by the teams. So a good number of measures have been promoted by FOTA and managed alone by them, have delivered real cost-saving without eroding the product.

Q: (Ian Parkes – The Press Association) In speaking with John Howett yesterday – and his views were endorsed by Christian Horner and Mario Theissen – he said that a breakaway series was still on the backburner. I was just wondering what you all thought he meant by that? Would any one of the three FOTA teams members like to answer that, and also Sam as well?
AN: I think he probably means exactly what he says, that none of us wants a breakaway series in many ways. I think everybody’s conscious of the fact that if you have two premier series then they could end up robbing viewership and splitting viewership and the whole show is weakened as a result of that and that certainly happened in the States when USAC (CART) split from IRL. So none of us want a breakaway series and that’s why FOTA, as an organisation, is working so hard to try and come to an agreement with the other parties: the FIA, FOM, CVC. But ultimately, if that agreement can’t be reached, then the breakaway series has to be the alternative.
PS: I have a slightly different view. To say it’s on the backburner doesn’t mean that it’s not still cooking. It doesn’t mean that it’s dead, it means that work is going on. Adrian mentioned what’s happened in America and of course there’s been a lot of talk about that. Earlier on, Adrian was talking about selective memory. I think that some of the parallels in America I would call selective history because yes, it’s true, when – it was actually CART and IRL that separated – it wasn’t good for the sport. But if you go back to the late seventies which was actually when CART split away from USAC who ran the ChampCars in those days, there are a lot more parallels to what happened then to the current situation. I think the CART/IRL split had a lot to do with personalities, egos etc. The formation of CART out of USAC was more to do with issues of governance, issues of finance. I think there are a lot more parallels to what we have in Formula One and in fact, the breakaway series was CART, it was extremely successful. Everyone apart from AJ Foyt piled out of the USAC series into the CART series and for many, many years it was extremely successful. Personally, I have no worries about a breakaway series, it can be done. If the necessity is there, I don’t think anyone in FOTA is scared of the prospect.
PL: I don’t think I can really add too much to that. It is a real option that’s still being looked at. If that’s how it has to be then we will get on and do it but obviously we hope that the right agreements can be reached.
SM: I think we’ve made our position pretty clear. Publically we hope that our resolutions are achieved and hopefully shortly, so there is only one series.

Q: (Alan Baldwin – Reuters) Adrian, I was wondering if you could just let us know how your role has changed or is going to change with the departure of Geoff Willis because clearly he’s not going to be replaced. Does that mean you’re taking on more responsibility?
AN: I think it’s simply that my role and my daily way of operating will stay exactly the same as it is. What does change perhaps, is that we have five very senior people in the next level down and I will be expecting them to take on more responsibility for their individual engineering departments and really run that in a way which means that we don’t actually need a single technical director.

Q: (Mario Bauer – Berliner Zeitung) I struggled to understand why the working group decided to go for less wake, trying to make overtaking more feasible in that way. If you remember, back in the late seventies and eighties, cars had huge side pods and punched a real hole in the air which allowed the car following behind to catch up quickly and to attempt to overtake. Is that something that has been considered? What was the reason to go for lower rear ends and a smaller wake?
PS: I’m not sure I fully understood it (the question). I think you’re saying that in the old days the cars had a more benign wake? Is that what you’re suggesting?
AN: I think it’s a slipstreaming argument, isn’t it? A slipstreaming argument is what you’re referring to, from Monza in 1970 or whatever. It was a very different technology at the time. Cars, at that time, almost all of them, were powered by a single engine, a DFV, giving out exactly the same horsepower. The circuits have changed for a start. We don’t have a Monza-type circuit, we don’t have a slipstreaming circuit as that used to be and that only happened at that particular circuit, if my history of motorsport is correct. So I think that yes, if we raced at ovals then perhaps that would be a way of going about things. Indeed, you’ve almost had the opposite problem. I think at some of the IRL-type races everybody is changing places all the time and I’m certainly of the opinion that if overtaking is too easy then it’s actually quite dull because it just becomes commonplace. I personally don’t find NASCAR races very interesting because the whole art seems to be in about fourth place with three laps to go. So it’s personal opinion but I certainly don’t consider that’s modern Formula One and I think it would be a very artificial set of rules that came up with that.
PS: I think there’s also common misconception that the overtaking working group was just about producing a car with a constrained wake. It was really very much about trying to design rules to make a car that would operate within a wake and I think that’s something that has been misunderstood quite a lot.

Q: (Mario Bauer – Berliner Zeitung) Is it a good statement just to walk out of a meeting and not listen to what changes were being proposed instead of saying ‘we’re not having this?’
PS: I don’t think it’s very fair to say that we didn’t know what was going on. There was an engineer  actually by the name of Hoover who once said that ‘words without actions are the assassins of idealism.’ I don’t really think there’s a lot of point in talking about things unless you can take action.
PL: I didn’t fully understand the question but if it was to suggest that we didn’t…. we all knew what had to be discussed, I don’t think there was anything in the agenda that hadn’t been revealed to us. Most of it had been generated by us, so I don’t think we were walking away from a useful discussion. The point of the meeting was to endorse the proposals that were on the table and if you haven’t got a vote then you can’t do that. So I think it was the right and only thing to do in the circumstances.

Q: (Tony Dodgins – Autosport) Fifteen years or so ago when refuelling was introduced, the main concern was safety in the pits. Do you actually believe that going back to before that is the right way to go back because the show’s been quite good with strategy? And could somebody put a figure on what it’s actually going to save, not to have to carry the kit all over the world?
AN: The figure I’ve heard is about €400,000 per team, which is a significant figure, but if the show was reduced as a result of that, then it would be a figure which would be the wrong way of saving money. I must admit that whether it will work or not I think we will have to see. The very obvious difference is that at the moment, because tyre degradation very roughly balances weight reduction as the fuel is burnt, then the difference in lap time before and after a stop is usually in favour of being quicker before the stop as the weight effect is more a force than tyre degradation. That can vary on some circuits where it’s not the case but it’s generally the case whereas clearly now there will be a position where the car will always be quicker after the stop because they’ve fitted new tyres for the same fuel weight and that will change strategy. Whether that will provide a better or worse show I think is a little bit difficult to answer at the moment.
PL: I think it’s a difficult one to predict. I think everybody will have their personal view on whether they prefer refuelling or no refuelling and equally, as we go back to no refuelling, I don’t believe it will be the same as it was in 1993 because the cars are different. But certainly it’s a different way of going racing and I think it has got many advantages but we’ll have to see how it turns out.
PS: I think that strategy has been very exciting. I’ve certainly enjoyed working in that area but I think it’s had its day. As we’ve developed our techniques, as always, they’ve become quite similar. I think that the excitement of strategy has gone. I think it’s a difficult thing to get across to the casual public who are very important to us, rather than the true enthusiasts. We were talking about overtaking earlier and I think there’s a little bit too much reliance now on strategy to be used for overtaking. I think this was one of things that I saw at Silverstone where people, yes, they had similar performance, but they were thinking ‘oh well, I am a couple of laps longer than this guy, so I’ve just got to push for two laps and I’ll get in front of him at the pit stops.’ But without refuelling maybe we’ll see a bit more racing. I think we’ve got to keep an open mind. Let’s try it for a few years. The important thing is to put on a good show. The savings are considerable. Our figures show even more than Adrian’s and you’ve got to bear in mind that that refuelling equipment is getting quite old now and it’s going to need replacing soon and it’s very expensive to replace. So I’m very happy to give it a try and like with most things, I want to be open-minded about it.
SM: I have pretty similar views to the other guys. I agree with what Pat said about current strategy having its day. It’s very difficult to move out of position now because everybody knows what to do. It wasn’t like that ten years ago but now it’s simulated to the nth degree and people know from experience, really, what everyone else is going to do. So it will definitely change, I’m not sure it will change completely in terms of people waiting for their stop to overtake. It will just reverse, as Adrian said. You will be faster as you come out but that will create a different game. We will see what happens.

FIA – Spain Press Conference – Friday

FRIDAY PRESS CONFERENCE – May 8, 2009

TECHNICAL DIRECTORS:
Ross BRAWN (Brawn GP),
Aldo COSTA (Ferrari),
Patrick HEAD (Williams),
Pat Symonds (Renault)

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q: Ross, would you like to start on the overtaking situation as you and Pat were on the overtaking working group I think.
Ross BRAWN: No, I wasn’t. Pat was. Our drivers are reporting that the cars are easier to follow. They have still got an imbalance when they follow other cars. But the cars are easier to follow. At the moment we have got the situation that some cars have KERS and some are without KERS. We have had several occasions where we have managed to get on the back of a car with KERS and we can’t overtake it as it uses KERS to pull away, so we have got a little bit of an odd situation at the moment but the general impression from our guys is that the cars are better and because they have got this adjustable front wing it also helps to get the car set up when you are coming up behind someone.

Q: Pat, has it pretty much worked the way you thought it was going to?
Pat SYMONDS: I have to say I am not completely sure. We are on race five now. We have had a couple of wet races, Australia is always a difficult track anyway. I have been quite impressed with the way the Brawns have overtaken us a couple of times, so maybe it has worked or maybe they are just quicker than us. But as Ross says the KERS is clouding things as well and I think it is certainly easier to follow now and that is what we set out to do. But it is not the magic panacea.

Q: Just going back a couple of weeks, your reaction to the diffuser. What sort of effort was required for that?
PS: It was a huge effort. All the guys at the factory, from aerodynamics through design and manufacturing, really pulled the stops out to get that done. You don’t just sort of design these things and they work first time. It takes  a while to understand how they work and get them to a state where it is worth investing the money and putting them on the cars and they really did a super job to get that diffuser to China.

Q: Same question to you, Aldo. As I understand it has been a massive redesign of the whole of the back end of the car and the diffuser has not been the problem. It is all the rest of it.
Aldo COSTA: Yes, it is not the composite part that is the problem. The problem was a complete redesign of the hydraulic system, electric system and modifications to the rear suspension, so it was as Pat said a very, very big, huge effort to be ready in time for here with such a modified car. It is a learning curve since we had to work on this concept that we thought was illegal. We are learning now but still it is our first attempt and I am sure we have got quite a lot to learn still.

Q: When did you start to react to the diffuser? Did you start before the ruling or did you react to it when the ruling was made?
AC: No, from the technical point of view we had to start the thing earlier because we could not wait for the decision to be made, so we started as soon as we felt that other teams had another rule interpretation.

Q: And tell us about the other modifications here? I understand Kimi has a new chassis as well?
AC: Yes, we are running with KERS. Obviously at the moment the heavier driver, in order to run KERS, has got a disadvantage, so we tried to help Kimi be under the weight limit developing a new chassis.  Later on in the season we will introduce it for Felipe as well.

Q: And other modifications?
AC: The car we have got here is a mix between a double deck diffuser concept, our first attempt,  and the development that we had already planned for Barcelona, so we have got other modifications on the bodywork and on wings.

Q: Patrick, can I ask you for a summary of the season so far. It seems that it goes very well on Fridays, as it has today, but perhaps you are a little disappointed when it comes to the race performances?
Patrick HEAD: Yes, as Pat mentioned we have had some fairly sort of unusual races. In Australia we messed up a pit stop for Nico (Rosberg) and then when he was on the option tyre I think his race engineer encouraged him to push very hard as I think they thought he might be able to get Rubens (Barrichello) and the option tyre was very delicate and it fell off a cliff really for us. It was between us and various things. We have not made the best of the grands prix. Then with Malaysia and Shanghai with the wet and the wet dry, which is an opportunity for everybody,  and for various reasons we did not make the best of that. In Bahrain, although Nico made a good start, he lost a lot of places going into turn one. He started ninth and finished ninth, nobody broke down. Massa broke down but I think Kimi got him going into the first corner, so it was not a very special race.  We are certainly disappointed with the results but there are a few teams in that position and there is no point in kicking the dog or anything like that. You just go back and work that bit harder and try and not make the same mistakes.

Q: What sort of modifications have you got to the cars here?
PH: We had a slightly modified diffuser for Nico in Bahrain which is on both cars now. Not big, just a  small modification,  and some other bits and pieces for the car all pushing up small amounts in improving the performance.

Q: Do you feel as an independent team that it is going to be hard for you to keep up the pace of development during this season?
PH: I think we have got the resources. We haven’t got maybe as big a budget as some teams but I don’t think we think we are budget limited in developing the car. It is up to us to keep up really.

Q: Ross, similar question. Do you feel it is going to be difficult for you to stay ahead development-wise?
RB: It is always very difficult to even maintain your position wherever it is in Formula One as it moves forward so quickly. The big challenge we all have is that with no testing you are effectively on a Friday trying to work out what you have got and where you are. It is not such a straightforward process as it used to be. Testing itself was always very difficult anyway but it is extremely difficult now. We have brought a new package here which seems to be working very well with Rubens but we have got a problem with it with Jenson (Button) and we have to understand what is going on. It is quite a difficult year for everybody and it will continue to be difficult with the testing rules that we have. We have a reasonable sized team now and we are not budget limited in what we can do, we are just being careful in how we spend that money. Perhaps we bring three or four sets of parts to a race whereas last year we might have brought six or seven. We make those sorts of judgement calls but we are certainly not holding back on doing any performance improvements that we can. There is a package here, there are some modifications for Monaco and there is another update for the Nürburgring, so we are working hard.

Q: When you say a package, what does that comprise?
RB: Well, it is a new floor, new engine cover, new bodywork around the rear suspension, so that’s what we have brought here.

Q: Pat, I saw a succession of cardboard boxes being carried into the paddock yesterday. What are your modifications here?
PS: Similar things. As we have said earlier we introduced our first double decker diffuser in China but it was very much our first attempt. There is a new attempt here. In addition, with  visible parts, we have got new front wheel fairings, we have got a new top rear wing here. We have got modifications on rear suspension, so there is a lot going on.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Mike Doodson) I suppose this is for all of you. As I understand it, you don’t know the full technical regulations for next year, especially the tank size. I wondered if since this impinges on costs that if you each think it is realistic for the President of the FIA to be imposing a budget cut before you even know the rules.
PH: I think teams are having to take a fairly strategic view and maybe cover a number of options. I think at the moment everybody is pretty clear that there is no refuelling next year. I think that was something that FOTA supported way back in December last year, so it is not as if there is any conflict at all about that position. I think there has been some talk about races changing in distance. Really I think everybody is working on the assumption that the races will be of the same length next year and they are doing their  numbers on that basis. But there are all sorts of factors, if you are able to move your rear wing and lower your drag level going down the straight obviously has a number of interesting effects both on lap time but also on your  fuel consumption as well.  But I think most people will be having to say ‘well, we will have to work out our fuel consumption on the basis that we won’t be able to move our rear wing and if we are able to move our rear wing we will probably have a little bit too much capacity,’ so there is quite a lot of strategic thinking. It is a difficult one. It is certainly not a comfortable position where rules can be changed without any consultation, without any passing through the technical working group and to me it seems unfortunate that Formula One rules seem to come about through change a lot of the time, through confrontation, rather than  through consultation. I think very often Max (Mosley) might say ‘well, I have given them the chance and they haven’t come up with what they wanted.’ But the teams are very open to realistic and practical ways of saving money. It is not as if the teams, and this goes for the manufacturer teams and the smaller teams, as if they are all rushing around wanting to spend more money. They’re not. They’re wanting to spend less money, so I think the environment is very positive towards a less costly Formula One but I don’t think anybody, and this goes for Williams certainly, I don’t think anybody thinks that a two-tier championship is a good idea. Even on the basis of being able to adjust the rear wing alone, that is going to be very significant. I mean it depends whether any additional things come in that limit how far you are able to adjust it, but on the basis of a completely adjustable rear wing with a single flap moving you are going to be talking about, I don’t know, a second-and-a-half, two seconds a lap. Now, no amount of expenditure on more expensive, more fiddly hydraulic blocks, no amount of expenditure anywhere else will make up for that difference. It is certainly a difficult environment at the moment but I think everybody, Ross, Pat, Aldo, are all having to sit in strategic meetings where you decide what possible option might come through and how you cover it and how, if that doesn’t go through, you then don’t find yourself significantly embarrassed by having made a wrong decision. It is a bit of a gambling imposition on what should be a logical design process but all part of the fun and the same for everybody.

Q: Aldo, your thoughts, and when do you need to know this?
AC: I think Patrick has recapped the situation very well. He’s speaking for Williams but I think he’s speaking for all of us. Certainly, as Ferrari, I would say exactly what Patrick has said.
PS: I think probably the two things that Mike mentioned are two of the few things that we do know. The sporting and technical regulations for 2010 have been published, races are still 305 kms, the refuelling rules have been altered as such that we can’t refuel during the race, we can only refuel in the garage, so we haven’t gone back to refuelling on the grid as we used to in the old days. I think we know those things but there are lots of other details which are perhaps less clear. I really echo what Patrick and Aldo said. I don’t think anyone wants two tier rules. I don’t think they’ve worked in any series, whether it’s saloon cars and sports cars, where they are trying to equalise diesels and spark ignition engines, whether it’s Formula One with turbos and normally aspirated engines – they just simply haven’t worked. I think it’s important to say that we are not necessarily all at conflict. I think that we all have the same intentions, as Patrick said. We all want to spend less money. We all need to spend less money, not just want to. I think that where there are some differences of opinion is perhaps monetary scale and time scale. I think there will always be a difference of opinion on monetary scale – those that have and those that don’t have – but I think the time scale is a very important factor in this. I think it’s very important to have a glide path down onto a cheaper formula – or rather a more cost-effective formula. It’s very difficult with the large organisations that we all have with very high capital investment, very high capital write-downs every year, a lot of employees. It’s very difficult to move to a new position which is vastly different to the one we have and to do it quickly. Given time, given a few years to do it, of course we can get there, and I think that’s an important point to make.
RB: We don’t want to see a two tier Formula One. We think that would confuse the public, we think that if there’s a big disparity in the regulations there will be no merit for those teams that succeed using the most advantageous regulation, so we don’t want a two tier Formula One. It’s a fact that stability – when the rules are right – is the cheapest way of going forward in many ways because you can plan, you can organise yourself but one of the difficulties of Formula One is that we’re turning into Swiss watchmakers. We’re just refining everything to the nth degree instead of being able to make conceptual changes or innovative changes because the rules are becoming more and more restrictive. In order to try and contain the costs, we’re just closing everything down so much that I’m not sure that that’s what Formula One should be. We, as a team, both in Honda days and now, support the idea of a constraint on resources of some sort, be it financial, be it people, be it some constraint where everything is enclosed and within that enclosure there is more freedom because most of the technical changes we’re doing are to save cost, so if we can save cost by saying ‘that’s all you’re allowed to spend’ and have more freedom, for me that’s a more exciting Formula One, for us, for the public and we’ve always supported that concept. What we want to do as a team is find a solution to that with all the other teams. We don’t want difficulties in Formula One, we want to work with the FIA, we want to work with all the teams and find a solution that fits with that. But for me, we’re going down the Swiss watchmaking route with Formula One and it’s not what I believe Formula One should be.

Q: (James Allen – Financial Times) We’re obviously talking about transition and how you manage it but if it’s difficult to negotiate in the next few weeks with Max Mosley on this, is it not possible that you would all run uncost-capped, all the teams, for next year and then try to work it out and negotiate it from that point onwards?
RB: I think all the teams within FOTA don’t want to have a two tier system and I think there will be discussions over the next week or so. It’s very unfortunate what has happened with Max, a terrible thing, so we’ve got to be sympathetic in that respect but as soon as it’s possible, we would like to meet with Max and try and find if there’s another way forward, where all the teams can be united and consistent in the solution. For us, there has to be some constraint on resources, not a constraint on the technical regulations.

Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Aldo, how did you judge the performance of the modifications today?
AC: Normally Friday is quite difficult to judge. We can judge it based on our numbers and based on what our drivers tell us, so at the moment we are happy about what we see but we have to see it compared to other teams that have, as we said before, brought here other developments, where we are in comparison with them and this we will know at the end of qualifying, of course and at the end of the race, not from today.

Q: (Dan Knutson – National Speed Sport News) Question for all of you: the weight limit has been raised for next year but it’s a general overall increase, so the taller heavier drivers are penalised. Would you support a system where you weigh the drivers, seat and helmet together, so that it’s a level playing field no matter what size your driver is?
RB: I don’t think you will get total equality. A big driver should be stronger, he should have more stamina, he should be able to drive the car over a longer period more consistently, so I don’t think you will ever get total equality. Possibly the weight limit now, particularly with the introduction of KERS, is making it quite difficult for teams who want to run KERS to find the weight distribution they want and accommodate the heavier drivers. I think there are two important things next year: one is the weight and the other is the smaller front tyre size which is going to push the weight distribution, let’s say, to a more natural position in the car. The ratio size of tyres at the moment is forcing everybody to run very forward weight distributions and that’s where people with KERS and bigger drivers also run into problems, so I think it’s a sensible change. I think with those changes, I don’t believe bigger drivers are penalised. Bigger drivers are stronger and they take those advantages.
PH: I rather agree with Ross. I’m quite happy with it as it is. We have, in the past, had quite heavy drivers. I don’t think it’s a problem particularly as it is. The problem at the moment is that the tyre regulation and the change to slicks is forcing – I wouldn’t say an unnatural weight distribution – but a weight distribution which within the layout that’s forced on us by the fuel location and various other things is quite difficult to achieve but with the tyre for next year, which we understand is 25mm narrower on the tread contact patch, that will be less of a problem, I think.
AC: It was an open point for sure. It has been discussed a few times during the FOTA meetings and during the Technical Working Group. As a team we were supporting the idea of increasing the weight limit. It just came out as a surprise in the new rules for next year, as Patrick said, without consultation. So for us it’s a good move anyway.
PS: I think the only thing that I would add to what’s been said is that it’s probably worth remembering that next year’s cars will be heavier per se, the bigger fuel tanks mean more monocoque to put that fuel tank in. The fuel tank material is quite heavy. If the FOTA material restrictions are adopted and of course they can be because material restrictions abide in the appendix to the technical regulations, so they can be changed in quite short order, if the recommendations which the FOTA technical regulation working group have come up with on material restrictions are applied, then again that will increase the weight of the cars, so I think that the increased weight limit, while not entirely neutralised, will be largely neutralised just by changes in regulations.

Q: (Alan Baldwin – Reuters) Ross, I wondered if you could perhaps give us a review of Rubens’s performances this season, because while Jenson has won three of the four races, Rubens has been on the podium once and that was somewhat fortuitous. Is he doing something different to Jenson or is Jenson just performing exceptionally?
RB: I think Rubens has had a little bit of bad luck. I know luck shouldn’t come into it but I think in China he was looking very strong, in fact probably for a dry race he was in better shape than Jenson but then in the wet he had a problem with the brakes, one of the brakes glazed over on the rear which made life very interesting for him. In the last race, in Bahrain, the front wing adjustor failed during his qualifying lap and the front wing flap dropped down as he was in the middle of his qualifying lap. We’d gone for a pretty aggressive strategy and that meant being at the front and he didn’t achieve it because we had a problem with the car. I’m pleased with Rubens’s performance this year. He’s contributed an awful lot to the team, helping sort the car out. He gives very valuable technical information and I think it just hasn’t quite fallen for him this season. Jenson’s doing a superb job, so that’s the reference but I’m very happy with Rubens’s performance and I’m sure that if we get a smooth weekend he’ll be up there.

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