|
Team
principals: Gerhard Berger (Toro Rosso), Mario Theissen (BMW
Sauber), Martin Whitmarsh (McLaren Mercedes)
Q: Gerhard, last weekend you must have been very encouraged by that
performance, Sebastian Vettel’s qualifying and Sebastien Bourdais’
performance during the race itself.
Gerhard Berger: Everything was fine. It was a good performance by
the team but unfortunately we still had a couple of technical problems.
When you start with the old car, obviously, that is exactly what you
want to avoid. But you can see the team is still small, it is still at
the beginning and mistakes are still happening. We had a failure on the
drive-shaft and that is why we stopped two laps before the end.
Obviously that is hurting a lot and that’s some points that we lost.
But nevertheless, if someone had told me before we went to Australia
that you are going to have one car in the first 10 and one car in the
points I would have been very happy.
Q: What about the fact that you are going to have the new car in
Turkey or Spain? A new car but that chassis at the moment is having a
lot of problems.
GB: We are going to face the problems and try to sort it out.
Q: Do you have to take that car or might you prefer to keep the old
one?
GB: Well no, I think that the potential of the new car is better. It
is clearly, clearly forward. We just see a couple of problems and we
have to work on them.
Q: Will you let Red Bull Racing sort them out?
GB: I mean everybody is going to work hard on whatever problem he
faces. Obviously, it is going to be different cars with different
engines and different lay-outs, but we will just sort out the problems
we face when we run our car.
Q: And the future of the team? Since Australia Dietrich Mateschitz
has put out this statement or has been quoted as saying that obviously
he cannot build two separate cars, so one team will have to go.
GB: We fix the problem, nobody can afford it. Just put the price up
and nobody is going to buy it and we can stay like we are. No, I think
obviously, always there are three or four independent teams struggling
in F1. It is always a fight. It is a financial fight. It is a technical
fight. It is a political fight. Always fighting. But you have to go
through this and I have been extremely lucky to have a partner like Red
Bull. But it was always clear when Red Bull came in that he is prepared
to run two teams as long as he can work in synergies and run two teams
out of one technology centre. From 2010 this is going to difficult, a
couple of people are unhappy about that, and he says ‘I am not going
to be prepared to build and compete with two teams.’ I fully respect
what he is doing or what he is thinking or what he needs to do. And for
me the most important thing in his statement was to say that if I sell
my part I am just going to sell it if I have somebody the same or better
than myself, so that the team’s future is secure. Until this moment I
cannot say what my position is because I have to see it is the right
future. Can we set goals and can we reach goals because the last thing I
want is to just be in F1 and running at the back around the circuit. But
on the other side if this happens I am totally happy to fight with the
team and to fight through and to look forward to good times.
Q: Is there any chance that this ruling that you have to make your
own car will change?
GB: I don’t know.
Q: Perhaps Martin and Mario, you can throw some light on that? Are
you against that ruling?
Martin Whitmarsh: I think philosophically F1 should be about
constructors who design their own cars, but I think it is
well-publicised that we take a very pragmatic view. When it looked a
year ago as though you could have a customer car in F1 we worked very
strongly with Prodrive. We checked back with the FIA before we embarked
on that programme. Opinions changed during the course of the year
otherwise possibly we would be here supporting a customer team
ourselves, so we can’t be too hypocritical about that. The reality is
we need to have a strong grid in F1. We need independent teams like
Gerhard’s to survive and I think it is up to the bigger teams and to
the automotive manufacturers and the FIA to work together to make sure
that we have got a sport that can keep that many teams in it.
Q: Mario?
Mario Theissen: We were right away of the view last year that it
would not be a good thing to have two classes of teams on the grid.
Teams who go for victory and other teams who just support their number
one team, so we are happy about the situation as it is now. Certainly,
we support what Martin just said. We need the independent teams on the
grid and we have to find a solution for them to be able to compete and
to be in F1.
Q: Can I stay with you Mario. A tremendous performance in Australia.
Second in qualifying and second in the race. Did you expect to be the
main challenger of whoever the top team was going to be?
MT: Honestly not. I was very confident that we would stay ahead of
the teams we had beaten last year. I hoped that we were closer to the
top two teams last year and that happened. On top of that, Ferrari
didn’t live up to their standard performance, so this helped us to get
onto the podium. But that can change. It can change here already. But
still I am very happy about the performance we have shown. In qualifying
we saw that we are certainly closer to the front than we expected to be
and that shows that the team has done a very strong job in the past six
to eight weeks since the launch of the car. We have improved it
dramatically, so this is certainly a good prospect for the season.
Q: One thing we saw in Australia was two teams – Ferrari and
McLaren in particular - so confident of getting through Q1 and Q2 that
they concentrated on Q3 and the race. Is that something that you might
consider from now on and how much of an advantage is it?
MT: I think that is what we did as well. Through the entire Friday
and the Saturday morning we spent the whole time on race preparation,
just the final run in P3 we looked at qualifying performance. Other than
that we were fully focussed on race performance.
Q: One final question. A lot of people are already working on 2009.
Perhaps you can tell us how advanced you are and what it means to you to
have the KERS system which is going to be coming into force.
MT: It is mainly two areas everybody is working on. Of course the
new aero package which is totally different to what we are racing today.
And then KERS where there is an even bigger question mark because it is
new technology which we will use only nine months from now. It is
technology which is not available yet which goes way beyond what hybrid
road cars are using today, so I am really excited about this project
because I am sure we will leap-frog current technology. We will provide
a step change for future road car technology and this is a position we
wanted to be in for years and it really enhances what we do in F1.
Q: So you have a team working on that already?
MT: Sure. Everybody has. We are really focussed on that.
Q: Martin. Who did you expect to be your rivals in Australia and did
it turn out slightly differently?
Martin Whitmarsh: Of course, Ferrari showed a strong pace all
through the winter and we expected them to be the rivals. I think as
Mario said they didn’t perform to their game which was fortunate maybe
for all us. They are still a strong team and we know they are going to
be tough to beat during the remainder of this season. But in reality it
was perhaps a slightly more comfortable victory for us than we had
expected. We were able to cover as much as we could in the safety cars.
We did stop Lewis (Hamilton) early on both occasions. We got Heikki
(Kovalainen) in early on the first occasion but not quite early enough
on the second occasion. We were comfortably in control. But we are under
no illusion and I think it has been clear here today that Ferrari are
very strong and for the time being at least they are going to be our
major competitors or we theirs. But we don’t take for granted that
Mario and all the other teams are going to be improving and they are
going to be tough to consistently beat as the season progresses.
Q: What about Heikki, he seems to have perhaps exceeded expectations?
MW: Heikki’s just done a fantastic job, again, a very solid day
today. Coming into the McLaren team, I think he had a season last year
which was very difficult, if you think of Australia 2007. As he came out
of that, I think progressively during the course of what was a difficult
year, he rebuilt his self-belief and his confidence and his pride.
Coming into McLaren, alongside Lewis, was huge pressure. He really has
done a fantastic job, and frankly, if it wasn’t for the safety car (in
Australia), he would have been a very very strong second place. Here,
again, he has done a very solid job today. We’re absolutely delighted
with Heikki, we wouldn’t have brought him into the team unless we
believed he had the potential, obviously, but I think he’s proven to a
lot of people that he can win races and I’m sure he will during the
course of this year.
Q: You don’t fear the same problems as you had last year? How
different is his approach?
MW: Within the team at the moment there’s a fantastic atmosphere
and I think everyone here has some experience of Heikki who’s a very
straightforward individual. He’s a very enthusiastic and open
individual and the team spirit is great. When he starts to become even
more competitive, I think that team spirit will see us through, but one
never knows. We’ve been proven wrong in the past but I hope that on
this occasion we’re going to have a very strong season with both of
our drivers.
|
