Q: A question to you all: can you talk us through the mass damper situation as you understand it from your point of view?
Ross BRAWN: We’ve had a system fitted on occasions this year, not every race. Some tracks it seems to suit more than others and obviously we don’t have the system fitted now. Q: And the appeal by the FIA against their own stewards’ decision?
RB: I can understand how the situation’s evolved but I think it’s a little difficult, because we tend to use the FIA technical department as the reference and obviously if they make a dramatic mistake, then that needs correcting but we’ve had lots of occasions when we perhaps haven’t agreed with their assessment of the situation. We’ve lobbied them and still not succeeded and we’ve abided by their decisions, which is the simplest way for everybody to work. Having said that, I can understand the frustrations that Renault have probably felt. But if we do get to the situation where we regularly challenge technical directors through the stewards, it’s going to get very messy, so I hope we don’t degenerate into that situation.
Q: Ross, rumours of your sabbatical. What’s your line?
RB: I’m afraid it will be a very short discussion if we want to have a discussion on it. We’ve said that we’ll make the plans of the team, specifically the team, known at the end of the season and that’s when we will make it clear what our plans are for the future and we certainly won’t make any comment before then and will concentrate on trying to win this championship.
Q: But I know one of your tasks, almost since you first went to Ferrari, is building for the future. To what extent have you been building up the personnel to perhaps take over for when you go or anyone else leaving?
RB: I think when you first go to a team and I’ve been there ten years now – I’ve been there ten years, this is the tenth year and it’s a team… I love the team, Ferrari’s a fantastic team, we’ve had a fantastic group of people – and when you first go to a team, your first job is just to sort out the dramas. When I went to Ferrari there was a lot of day-to-day things which needed to be put right. And when we got over those initial hurdles then we had to start thinking about building for the future because none of us are going to be there for ever. I think you’ve seen with Rory, who’s been a great servant of Ferrari for the past few years, that we’ve successfully brought on his successor in Aldo Costa and this car that we’re racing this year, the one that we had last year, is primarily Aldo’s car, with Rory giving what support he can, so we’ve had a very good evolution there. And there’s evolutions going on throughout the whole organisation. Formula One teams change shape and the shape of a team in the future may be different. We have our plans and people seem to be a little bit anxious about them, but I think they’re pretty positive, what we’ll be talking about at the end of the season.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Mathias Brunner – Motorsport Aktuell) Ross, usually in Hungary it’s very hot and I’m sure Bridgestone worked in that direction before the summer break. Now, in conditions like today, how difficult is it to tackle tyre choice?
RB: I think you could all see today that there was a lot of degradation in the tyres, a lot of graining going on and very few people’s tyres were working properly to a lesser or greater degree. So it’s extremely difficult today to get a picture of what’s going to be the situation by Saturday afternoon and Sunday. It’s certainly cooler than we’ve had for some time and cooler than we’ve had in testing or racing, so some of the newer compounds we’re getting experience with in these conditions. I think we’ve suffered a little bit, because normally we have a good GP2 session to settle the track down before we get out there and that wasn’t the case this morning, so it was the rawest condition we saw and on a track where, particularly here, you’re trying to push to the limits of a compound.
The compounds looked pretty ragged today, but I expect that to improve over the weekend but as to how they’ll behave in these cooler conditions, we don’t have a lot of experience, because most of the summer has been surprisingly hot and it could turn up a few surprises this weekend with the tyres. And just to elaborate on what Pat said, I think the biggest variable now for the remainder of the season is the tyres. I think both teams are working very hard on trying to improve their technical package but the thing, to me, that’s going to be the biggest variable between now and the end of the season is the tyres, how they work with the weather, how they work with the particular tracks. This race, Turkey are tracks we have very little experience of and tracks that don’t get raced on so they change a lot over the weekend. I think that’s going to be an interesting challenge for both groups for the rest of the year.
Q: (Sal Zanca – Associated Press) Ross, you said the decision will be known at the end of the year, but have you made your own decision yet? And where does all this rumour and speculation come from?
RB: I don’t know where it comes from and it won’t be an instantaneous decision at the end of the year, so the team knows what it is doing. We will make our plans known when the season finishes. I will make mine known when the season finishes.
Q: (Panos Diamantis – Car and Driver) I have a question for Mr Brawn, leaving the tyres apart, he said that the biggest progress with the car was with the aerodynamics. Can you please explain to me the contribution of Mr Nikolas Tombazis to that since he came back? How does he change things and how does he fit in your future plans?
RB: I think if you look at the performance factors of the car, at least today I think the single biggest factor is probably the tyres, followed by the aerodynamics, so the aerodynamics are crucial and the area where most teams progress in a quantifiable way during the year. So, strategically, it is a critical area of the team and I think we have and have had a very strong aerodynamic team for many years and Nikolas was part of that team up until his departure a few years ago and he has actually come back to Ferrari in a different capacity than what he was doing before so he doesn’t have the responsibility of the aerodynamic department. He is more involved now with the design of the car working with Aldo Costa so Nikolas is a very experienced and knowledgeable guy and of course his experience and knowledge is beneficial to the team. But I wouldn’t point at anything and say that Nikolas has specifically done that because a lot of these things were in the system before he rejoined us. Certainly the design of this car was complete before Nikolas rejoined us, certainly the design of this car was complete before he joined us. But to manage properly, having the more intelligent and capable people you have in an organisation the stronger you will be and he is a very intelligent and capable guy so he is a big asset to Ferrari, but I don’t think we can point at anything on the car specifically and say that was his contribution and there are very few things where you can point and say one person did that or came up with that idea. There is a system in place that evolves the ideas, but Nikolas is an asset to Ferrari, for sure, and I am very glad he came back.
Q: (Niki Takeda – Formula PA) A question for Ross and Pat – which areas of the opposition do you think are the strongest?
RB: Well, Pat taught me everything I know so that’s a problem. We both know each other’s thought process so it is something to get around that. We did work together for a long time, so we tend to think along the same lines. I think you just know that you have to keep pushing I think and certainly never give up and try to find steps in improvement for everything on the car and hope that the opposition doesn’t find as much progress.
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