Q: One set of tyres for the weekend, does that mean more testing, because presumably to evaluate a set of tyres that’s going to do three or four hundred kilometres you’ve actually got to do three or four hundred kilometres to understand what they’ll do. So does that mean you’re going to be out running a lot more often?
RB: I think there will be a lot more predictive techniques developed to avoid that because I don’t think it’s practical to be out testing every set of tyres for three or four hundred kilometres. I think the teams and tyre suppliers will develop techniques whereby after a short period you can make an initial assessment and then when you’re down to the – let’s say – a short list of candidates you may well do long runs on them, but I don’t think it is necessary for us to do that sort of mileage on every set of test tyres.

Q: Ross, I believe you ran a 2005 car spec car recently, what was the feedback from the drivers and what did you learn from it?
RB: It is not strictly a 2005 car, it’s a car which we have modified to achieve the performance levels which we think we will have in 2005. It wouldn’t comply to the 2005 regulations but it’s a sort of muletto of bits and pieces that put it at the performance level. I think we got exactly what you expect when you reduce the downforce by 15-20 percent: less grip, more tricky to drive initially, so for the first day, the drivers were finding it a little bit of a handful but once they readjusted their reference point, then it was fine. The reason for doing it is to have some meaningful development on tyres and engine management and things like that. It’s been very useful in that respect. I think the tyres are at a very early stage. We don’t have a tyre yet which can do a complete race. It would be pointless to try and develop a one race tyre with the car we have now. We need to develop a one race tyre with the car we think we will have next year.

Q: You said your car has 15 percent less downforce. What sort of amount lost would you be happy with by the time you get to Melbourne? How much of that do you expect to have clawed back, percentage wise?
RB: Well that’s where we would hope to be. When we put a 2005 package on the wind tunnel model we lost nearly 30 percent. We’re gradually getting that back. We would be pleased if we get to 15 percent less than where we are now.

Q: Back to Ross again, you’ve ticked just about every box there is to be ticked this year. Rubens said yesterday he doesn’t expect any presents in going out to try and win his home Grand Prix but it would complete the picture for a totally dominant 2004. How are you going to do it, what’s going to happen?
RB: There is obviously a lot of people trying to stop us doing it, so I think it’s going to be a challenging weekend. We are very pleased with the car and tyre performance today. We started the session a little bit out of shape, the car was a bit tricky to begin with but the engineers and drivers dialled it in pretty quickly and when track cleaned up a bit the whole thing was working well and we had some very encouraging runs in the second session with fuel and race tyres. But it looks like Rubens and Michael are going to be very close this weekend. Rubens is very determined to correct his record in Brazil, it would be fantastic if you could. But Michael’s determined to stop him and I would be disappointed if he wasn’t. There is no team orders and they are free to race so it’s going to be a fascinating weekend.

Q: You mentioned team orders, when the championship’s still open, I think I’ve right in saying your policy is to let them race up until the final pit stops and then to hold stage. As it’s the last race and the championship is already wrapped up, are they racing to the flag on Sunday?
RB: Well, the only reason we apply any management is to preserve the cars. We have a good finishing record and that doesn’t come by accident. We don’t want the drivers abusing the cars any more than they have to. It is important that they finish the race, so I don’t think we will change our policy because it’s the last race. But they are free to race and there’s plenty of potential.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Heinz Pruller - ORF) Gentlemen, I’m sure there’s a lot more behind the new tyre rule. What about the pit stops, obviously you don’t have pit stops for tyre changes now? Will you have bigger tanks, will you have less pit stops because you don’t have to change tyres? And, what happens if you have a puncture or a slow puncture? Who will decide if you can allow to change this tyre? I think there are a lot of loopholes in this regulation, can I have your comments?
RB: I think the fuel situation won’t change dramatically because of the need to qualify with race fuel. I think if we fill the cars up too much qualifying is going to be difficult. We’ve seen lots of times when if you get some free space at the beginning of the race you can use it. I don’t think the fuel tanks are particularly going to get much bigger. I don’t think the strategies are going to dramatically change. There may be times when we would have done a three stop because of the tyre situation and it will now evolve to a two-stop. I would be surprised if we see many one stops, even with these regulations but it depends how the situation develops. If you run high fuel load you just stress the tyres more, so we’ve got to look after the tyres for the whole race. In terms of puncture, I believe there is some detail to sort out, it’s true, because we want this set of regulations where we all clearly understand how we can operate. One suggestion, with the puncture scenario is that you can change the tyre but you have to use a tyre which is at least used, one of the tyres that you have already used in practice rather than put on a new set. But I believe that now the rules are clear there is a need to sit down with the FIA and debate the best way forward to apply these detailed points.

Q: (Niki Takeda) Question for all of you. Is there a situation this year you would have done differently?
RB: Fortunately very few. But Spa was a little bit disappointing because the safety car sequence made it quite difficult, but I guess Monaco was the biggest disappointment. I think from a situation where we were not as competitive as we wanted to be, we suddenly had an opportunity to maybe at least challenge for the race and it was taken away from us by a silly incident. That is probably the most frustration race for us.

Q: (Alan Baldwin - Reuters) Ross, I know the new car is the best ever and each season you try and make it the best season you have ever had. But can you realistically do better than this season?
RB: Yeah, each season is different. I must say after 2002, it was dream season and I didn’t imagine we could repeat that but this year has been just as good. Each season is shaped by your own efforts and the efforts of the other teams and all we can do is work hard and try to produce the best car we can and see what the opposition is like. It is hard to imagine any season to be better than the one we have had. But I think we just put them in different categories: 2003 was rewarding in the end because we won the championship under very difficult circumstances and we showed we can fight very hard when we have to. This season has been rewarding because of the performance of the team and car in different circumstance. Any year you win the championship is a fantastic season and we don’t forget that.

Q: (Peter Windsor – F1 Racing) Ross, the new tyre proposals might mean that a three-stopper might come down to a two-stopper. How does that sit with the FIA’s decision earlier this year to increase the speed limit to try to encourage more to do three-stop races rather than two-stop races? Where are we at, in fact, in terms of what Formula One thinks of pit-stops? It is a bit confusing. Is there an argument to not have pit-stops at all and have non-stop racing?
RB: I think as always there is lots of good arguments and lots of good counter arguments. I think one of reasons that perhaps we moved away from one stop was the fuel loads. I know we have not had any fires for a very long time, but the cars are extremely heavy with that fuel load and if we do have any accident it could be worse. There are very fine points for debate. Whether Formula One is better with pit-stops and what shape those pit-stops should take is really a difficult question. What I think has got to be interesting with the one tyre race is the driver’s need for sure to look after the tyres through the whole race. I’ve said it before but Prost was a master of conserving the tyres and using when they were most effective and I think we will have that sort of scenario next year. You will have to look after the tyres at the correct stages of the race and use them at key parts of the race and it will bring another dimension to the drivers’ ability. At the moment there is a lot of races where the driver can drive 100 percent the whole session, which is good in itself, but I think we get overtaken when there is a disparity in performance between cars and I think the one tyre per race rule will create situations where there is disparity in performance between cars.

Q: (Heinz Pruller) Gentlemen I have asked about the low points of the season. I would not like to ask about the high points of the season and the most strange and extraordinary thing, the secret or funny story.
RB: I think the high point for us was obviously Melbourne when we saw how competitive we were because over the winter…the winter Grand Prix means very little. I think Bridgestone had diligently putting their programme together with compounds, constructions and tyre shapes, but we hadn’t really run the definitive 2004 tyre until quite late in the programme. There were times testing at some of the tracks where we looked to be behind in performance. But with the new car and the final version of the car we went to Melbourne and that is where everything becomes clear. That was the high point of the season for me. We had some great races as well. The craziest thing for me was to crash behind the safety car in Monaco. It is unheard of.

Q: (Byron Young – Daily Mirror) What are the cost implications of the new regulations?
RB: I think for us there is potential for cost saving on the engine. I understand to some degree the reluctance to follow the compliance to change the 2.4 V8. Our view is that there will be a few less engines produced, fewer components, which may not sound a lot but it is fewer components. In my experience over the last few years engine manufacturers have built new engines every year. We certainly build new engines every year and the architecture of those engines have often been quite different. I think going to a new 2.4 V8 is not a big change, there is nothing dramatic to it and I think the constraints to that engine in terms of geometry and material – it will fundamentally be a cheaper engine. You may say that a team like Ferrari spend what they get, which is true – we make good of the funding that is released into other projects, but it is very important for teams like Sauber and other teams that have to buy their engines to provide a reasonable cost base. Those teams will see the significant difference
in their engine bill in the future. That is partly the reason why we supported it. Ferrari will spend the budget it can generate from its partners and its sponsors. The car point of view it is no different, and from the tyre point of view there is a small saving from the consumption of time.

Q: (Byron Young) We’ve seen a lot of teams come and go over the years, but is there any extra sadness to see a name like Jaguar go, especially when they connected to a giant car company like Ford?
RB: I worked for Jaguar in the late 80’s early 90’s on their sportscar programme and I think there is a strong heritage Jaguar has with sportscars. They had a lot of tradition at Le Mans and perhaps that is where they were at their strongest. I don’t think Jaguar and Formula One really worked. It is a shame to see them go. If I put my other hat on as a Brit…what could have been a very strong national team doing well. I’ve seen the spirit Ferrari creates in Italy and it is fantastic and if that had been created by Jaguar in Britain it would have been quite an achievement. So it is bad to see them go. But I don’t think they have been able to make a success of their Formula One programme for whatever reason.

Q: (Heinz Pruller) Can you tell me how many engines you build a year? Is it around 100?
RB: It is a little bit more but of course we are also supplying Peter with his engines. Before the one race engine rule we were producing about 150 but it is reduced now. We obviously predict to build less next year. Those numbers a lot of the top teams are looking at. A lot of those engines aren’t full cost engines, they are made up of bits that have been used. They are not necessarily 100 or 150 brand new engines. There are a lot of engines we put together from bits and pieces for testing or development.

Q: (Byron Young) If we have three car teams next year does it make any difference to the way the races are run if that third car does or doesn’t score points?
RB: I understand what Sam is saying. It is difficult if it scores points for lots of reasons. It makes it compulsory to run a third car and we go from a scenario where probably none of us wants to run a third car to all of us wanting to run a third car in a full-blown format. But I agree it makes it difficult in the race if you have cars that can score points and cars that can’t score points. Whether there is a system that could be evolved to allow each team an equal share of a third car, because there are teams that can’t fund a third car. If you look at the scenario for someone like Peter Sauber to run a third car, next engine bill, all the consumables that go with it. He doesn’t have the resources to run a third car. It would be unfair on him if teams who were able to run a third car were away scoring points and he can’t do that. There is a lot things to sort out if we get into the third car scenario.