Q: Ross, I don’t know how much development is going on for 2005, obviously it has taken place on the 2006 already, but how do you know what direction to go given your tyre situation so far this year?
RB: Well, I think we have been in a very unique situation being the only top team with Bridgestone tyres, so we have had no reference and when you have no reference it is often difficult to know what areas you should concentrate on, and we are rather welcoming the addition of Williams and Toyota as Bridgestone clients for next season because it will give us a much better measure of where we need to put our efforts, whether collectively those teams put their efforts into tyre development or you need to put the efforts into the car. What we are trying to do is both. Wherever we find more performance it will improve the situation, more aero performance, more engine power, chassis performance, better tyres, it just means we will go faster. I don’t think in any area we are saying ‘we have done a good enough job so we can leave it alone for next year’. We are trying to be as self-critical as we can in everything we are doing. It would be delightful if we could find a second out of the car, but that is not very realistic. But together we can try to improve the situation but we are concentrating on next year and we have a reasonably good idea of what our targets should be.

Q: Can you clarify something about Valentino Rossi testing? Apparently you said he would test every month and he said that would not be possible. What is the situation?
RB: Obviously he is the final arbitrator of what he does. I don’t determine what he does. I probably got ahead of myself because I was asked how do you go about turning Valentino Rossi into a Grand Prix driver, and to me that is how you would do it, that would be the programme to follow if Valentino wants to go Grand Prix racing. But he has indicated he has not made that decision yet, so I think we need to wait and see what he wants to do. But if he does want to do it I think I outlined how would be the best way to approach it in my view. That decision is still to be made. Obviously he is in the middle of a championship and is committed to race next year in MotoGP, so we will wait and see.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazetta dello Sport) Ross, coming back about Valentino. Can you clarify if it is true you have a commitment from him if he becomes a Formula One driver he would just drive for Ferrari, and do you already plan some tests with him before the end of the season?
RB: I would hope that if Valentino wanted to get into Formula One he would do it with Ferrari, because it is a nice combination. He has done two tests for us now, he got on very well with our people and our guys found it very exciting to have him there, so naturally it is very attractive but I think he will look at all his options and make his decision when he has to make it. As our president said, nobody is holding a gun to his head. He has to make the decisions he feels are right for him. We would certainly be interested in working with him in the future but that is something that will have to wait and see. As regards the rest of the year, I don’t think anything is committed, he wants to get his championship out of the way and decide what he is going to do.

Q: And there is no exclusive contract that you are aware of with him?
RB: No.

Q: (Anthony Rowlinson - Autosport) Can I ask each of you if there is any more progress on resolving the FIA’s suggestion of a downforce limit in Formula One, and how that may be policed if that does get introduced?
RB: I think the reason we need a downforce… or we need to control the downforce is a lot to do with cornering speeds and the fact that we start to get close to the critical speeds that have been identified for safety reasons at a number of circuits. Every few years we change the bodywork and we all predict where we are going to be, and I would think that if not now, certainly next year most of the teams will be back where they were last year, so we’ve had substantial bodywork changes and we’re getting close to back where we were last year. Now if conceptually you could introduce a means of limiting downforce to a certain threshold then it would seem to be simpler to control cornering speeds in that way, and then the teams would be interested in efficiency and the behaviour of the cars and the stability of the cars, more than just the generation of downforce. I think along with that, the aspects of cars being able to follow each other is very important and I agree with what’s been said in that we’ve certainly gone the wrong route. I’ve commented on this before but I can remember a race a few races ago where I asked Michael ‘how much faster can you go,’ because he was part of the Trulli train that was going on at the time and he said ‘I’m going as fast as I can. I can’t go any faster.’ And Jarno pulled into the pits and he went 1.5 seconds faster. He didn’t have that performance in the car as far as he was concerned, because the car was behaving so badly behind the other cars. We’ve got to solve that because it does spoil the race. I don’t think we need a dramatic increase in the amount of overtaking that goes on, but we certainly should have close racing where cars can get next to each other and attack each other. A few overtaking manoeuvres in a race would be much better. At the moment you get within 50 or 100 meters of the car in front and that’s it, you’re finished. You can’t get any closer.

Q: (Dan Knutson – National Speed Sport News) To all of you: I would like your thoughts on Toyota’s progress this year. They’ve made a big step, but has that been flattered slightly by the fact that, besides Renault, you have not had the best of seasons, and also, how difficult will it be for Toyota, a relatively new team, to maintain this upwardly momentum in ’06?
RB: I think Toyota are on an upward slope. It’s difficult to know when it will level off. They’ve certainly made pretty good progress from last year to this year. We don’t know where they will be next year. I think one of the things that Toyota have demonstrated is that they are certainly willing to commit to budgets that could exceed those of any other team. I heard them announce a second wind tunnel which is a $50m or $60m project at least, plus all the people you need to run it, plus all the parts you need to put into it, so they are making a tremendous commitment. This is not a criticism of Toyota in any way whatsoever, but we have to be careful in Formula One that we don’t end up with the team that spends the most money being the team that wins everything, because then it’s just a spending contest and not an engineering and driver contest. I wish them every success but I hope Toyota don’t end up as the Chelsea of Formula One.

Q: (Thierry Tassin – RTBF) Ross, can you please clarify when you are allowed to use the extreme weather tyres during a Grand Prix?
RB: There is no control. As long as the track has been declared wet, you can use either of the two tyres. The only requirement the FIA have is that there must be the two tyres and one of them must be a tyre which has certain land-to-sea ratio, has a certain groove pattern or a certain percentage of grooves to ensure that all the teams have a tyre that will work in very wet conditions. But when you use it, once the track has been declared wet, is up to the teams.

Q: (Steve Cooper – F1 Racing) To Ross and Jeff, you’ve both had quite extensive experience of running a V8 now and I wonder if you’ve noticed any unusual anomalies or any kind of weird characteristics which you hadn’t expected and whether we’ll see F1 cars next year perhaps being a little bit different from what they are this year?
RB: With Pat, in fact, having probably raced one of the last V8 cars in Formula One, I have fond memories of the vibration issues that you get with the configuration of a V8 and my colleagues and staff at Ferrari haven’t had that experience and despite my expectations, it’s still been a new experience for them to have bits falling off that never fell off before and were never a problem before. The biggest single change is just the vibration of a V8, certainly in certain planes and certain modes, is very high and you have to rubber-mount everything, you have to give it plenty of clearance. We are having components fail which have done high mileage on a V10. Ferrari made the step from a V12 to a V10 and they thought that was bad. Now they are discovering what a V8’s all about. But it’s a nice challenge, an interesting engineering challenge for everyone. The engine has less torque and less power but that actually has some benefits in the way that the tyres work and the handling of the car. It is an interesting engineering challenge. Rather like this year with Toyota, it’s wiping the slate clean again, everyone is having to start from a fresh reference and we don’t really know where we should be. What level of power, what rpm, what fuel consumption, what is the reference? Because over a period in Formula One you acquire that information, you can observe what other teams are doing, you can see what’s achievable and therefore you know what you have to try to achieve yourself. Nobody really knows with a V8; whether 700 horsepower is enough, 750 or 800, who knows? We will find out in the first part of next year. Those that don’t have the highest power output will have to catch up very quickly and those that will, can consolidate a bit and work on other aspects. It’s a very interesting challenge and one that we have had a reasonable amount of time to organise ourselves so, harping back to my earlier point, it has been less frustrating because we have had the time to work on it properly.

Q: (Anthony Rowlinson - Autosport) Do you think McLaren may have established a decisive performance advantage this year which would lead to a period of domination in the sport for the next two or three years or do you think too much will change next year for that to take place?
RB: I think teams do get impetus: there is the inertia that gets going and you get confidence and you are more comfortable with making the decisions you need to make, but I think regulation changes throw in a potentially disturbing factor in there and I think we have not come out of the past regulation changes very well, the last year’s regulation changes. I think when there is no regulation changes you have a logical evolution of the cars. Next year there are more regulations changes again which actually are very substantial because they involve not only the engine but the level of drag you can carry on the car, the type of tyres that maybe you want with the power outputs, there are some small aerodynamic changes to the regulations next year, so it’s not a very continuous year from this year to next year and that always gives the potential for someone to get it wrong and someone to get it right. But undoubtedly McLaren have a very quick car. They’ve not been able to capitalise on it as much as they probably would have like to have and they will have that inertia taking them through the winter into next year but regulations changes can definitely throw a double six in there.