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Q & A with Mario Theissen

In a much modest event than rivals McLaren, the BMW Sauber team unveiled their new car for the 2007 season, and with it, their revised ambitions following last year's promising performance

Autosport.com heard from BMW Motorsport boss Mario Theissen about their goals, their drivers and much more.

Q. With the money spent last night on a (McLaren) launch, and the money you have spent today, which team boss will sleep easier tonight?

Mario Theissen: I can only say I slept very well. I don't know about Ron Dennis. I haven't been in contact with him, so no idea.

Q. When did the dyno work on the new gearbox start, and how is it going?

MT: The dyno work started a month ago, I don't know when. We have done several endurance runs already. Some of them failed, some of them worked, so we are in the middle of development.

Q. Why have you developed a new electronics system for this year when the sport is moving towards a single supplier next season?

MT: That is certainly something that we had not expected when we started the programme two years ago. Maybe we would not have done it, knowing about the regulations. But we do not see an advantage just this year, but also in the future. There are discussions to free electronics from 2011 onwards, so we have the perfect base for that.

Q. Are Robert Kubica and Sebastian Vettel the future of F1? Are you deliberately going for youth?

MT: It might look like we go for the youngest kinds on the grid. We have the perfect blend of experience and youth and it is certainly exceptional to have a 19-year-old and a 21-year-old in the car, but we all know how Robert developed. He is certainly up to the game and, if you look at Sebastian (Vettel) and Timo (Glock) they started their career in Formula BMW.

It not only demonstrates how strong Formula BMW is as a feeder series, but having worked with a young guy for one or two years in Formula BMW, we know him and we know what to expect of him. It is different to a young driver coming from the outside.

Q. With you being unable to change the internals of the engine, how much can you improve over the season?

MT: There is a cut and there has been a cut on December 15. We had to provide the specific design to the FIA on that date and now we are busy to realise that. We are still working on the engine and have to present the real engine to the FIA on March 1, and apparently all the changes are now being realised.

The engine is being tested on the dyno to be ready by March 1. It will mainly be about mapping the engine through the season, so the potential gains are quite small after that.

Q. Last year you showed courage in sacking Jacques Villeneuve and replacing him with Robert Kubica, which was the right choice. Is there a risk to Nick being sacked?

MT: I am really happy about the driver line-up we have. The four guys are exactly the four people we wanted to have on board, and I am sure the race drivers are ready to win a race when the car is ready. So there is no idea to change anything.

Q. Who faces bigger pressure this season -- Nick with Robert in his back, or Robert to prove that last year was no fluke?

MT: The entire team is under pressure and that includes both drivers. Nick said before on stage that he is used to pressure, and the same applies to Robert - and all the engineers in the team. It is not something specific to anybody.

Q. Is it a coincidence that three of your drivers are German, or is that a deliberate choice?

MT: It is a coincidence. We don't go for certain nationalities but for the best drivers we see, and the best drivers we think will fit for our teams. It is a nice coincidence from the German market and the German media point of view. BMW is a German company, but we operate globally.

Seventeen out of 18 races will be in other counties. I like the situation, but we definitely went for the strongest drivers we could have. If there is a philosophy it is about Formula BMW and it is not a coincidence that two of these four drivers came out of Formula BMW

Q. There is currently some talk in the sport about the plans of Super Aguri and Scuderia Toro Rosso to race customer chassis next season. Do you have any view about that?

MT: There is some debate and we are not in the front row of these discussions. There is a debate about the legality of using cars not designed by their own teams in 2007, although the situation will change next year (2008). To me it is not so much an issue; it just makes a difference of one year if we do it now or next year. I know there is ongoing debate but we are not focusing on it.

My concern in this respect is not 2007; it is about the general rule of chassis sharing in the future. In my view it will change the shape of F1. It will change the set-up of independent teams.

Today there are 11 teams on the grid who all want to compete against each other with different resources, but they are competitors to everyone else. With chassis sale I expect a new breed of teams to come up, teams who see the whole thing as a business case.

They will get a chassis and an entire car in exchange of money and then support the manufacturer team. That could lead to a situation of six four-car teams on the grid and I don't know if this is beneficial for F1. So, if the championship comes into a crucial phase and only one driver has a chance, then the team could use three drivers to help that one.

Q. Is this season the most open that you can remember, and if so how close can BMW-Sauber go to the title?

MT: No idea, ask me at the end of the season! We discussed it before, the gap between the front teams and us is quite big. It was quite big last year, but the gap closes from both sides. Each point we win, they lose, so I hope we can make a significant step forward in terms of competitiveness.

We rate that on a lap time basis. We have made good progress so far. We have cut the original gap of the original Sauber team by half last year and want to cut it by half again this year to be really strong in 2008. We have to see what our competitors can achieve, so it is hard to make a prediction of how we will be in the Constructors' Championships.

Q. What about the costs for BMW-Sauber, are you spending as much this year as last year?

MT: The budget this year will be the same level like last year and that was the same level as Williams before as an engine supplier. We don't spend more money on the entire team now due to strong partners.

Q. Ferrari are supplying three teams with engines. Why are BMW not supplying more than one team?

MT: We had the discussion one year ago. Capacity wise in our Munich factory we could supply two teams because we build less engines than we used to, but we thought we would merge ourselves completely with the Sauber operation. For the future we would be ready to supply a second team.

Q. Would that extend to a customer car?

MT: We are ready to supply a second team with an engine. We are still observing the situation of chassis sale and have not made up our mind. We hope there will be some clarifications on how the relationship between two teams using the same chassis will be.

Q. How important will a third driver be this season?

MT: I think it is important to have the drivers acting as one team, to have the transfer from a test to a race weekend situation and to develop the drivers and put them in a situation and make them acquainted with what they expect from a race weekend. It is part of the team building process to have at least one of the test drivers driving on a Friday as well. It may not be all sessions, but we will always have a test driver there and always have him in a car.

Q. Will Timo do any Friday running?

MT: Currently we don't intend that.

Q. There are fewer races this year than last year, and talks of a race in Singapore. How would you view another race in that region?

MT: I don't know how likely that is to happen. We welcome races in Asia. It has been a very healthy process to move F1 from a European championship with some overseas races to a true world championship. Asia is the fast growing and developing area in the world and it fosters the growth of motorsport; it helps the ambitions of the big manufacturers to be there so we would always support one more race in Asia.

Q. You have said Robert was always critical of his mistakes and that was one of the things that impressed you about him last year. How do you rate him now?

MT: He made a brilliant impression last year, and he has demonstrated that he has the potential to become one of the top drivers. He has demonstrated that he is very focused and I just expect him to continue developing like last year.

Q. You say your goal is to get closer to the top three teams, who is your main rival in coming fourth in the Constructors' Championship?

MT: I really don't know. We have seen shake ups or significant changes with all the teams in terms of drivers, in terms of engineers, team principals even, so I expect a transitional phase between the top four or five teams this year and into next year. It is not clear who will emerge into the strongest. If you look at the top three, the teams ahead of us, the original top three Renault, McLaren and Ferrari, it will be interesting to see how they develop over the season.

Q. Last season BMW had a low-key approach, played down expectations and scored podiums. Do you think you will do better than your expectations this year and actually win?

MT: At least we have started with a low-key presentation - that could be a good omen! We have achieved two podiums last year, one on our own strength in Monza and the other mainly thanks to the merit of a very strong driver in the wet - Nick. When I say we want to be on the podium this year, I mean on our own strength.

There is some space to be there, but that remains our target. If, like last year, strange things happen and certain circumstances come up to allow us to win, then we would want to be there - but it is not realistic to do it on our own strengths.

Q. Where is biggest place for development of your team?

MT: The car is still the key factor, not so much the engine for this year. There is the aero, the chassis, the way the car works, the tyres, and we are in the second year of our ramp up programme and in our case team development is an important part as well.

Q. You have said the team must think of different ways to close the gap. Is that the only way to make progress?

MT: We mentioned one area before, which is the close interaction of computer simulation, aero simulation and experimental aero work in the tunnel. That is an area we are working on. A big part of our staff increases goes into the tunnel. There are lots of small modifications on the car that are the results of this intense aero work, and we want to continue on this path.

We certainly do not intend to follow in the footsteps of the big teams. You saw last year that we were quite aggressive on the aero side and, if you want to close the gap and overtake your competitors, then you have to take different routes, different approaches, I expect us to be aggressive again - and not just on the aero side.

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