Craig Pollock Q&A

"I must admit nobody really thought about trying to be the first one out. But the earlier you get out, the more time you have to work on reliability, and the first race is when you're going to pick up important points with reliability as opposed to pure performance. It's still a compromise. We'd still probably like to out to be out even later, getting extra performance, but we can't take that risk."



"It's been a huge effort by everyone in the facility. Three hundred and fifty people have put in a massive effort. It's been great, but motivation has just been building up and building up since the end of the season. I'm not surprised that we're the first ones out, because the motivation factor is so high."



"Just about everything is different. Because of the rule changes every part on the bodywork has changed, obviously. We had to comply with very stringent goal that the technical working group set themselves, vis a vis the impact test regulations. It can't get an awful lot safer than it is. What we tried to do is change every part of the car in such a way that we were trying to gain performance."



"There's no question that we've been more aggressive. Last year we were very conservative, because we couldn't afford to have reliability problems. The previous year we had literally 16 car-related problems that stopped the car. Last year we had one. So there was a huge improvement. This year we're going more for performance, so maybe we're expecting to get a few extra chassis-related problems, but certainly not as many as 1999."



"Certainly there is more of a compromise, more of a balance."



"We still think there's a gap between McLaren and Ferrari and the rest of the field, but we're aiming to close that gap. Third is a huge challenge, because you're having to get in front of Benetton, you're having to get in front of Williams. These teams have a huge amount of experience. But I'd be very surprised if Williams and ourselves and even Benetton don't close that gap this year."



"I think it's critical for us, but I think it's also critical for Ferrari and McLaren. I wouldn't take them out of that equation. If the Michelins are good at one track, you could probably find that they qualify ahead of Ferrari and McLaren, which then pushes everybody back. And that could happen at a couple of races this year. It better not!"



"Obviously we have a direct comparison because we now have exactly the same engine, but the incentive is not just to beat Jordan. The incentive has to be McLaren, Ferrari and Williams. If we aim at Jordan today, even though we think that Jordan is a very professionally run team, we'll never close that gap to the top."



"Really, really well."



"Everything we expected, and more. It's the start of the season, and obviously it's too early to tell exactly how it's all going to work out. But we're expecting a lot out of Olivier, because we're expecting a lot out of our car. He had come in with a positive attitude. He's come in very hungry, and he's come in wanting to do the best for the team. He is in contact with me daily, and he's making a huge effort. He knows that Jacques and myself are very close, but he's actually more in contact than Jacques is! I think it's very, very positive for the team. Nobody can say it's because of lack of communication, or the team is not behind him. The team is now so much behind him that Jacques is now going to have to start to make an effort. And that's the way it should be."



"The idea is to have the two drivers pushing each other. The harder they push each other, the faster that car is going to go. And also the more you push the car to the limits the more it's going to break, and the more you're going to find that extra performance. I think it's a very, very good driver combination."



"The thinking behind it is absolutely clear. Everybody is looking for the next Villeneuve, Schumacher or Senna. The earlier you get in the more chance you have of finding them. But also the earlier you get in the more chance you have of training them up in your way. We know with Anthony it's very, very early. He's going to cut his teeth more than anything else, more than just being a pure test driver, because as yet he's not ready to be a full blown test driver in an F1 team. That's why we're also covered elsewhere. We intend to be as testing as much as humanly possible this year, and we intend not to totally tire out our race drivers. We're probably over-covered, but we're betting being that than under-covered. In our first year we were definitely under-covered. Ricardo had an accident in Brazil, and we had to get another driver very, very quickly. Luckily we had Mika available, but we don't want to get ourselves in that position again."



"I'm relatively sceptical. Even though I believe that Raikkonen is a talented driver, I still don't believe that he's done enough driving to be sitting in an F1 car. The problem is not for him driving around a track, the problem is his lack of experience potentially causing a situation that could be dangerous. The problem is that when a driver goes out and has to race in anger, and he hasn't been in enough situations to be able to react instinctively. I seriously believe that that is a potential issue."



"The ideal example happened in this team. We had a hugely talented driver coming out of other series, where he'd won. But he had a lack of experience in F1 and came into a team with a lack of experience. We made the mistake in reality of not understanding that we needed two really experienced drivers at the start to accelerate the team. We took one in Jacques, but while Ricardo was a talented driver, to my mind he should have tried to get into a Williams or a McLaren."