Frentzen testing Q&A

"Just mainly tyres. We have got a couple of constructions and compounds here. Tyre testing is the main programme. The secondary programme involves some 2001 items for the car - the brakes, other mechanical parts and also front and rear wings. We are running in a lower downforce set-up because we are expecting to have less downforce next year. We are not running exactly like we will next year, because the car is not quite right yet."



"We are not running the new engine yet. We are still using the same engine that we have used all year, because the new one is very different form the Mugen and would not fit into our chassis and it is not worth building an interim chassis because the new car will be ready in January. But we are trying some 2001 Honda components, like new electronics."



"It will be new, but I can't tell you anything about it because we don't know yet. And anyway it's top secret!"



"Well, we are not actually looking for lap times here: we know what we can do so we are not really looking to get quick times out of the car. The main point of the test is to evaluate the 2001 tyres for Bridgestone."



"I think the lap times will come down anyway because of the increase in performance of the car, but I don't think the lap times will be that much faster than this year in 2001. The tyres will probably compensate for the loss of speed from aerodynamic restrictions, so the times should be more or less the same."



"With wet tyres it is very difficult to say because there are so many different options, in terms of compounds and types of tyre. I think we will have the situation where a certain tyre will work well in a particular window in the wet. Because of the variety of conditions in the wet, you cannot produce a tyre that fits all types of conditions, from intermediate, to light rain and then really heavy rain. It's really hard to make judgements at this early stage, because we haven't been able to compare in all that variety of conditions. Maybe you could make some early judgements in dry conditions. It's going to be very important for the tyre companies next year to have the flexibility to produce many different compounds for a race weekend and then have a good tyre for each compound. But then also it's up to the teams to make the right tyre choice."



"I don't think it's a good thing. Every driver believes that he is very good and that he can control the car well enough by himself, but with traction control everybody will be able to do the same job."



"Occasionally we have tried something like traction control, but we are not really concentrating on that yet."



"Well he seems very nice. He said hello to me and I have said hello to him. He's a very experienced driver and that's very helpful for us. His experience is very useful when we are testing and it is always good to get the opinion of a good driver. But also I think he wants to come back to racing in Formula 1 and he's very motivated. I better watch my back!"