Interview: Richards Ready to Toughen up BAR's Image

The humble beanbag could be next in the firing line at British American Racing.

David Richards, who replaced Craig Pollock as boss of the high-spending Formula One team in December, is ready to stiffen up BAR's laid-back image after an initial restructuring.

Engineering director Malcolm Oastler and chief designer Andy Green were shown the door last month and some 50 employees, representing roughly 15 percent of the staff, are also to go.

Further "fine tuning" is likely before the end of the year as reality bites at the underperforming British American Tobacco (BAT) owned team.

"Racing teams can't afford to be nice cosy environments," Richards told Reuters at the Brazilian Grand Prix last weekend. "It's a fairly harsh, competitive sport where the team seems to have been cosetted basically.

"The team has under-performed for the resources and finance behind it and hasn't been taken to task on it. I've come in and taken them all to task. I expect to be held accountable and I think everyone else in the team should be as well."

Comfort is out, replaced by the flash of cold steel. That means that the soft, squishy objects laid out for lounging around on in BAR's European motorhome 'chill out' room last season could soon be history.

Consolidation Year

"We have to address the entire culture of the organisation," Richards said. "It doesn't really fit totally with the Formula One image," he added with a wry smile. "It's not what this is about and certainly not what I bring to the party.

"I think beanbags are in the past."

The future is mapped out by Richards as another consolidation year before the Honda-powered team can become real contenders in 2004.

"My immediate priority is to make the team into a competitive organisation, to structure it appropriately and deliver some value back to BAT who have invested so much in it for so little return to date," he said.

BAR failed to score a point in their first season, finished fifth in their second and sixth last year when Canadian Jacques Villeneuve - around whom the team was structured - secured their first podium.

They have yet to score a point this season, and two podiums in more than three years of racing represents scant reward for the hundreds of millions of dollars invested by BAT.

"Not only are we not fast enough but we still have reliability issues to address," said Richards after both his drivers retired on Sunday.

Villeneuve, the team's image man who is managed by Pollock and was World Champion with Williams in 1997, said last week that BAR could hope for little more than salvaging their season in 2002.

"I would hope that we can exceed those expectations," said Richards. "It will be difficult but I think we can make significant progress.

"This year is really about sorting out immediate issues, getting the team structured and the morale back and then building a car for next year that is properly engineered and has all the right attributes about it. Next year will be a year of real consolidation before hopefully being competitive in 2004. I feel today quite positive about that."

No Rocket Science

Some observers, Villeneuve included, agreed that BAR was crying out for action to be taken but suggested that Pollock's hands might have been more tied. Richards, who won the world rally title as co-driver to Ari Vatanen and now owns the commercial rights to that series, kicked that notion swiftly into touch.

"I have exactly the same mandate that Craig had for the last 12 months. It's all very easy to say in hindsight I would have done exactly the same thing," he said. "The fact of the matter is, it wasn't done and I'm doing it now.

"There's no rocket science about this, it's just straightforward management of a business," he said of the restructuring. "We've spent a lot of time discussing things with people inside the company over the last week, and that's going on next week as well to make sure everyone's very clear about where they sit.

"I had a presentation to the entire team (last Thursday), there must have been about 250 people there, and I made it very clear - motor racing doesn't provide jobs for life," he said. "But nonetheless a good solid team of people working together can be reassured about my loyalty to them."

Richards, a former Benetton team boss, also founded the Prodrive engineering company that runs the Subaru rally team as well as tuning cars for Ferrari and other marques in touring cars and sportscar racing. He has used Prodrive's expertise in assessing BAR but insists there has been no takeover by that firm.

"I expect when we arrive in Imola (for the next race, the San Marino Grand Prix on April 14) I can put some more meat on the bones for everybody, to give them a better understanding of what's gone on," said Richards.