Malcolm Oastler Q&A

"I suppose you'd almost have to park them side-by-side to see the difference. When they're painted the same colour they look the same, don't they, except that this car's got black wheels! It's a bit here and a bit there. The 2001 rules mean that you've got a slightly longer cockpit. The significant changes are the fact that the sidepods have come further forward because of the changes in the side impact rules, and the front wing has come up."



"Mainly with the weight, I suppose. We've pulled a lot of weight out of the car, which you have to do to get that extensive competitiveness.



"I suppose it would have been over the top if it was over the weight limit, which it wasn't. We had ballast in the car, but we wanted to have more. So we've made everything a bit lighter. Because the tyres might change a bit during the season, you need to shove the weight distribution around."



"It's a pretty hard hit when you first do it, in terms of downforce and efficiency. It's a different car once you do that, and you have to re-optimise it and re-build it. The guys have done a pretty good job of recovering the situation. We took last year's car, lifted the front wing up and started from there."



"Yes, there is some space there you can use. You'll probably see people going down different roads to explore how to recover the situation, so you'll probably see a bit more variety in the next couple of months than you'll normally see at the beginning of the season. But I'm sure by the end of the season it will head towards the same sort of thing once again."



"It's more straightforward. It's just like reducing the level of an existing wing. It's not a big deal really."



"The side impact is tough, and the rollhoop is very tough. It's 12 tons - like 10 Honda Civics stacked up on top of the rollhoop. That's pretty serious. We added a lot of material. We haven't made our hoop longer, but we've changed the design of it to make it a better shape structurally, so we don't have to do it all with just material. We've managed to get it to work like that."



"The gearbox is an evolution of where we were. We managed to take a bit of weight out of that. The suspension is very much the same layout, with new bits."



"Similarly, it's an evolution of last year's - it's not a complete re-design. Dimensionally, it's very similar."



"Some of it is. It's on the car, but it's not controlling the whole car. We're still controlling some parts with a different system."



"It's a complicated answer!"



"Yes. It's taken a little while to get to know each other, and figure out how Honda want to work and what they want to get out of it, and what their contribution can be. They've got guys working on all sorts of parallel programmes. They've got guys working with us in the drawing office, drawing stuff for us on the car, and there are other guys working on parallel programmes that get meshed in every so often. When something comes to fruition and we can see it's a good thing then it gets stuck in the car."

?

"Anything to do with the chassis - the aerodynamics, suspension, brakes, monocoque, cooling. The whole car, really."



"It'll be interesting! We just have to be on our toes, that's all. For the last two years testing has largely been about testing the car, working on set-up and chassis components. But this year a lot of time will be devoted to testing tyres. There's so much performance potential in them. You need to get a baseline so you don't get lost. Test carefully, that's the best way to do it. You have to try and be scientific about it if you possibly can. It's difficult."



"We've got a very good relationship with Bridgestone, and I think we'll be able to keep ahead of all those things before they happen. I expect we'll know what tyres will be coming, and we'll have tested them and know what characteristics they have before we actually use them in a race. We'll be able to respond and react."



"As I said, we have a very good relationship with Bridgestone. They need to win the championship. Ferrari and McLaren finished first and second, and if I was Bridgestone I would have my priority there. But I don't think it's going to penalise us. Bridgestone have a very good broad view. Track testing is a very difficult thing to tie down and get a good result for them from. So they try testing with a lot of different drivers and a lot of different cars on a lot of different circuits to actually get a good solid, statistically dependable answer. So we're all part of the process. It's not just a case of getting Michael's tyres."



"The latest is, it's out until Barcelona. Obviously we've been doing some development on it, because we thought we were running it from the beginning of the season initially. Barcelona gives us a little bit more time to refine it. To actually put a system on these cars is not trivial, but it's not a big deal. It's a question of how well developed it gets."



"The hardware is already on the car. The reason the rule change was proposed is that the hardware is already there to do it. All you've got to do is change a bit of code as to how the engine is controlled, and you're there."



"I'm happy with it overall because it's good the sport not to have these acrimonious debates about who's cheating and who isn't, and accusations and everything. It's not going to help the racing, it's not going to help the spectacle, so from that point of view it's unfortunate. But it's a high tech world and they're high tech cars, and it's probably appropriate technology."



"It's great. That's just fine for us. We'll probably pay more attention to Jordan as a team, because we had an exclusive Honda engine deal and now they've got the same engine, so there's some feeling there. But Jordan is Jordan, and we've to beat Jaguar, we've got to beat McLaren, we've got to beat Ferrari. Our purpose in life won't be to focus on Jordan."



"It should be great. I don't know what everyone else is up to, but I think we're going to do really well. Anything that shuffles the pack is good, as long as we're in front of it! If the Michelin guys get it wrong one weekend, and Bridgestone get it right, then it spreads it one way. Then a little bit of the opposite might happen. When the grid lines up in the same order every weekend it's not very exciting, is it?"