Mike Gascoyne Q&A

"As technical director I'm totally in charge of the technical programme, and Pat Symonds, as head of engineering, is looking after trackside and some of the R&D functions. Mark Smith is coming in as chief designer for the 2002 car, while Tim Densham stays chief designer for the B201, so we've got two very, very experienced chief designers, with a lot of strength in depth. Having the pair of them together will leave one of them free to concentrate on the car for the next season, and really get ahead of the programme."



"Yeah, I think so. We'll review it in the future, but it's a way of making sure that we improve the development. But it's only something you can do if you have two top line designers, and that's what we've got. I don't think there's any risk in it, but the advantages of it are huge. We've got Tad Czapski who's come in as head of R&D from Ferrari, we've strengthened the aerodynamic programme, and we now have testing in two [wind] tunnels. What's important this year for Benetton is that we put all the bits in place for when we become Renault, and we join the big two. We're not talking about this year, or being 'best of the rest' or whatever. It's very, very clear; Renault are here for one reason, and that's to win, and beat Ferrari and McLaren. Finishing the 'best of the rest' is an irrelevance for Renault."



"What we've got to do is put the right people in place, the right programme, the right resources, so that in a year or two we can challenge for the World Championship. A lot of what we're doing is focussing on that, rather than the short term aim of getting the next car out. I think the aerodynamics programme is typical of that. We've probably trebled the resources since I've joined the company, changed a lot of things, and the fruits of that are only now starting to come. Don't expect great things from the car yet, but do expect in six months for Benetton to get stronger and stronger and stronger. You'll see a lot of evolution in the aero package, because we haven't done all the things that we wanted to do, but what we had to do was make sure that the programme was constructed correctly, so that we could catch up. We're in good shape for the future, but it won't be what we want it to be at the start of the season. We're very happy with the car. The most important thing for me is the basic package, and there's nothing wrong with it."



"If you look at Benetton's recent history, reliability and scoring points in the first half of the season, and basically not being competitive in the second half. I think we're looking to reverse that trend. We still want to pick up the points at the start, but what we need to be doing is developing faster than the others and getting more competitive. The other thing is that Giancarlo had good circuits and bad circuits, and Jenson won't allow him to do that, because he'll be on it all the time. If he wants to prove that he's a future World Champion then he's going to have to deliver, and he's going to have to deliver everywhere."



"Jenson is very mature, very talented. People have to remember that he's still relatively inexperienced; because of his good first year expectations are even higher, and that's a little unfair on him. But he does have the talent, and he will push Giancarlo, which is exactly what he needs. I think we've got the ideal driving partnership this year."



"You've obviously got the aerodynamic changes and the structural changes, which are the two big things. The rear wing is pretty insignificant, but obviously moving the front wing up has hurt the front of the car a lot, so everyone is struggling for front downforce, so you're seeing a variety of front wings. I think you'll see a lot of changes throughout the season at the front of the cars."



"That was the point. If you make the front wing inefficient, which raising it does, the whole car runs in the wake of that so it effects the rest of the car. I think from the point of view of the aerodynamics, maximum downforce has been reduced but the efficiency of the car is about back up where it was. Certainly on medium or low downforce circuits you won't really see any difference."



"It's the biggest aerodynamic change since the stepped bottom in 1995. But then we had the reduced track in 1998. Each time you were taking a 20-30 per cent hit, but during a year of development you were back up to where you were."



"I think ours is probably the most dramatic, but most people are doing the same thing, which is lowering the wing in the middle section, because as you lower it it's more efficient. They're all following the same theme with slightly different variations of it. Although they look different, they're all really following the same trend."



"As a designer you like regulation changes because there's a chance to be more inventive than the others. But we all test so much in the wind tunnel. It's not like we all do just a week or a month, like 20 years ago, where you made big gains but could also miss out on things. We've tested all those other front wing shapes, because we've been in the tunnel since May, working flat out. You know what the other shapes do. Unless you've been pretty stupid, you've been through all the options."



"We've had to pull the sidepods forward a little bit, but that hasn't really impinged on anything. Obviously the monocoque strength has had to go up. With the roll hoop it's a question of trying to put as little weight into it as possible to pass the test. You don't want to put weight up high in the car because you want to lower the centre of gravity, but everyone's had to do it."



"Front suspension is pretty standard, pretty much the same layout as last year's car. We've changed to a torsion bar rear suspension, with the torsion bar packaged on the top of the gearbox, which is quite a nice layout, and vertical dampers, which keeps the weight down low. That's certainly a step forward for us. It's a six-speed gearbox, and we've changed to an aluminium housing, and we've taken a lot of weight out of it compared to last year. It seems to have been a big step forward."



"Basically reducing the weight of the car and reducing the centre of gravity height. The CG height is a basic performance parameter, and with a very lightweight and low engine that's going to be an advantage. Ultimately it's got to be able to live with the power, but they're very confident they're going the right way with that."



"They have had their teething problems, and they'd be the first to admit it. They've done some fairly radical things with the material they are using and so on, and that takes time to sort. It perhaps looks a lot worse than it is. When you order major components, and you have a problem, you re-order them. But it could be a two-month delivery time. So every engine you put together in that two months with the old bits will have the problem. That's the position they're in. We've got fixes in all the areas we've got problems, and we know the fixes work, but we're having to put in engines that were built with parts that didn't have those fixes. It's very frustrating that you have to use engines that have known problems, and therefore you have to limit the mileage. But you don't actually have the problem, because you know you've solved it. You're just waiting to get all the fixes on the same engine. For Melbourne we'll have all of that."



"The engine has a very low crank height, and that lowers all the gearbox, etc. A lower gearbox means lower bodywork at the rear, which with the limited number of wing elements means we can get a better airflow over the rear of the car. We've certainly done that to the full."



"They're doing a good job. It's always frustrating when you've got a new tyre manufacturer. You go along to a test and they're always going to want to do a helluva lot of tyre testing. We've found some good directions on constructions and compounds. But it's frustrating, because they've obviously got a huge range of tyres, but maybe only three or four sets of each. When you find a good one, you don't have 20 sets of those tyres to go and run on. It's only now that we're really starting to put together some of the good things we've found at previous tests, and run on them consistently. So it's been a little up and down, but they're definitely making progress, and they've got the commitment to the programme. But inevitably Bridgestone have got a few years' experience over them, and it will take a while to catch up."