Q & A with Mike Gascoyne

Having shown some impressive early speed compared to where their 2007 car was, allied to increased investment from new owner Vijay Mallya, the team have their sights set on a step forward this year.

Chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne echoed that optimistic when he spoke at the track, as autosport.com heard what his feelings were on the car, the season ahead and his drivers.

Q. Is the new car any good?

Mike Gascoyne: It's getting better. That is the simple answer. The car we have been testing up until now has been the same car as last year. I think we have been looking slightly better over the winter and a lot of that has been down to the input we have had from the drivers.

It is very useful if you have drivers who have driven other cars, because they can pinpoint strengths and weaknesses. Thanks to that we managed to improve the car significantly over the winter in terms of getting it set-up better and getting more out of it.

So this is the first update. It is only half the package we plan to put on for Melbourne, because the wind tunnels are delivering a lot of good results, but obviously that means we have to keep changing bits. You can see here from the last couple of days we have looked more competitive than we did over last season or the winter. We've seen the performance increase from the wind tunnel and we have another quite big step for Melbourne. We are quite positive.

We are starting from the back. We never got out of Q1 last year and that to be the first aim, and we may be in with a shout of it in Melbourne.

Q. To do that you've got be ahead of good teams though?

MG: I think it will be very tight. If you look at lap times, although it is difficult to say too much from winter testing, if you look at the timesheets from the last couple of days then we look better than we have ever looked. I think we can pick a few people off.

Q. Vijay Mallya has said he hoped to be in Q2 90 percent of the time?

MG: 90 percent? He has never mentioned 90 percent to me! Well, I think you would be happy if you do that. We ought to aim to get into Q2 so that is fine, but I think 90 percent will be stretching it.

Q. What about getting into Q3?

MG: Well, with someone like Fisichella at somewhere he enjoys like Monaco then you never know. We are making a lot of progress with the car in the wind tunnel. We have three wind tunnel programmes running now, we are putting a lot of effort into them and the results are coming quickly and strongly now. So you never know.

Q. How much has Giancarlo Fisichella's input been useful?

MG: It's not just Fisichella. It is all the drivers who tested the car. When you get a lot of experienced drivers who have driven lots of different cars they can say that this is right, or this isn't right. When you rely on Adrian (Sutil), no matter how talented he is, going to circuits he has never been to before trying to set a car up in his rookie year with a teammate like Sakon (Yamamoto), that is not an easy thing to ask anyone to do.

You can say, 'but look at Lewis, he did a fantastic job', but he had (Fernando) Alonso there. If he had Sakon Yamamoto there driving alongside him, would Lewis have won as many races as he did? I don't think so.

Q. Will this new car see out the season, or will you bring out a revised B-spec like you did last year?

MG: No, because 2009 is totally different with KERS needing chassis mods, so you have to focus on that. Chassis wise we will stay the same, but now it has to be a trade off because for us, with the best will in the world, we are starting from the back. That is not Force India's fault, it is Eddie Jordan's, Midland's and Spyker's fault because they didn't invest in it over the last five years.

The great thing about 2009 is that everyone is starting from a level playing field so the more resources you can put into 2009 the better, but you have to balance about making progress in 2008.

Ideally you would say, 'to hell with 2008, I will put all my three wind tunnels onto 2009'. For sure a lot of people can't afford to do that because they have to deliver in 2008. We need to do that as well because there are commercial pressures and you have to sign sponsors. You don't want to be driving around at the back. I think we have got good resources and we can really move forward.

Q. Does 2009 for a team like this represent the biggest opportunity of your career to do something really significant?

MG: From being a team this size, yes it does. A similar thing happened in 2005 when I went to Toyota, because there were the rule changes then and we were able to hit the ground running. It is a real opportunity for a team like us to do that.

You have to balance the commercial pressures of this year against it, because you could argue, 'look, Ferrari have to push really hard this year because they want to win the championship, McLaren have to push hard this year to make up for last season, BMW cannot afford not to win races, and Renault with Alonso cannot afford to finish fourth in the championship so they have to push hard, Honda have to push hard because they cannot afford to stay where they are, and Toyota likewise.'

If you could step aside and say I don't need to do anything, I just want to work on 2009 then you could really steal a march on everyone. So it is something we have to balance.

Q. You have brought in Mark Smith and other new staff. Have they made a difference?

MG: A big difference. There are not just aero updates, there are a lot of mechanical updates starting to come through. We will be introducing a seamless shift gearbox in the middle of the year, so that has made a big difference. It is nice a lot of the old Jordan boys want to come back. There is a good feeling, and it is back to the good old days of 1999.

Q. Will the team structure change with an increased budget?

MG: We have got Mark (Smith) and James (Key) at a senior level, and we've got two project leaders looking after the two cars, so the 2009 one is already underway. The wind tunnel programme for that car has started, so we've changed the structure. We are expanding. We were 240 people at the end of last year and we will be 300 by the end of this year. We are expanding quite significantly and I think we are a proper F1 team now.

Q. Did you always push for Fisichella?

MG: We gave all the drivers a fair chance. But especially with the ban on traction control, I always thought Giancarlo would be a good fit with the team. He is very unpolitical, he is very easy going

I think as a driver he has been accused of being flaky, but if you put him in a high-pressure environment with Alonso alongside him and Flavio (Briatore) on his case then that is not where he is at his best.

If you put him in our team, he is experienced, he knows the people and he is very comfortable - and like in 2001 at Benetton in a difficult car he drove fantastically all year. If you put him in a comfortable environment then you get the best out of him. It is the right environment for him here.

Q. Do you think Fisichella and Sutil will push each other hard?

MG: Certainly. I think at the start of the year I expect Giancarlo to be quicker, and by the middle of the year that is when you expect any young driver to be getting on the pace and matching their more experienced teammate. And that is what I think Adrian will be expecting to do. I think it is the perfect combination of drivers for us.