The Renault Round Table

Participating from Renault: director of engineering Pat Symonds (PS); technical director Bob Bell (BB); engine technical director Rob White (RW); and the team's press officer Bradley Lord (BL).

Participating from Autosport: editor Andrew van de Burgt (AV); executive editor Anthony Rowlinson (AR); and LAT senior photographer Steven Tee (ST).

AR: How do you think Ferrari will go without Michael next year?

BB: I think they'll be alright for the first six months or so. After that, we might start to see the implications of him leaving.

AR: You think it will take that long to work through the system?

RW: They finished the season very, very strongly; if they start next season with a car that's as good relative to the others, then we'll see how the new organization holds together. We all know the team.

If you hit the ground with a car/engine package that's not easy to go quick with, it's particularly difficult to catch up when you're also trying to make the organization work, so it's very difficult to predict, and it depends on just how they travel across the winter and how other people travel across the winter.

'Ferrari will have Bridgestone advantage'

AV: A lot is made of the relationship with Bridgestone, do you think that means much?

BB: I think it does. Ferrari have a long standing relationship with Bridgestone and know all the lines of communication and ways of working - they're all in place, they won't have to re-invent themselves for next season.

Whilst I'm sure we will all use the same tyres next year as planned, those tyres I'm sure will probably suit a Ferrari better than a Renault. Ferrari have been developing the car for Bridgestone tyres, that's inevitable. So yeah, I think they'll get more out of the tyre package than other teams.

AR: Is that something that takes more than a winter to work into?

BB: Sure

AV: When did you start receiving data from Bridgestone? I guess they waited until the end of the season...

BB to PS: Did they give us any before Brazil?

PS: Yes, we did. The release date was actually the Monday after Monza.

BB: But we didn't get wind tunnel tyres until after Brazil.

AR: How significantly different are they to Michelin tyres? Are they really a lot?

(Long pause)

PS: Yeah, they are I think. I suspect the tyres they are using this year are not significantly different, but they've gone for this cheaper construction, and they are a bit different.

AR: Does that affect the whole suspension layout for next year?

PS: I wish we were clever enough to know.

BB: We're assuming not (nervous laugh)

AR: I saw McLaren were running on them last week, we have some shots in the mag...

BB: Was that the shakedown in the Vodafone livery?

BL: They were doing some filming for the week in the new livery.

PS: That's right, I received a letter about it.

BL: Some will say it breaks the testing ban with a PR excuse...

PS: It does break the ban - we just don't know how.

RW: We're not clever enough!

(General chuckles)

AR: Williams seemed to get a pretty good handle on it this year, didn't they?

BB: Did they?

AR: Well, maybe they didn't.

AV: In Bahrain maybe...

BB: I'm not quite sure what they got a handle on in their programme!

AR: I'll backtrack on that one!

PS: They were quite good at taking each other off!

AR: In Brazil that was the third year [Mark] Webber has shunted into retirement with his teammate.

BB: Yeah?

AR: Yeah; in 2003 he shunted with [Antonio] Pizzonia and left Fernando [Alonso] a wheel in the middle of the track. Huge baggage.

AR: How do you reflect on the last two seasons - double world champions, twice. Can't be better, can it?

PS: I don't think so.

(Long pause)

PS: I guess you could say that some years Ferrari have dominated a bit more.

AV: So you'd rather dominate a season than have a head to head duel, then?

BB: No. You want a nice closely-fought battle, but to win in the end.

PS: Sure. That's better, isn't it.

BB: It's more satisfying, and it's better for the sport.

AR: It was all very tense in the end in Brazil, considering how far ahead you had got.

PS: I think in Brazil, both championships were there to be lost. And that's not a nice situation to be in. It doesn't matter what the statistics say or what the probability is of winning, if it's not 100 per cent you can't feel comfortable. But in some ways if it's 90 per cent that's more worrying, because the 10 per cent can still come in.

There were so many people saying the championship was done and dusted before Brazil, but it absolutely wasn't because there really were only really two people who could win it in the right circumstances, and if Fernando's car had stopped for whatever reason, [Felipe] Massa wasn't going to win if Michael was behind him.

AV: It must have been quite tense going into that first corner of the opening lap knowing what's happened there in the past.

PS: Yeah, yeah. Not great.

AR: When Michael touched Fisi, did he know he had a touch?

PS: No, it wasn't 'til the pitstop, and we saw there was a little bit of damage on the endplate. I've watched it several times since, and it doesn't matter how many times you watch it you can't convince yourself one way or the other whether they touched. Michael's move was quite ambitious. He did cut across bloody early for someone who knew was going to defend.

AV: Of all the cars on track that were most likley to cut across on him...

PS: Yes. And most of them were real pussies in getting out of the way

AV: Some were almost driving off the other side of the track, they were giving him so much room!

PS: Except for Kimi [Raikkonen].

BB: What surprised me was the BMWs, because they were still racing for championship position.

BL: They had been running 'Thank you Michael' on the back wing all weekend...

PS: I wish we'd been free to put what we wanted on the rear wing!

(Laughter)

AV: It wasn't 'Thank you' was it?!

PS: No, no.

Impede-Gate

AR: How dirty did it get this season, because there was that taint of off-track politics going on all year.

PS: I suppose no one will ever know, will they.

AR: Did it spoil the championship?

BB: I don't think it spoilt it, but as Pat said, I don't think we'll ever really know.

PS: I think some of the things, like the Monza decision in qualifying - I do believe that the stewards honestly believed that was the correct thing to do, and rightly that if they'd been influenced it's not overtly. But when I spoke to Tony [Scott-Andrews] afterwards, some weeks afterwards, he really was upset that they may have made the wrong decision.

AR: What was the actual distance between the cars?

PS: 93 or 97 metres. I did do a calculation taking in that.

AR: Is that beyond the distance one car affects another?

PS: No, it's not, but the amount of influence is pretty small. And Max [Mosley] goes on about how the data was there, I've actually seen the data, but the data that was presented wasn't at all clear cut. All it showed was that going into Parabolica, Massa lost the front of the car and as I said in the hearing we'd experienced exactly the same thing on Friday. It was nothing to do with another car, it was simply going in too deep.

Now, he had got a bit of a tow, so you can see that there is some influence there, so he'd actually gone in at a slightly higher speed but braked at the same point and the front had sort of washed out, which wasn't all that surprising really, but there's no aerodynamic evidence presented, so there's nothing to say that he'd lost front downforce or anything. I'd seen exactly the same thing on Fernando's data on Friday, and he just tried to go in a bit too deep and it didn't work.

AR: Whose decision was it to do the Sunday morning [presentation to the press]? Was it something from Flavio [Briatore]?

PS: Yes, I'm sure it would have been.

BB: That worked quite well, I thought.

BL: It went down very well in the paddock.

AR: It's quite unusual for a team to do something like that. Normally things are just brushed under the carpet and get on with the weekend.

PS: I think it was one of those occasions where something had to be said.

BL: I think it would have been much more of an issue in the end had Ferrari won. But because we won, there was a feeling that everyone finished where they deserved to be - it was how things should have turned out.

AV: I think there was definitely a feeling that the right man won.

BL: And the right team as well.

AR: Do you think that because you're a winning team, it's easier to keep people together?

BB: In some ways it's harder. We have lost people this year, quite a lot of very good people. It's inevitable that they go for the team that's enjoying the most success - and they see that as a reflection of all the individuals, which is it. But, yeah, it's been hard for us.

AV: When there's a team like Red Bull that seem to be able to open the cheque book to whatever amount is required, that must present a problem...

BB: Interestingly, in most cases that have happened over the past year, it's not been so much the size of the chequebook, although that has been a contributing factor.

It's the fact that we have got a strong team of people down through the organization and we have got a very strong tier of people who want to make the next step up and of course, until the top tier of people retire or go their own way then we cannot find the next slot up for them, so in a lot of cases people have gone for position that we are not able to offer, because the posts are already filled.

And that was the case with Jon Wheatley going to Red Bull to be team manager - we've got a good team manager already, and we couldn't give that to Jon, so that's in a sense understandable.

AR: It's interesting that you seem able to absorb that as a team whereas McLaren have really fallen off for whatever reason.

BB: I think we do try to build a philosophy with strength in the organization so that if somebody does depart we've got somebody there to replace them. McLaren, certainly in terms of the build of the car, built themselves around Adrian [Newey], which I suppose is natural enough, but it's unfortunate that when he departed they didn't replace like for like and go and find another Adrian.

They sort of reinvented themselves as design-by-committee, and I actually don't understand or even know what their current technical structure is. And I think they sort of lurched from one extreme solution to another, and I don't think that works terribly well. We sit somewhere in the middle and are probably less susceptible to departure of individuals.

AR: How do you think Ferrari will manage without Ross Brawn next year?

PS: I don't think it's so much Ross leaving as who replaces him. From what I understand, there are some strange movements there. It's all turning a bit Italian again.

AR: You think the old internal politics will rear their head?

PS: Hopefully. (Laughs)

AR: Do you see them as being your main threat next year?

PS: I don't know whether you can really say that in this time of the year. There can always be a bit of a surprise. You have your top tier, if you like - Ferrari, McLaren and ourselves - but anyone of us can drop down a bit, as McLaren have done this year, and equally you have your unexpecteds come-up. Who knows if Honda aren't going to be strong next year.

Honda are probably the most stable of the teams over the winter, although they have to handle the Bridgestone change as we have, but I'm sure they've got over Geoff [Willis] leaving and sorted themselves out. I was reading stories about discontent in their aero department yesterday, but I'm not sure I believe most of the stories I read.

BB: One thing is that they haven't yet been through a new car build without Geoff, and that could have a big impact on what they do next year and what they do in the early part of the season.

AR: They've been quite evolutionary over the past few seasons - well I suppose most teams have...

PS: What, second in the championship, then seventh, then fourth?

AR: No, I was thinking in terms of the car design.

(The group goes into lots of chatter about how badly Honda - then BAR - did in 2005).

PS: So Darwin, what have you got to say about that?

(Laughter)

FISI for 2007 title challenge

AV: If you are going to challenge for the championship, it requires Fisi to raise his game. Do you think he can do it?

PS: I think Fisi's had quite a tough time for a number of years. If you look back at his history, he's always been faster than his teammate - going back to F3, he was very much the golden boy. And Fernando really was, is, something really special. It was very hard for Fisi to come to terms with that.

But having spoken to him over the past couple of months about next year and the way things will shape up, I think he's got enough character to get back and step up to the job. When he last drove for us in 2001, he really did a good job with a pretty dreadful car, really had a very high work rate, quite a lot of intelligence to it and that sort of slipped away a little bit over the past couple of years - he has his good days and his bad days, and I think he can get over that.

AR: Do you think he's a guy that needs to feel like he's number one?

PS: Possibly. If what I was surmising earlier is true and Fernando has been a monkey on his back, then yeah, that would be the natural conclusion.

AV: Do you think he came into the team thinking Fernando would be like all his other teammates in the past?

PS: Every driver thinks that.

AR: Do you think Heikki [Kovalainen] is thinking that?

PS: Of course! Well, he damn well should be.

AR: How do you think he'll shape up? Webber thinks he'll be the find of the season.

BB: I hope so!

PS: I think he's going to be quick and make mistakes, and that's a pretty good thing for a rookie driver. Being slow and not making mistakes isn't terribly exciting, being slow and making mistakes is a disaster. And being quick and making the odd mistake along the way is pretty acceptable.

AR: Does that make it harder for you to defend the constructors' title?

PS: I think it's relative. Last year it was made easier by Ferrari having a slow car. It's hard to say, we'll see how things shape up. But all things being equal, Heikki is replacing a driver who essentially didn't make a mistake last year, who in races made one mistake in two years - and that's a hard act to follow for new guy. To be honest, it would be astounding if he was able to equal it.

AV: So you see it as an end of an era with Fernando moving on?

PS: No, I see it as the start of a new one.

BB: The glass is half full, never look backwards.

AR: What was it like having Fernando in the team, knowing he was going?

(Long pause)

PS: You just never thought about it. Even in Brazil, it wasn't actually until afterwards - that was the first time that I ever sort of thought about it. Occasionally guys like you would ask the question like that and you'd think about it, but other than that we, just got on with the job.

RW: I think it took away a lot of the uncertainty there might otherwise have been. If there had been a later decision or announcement there would have inevitably been speculation awaiting the confirmation of whatever was going to happen.

BB: I hadn't looked at it that way, but it certainly had no affect.

AV: So it didn't change the way that he acted?

PS: I didn't notice a thing.

BL: It relaxed him, if anything. If you see him at the start of the season when he knew he had a lot to deal with, to me he was more relaxed.

AV: Do you think he's got a tough job at McLaren?

BB: I think he will find it a strange transition - very different from us. The technical working level will not be a lot different, but the culture at McLaren, certainly his responsibilities on the marketing and PR side - things he may rail against - all the bits he loves! (Laughs)

ST: Do you know who his engineer is going to be?

BB: Mark umm...

(Very long pause)

AR: Over the past couple of years, your car has been designed with a rear weight bias, is that true?

BB: The big unknown is how everybody else designs their cars. It's true that in our cars we probably run a slightly more rearward weight bias, but to be honest I don't know what the other teams were up to, and it's very hard to say.

AR: Is that something that ties in well with Alonso's driving style?

BB: All I can say is that I don't think we've elected to go down a particular way with the design of the car's weight distribution in order to complement Fernando's driving style. I think Fernando's driving style is accommodated more within the set-up parameters.

PS: Exactly. As we were saying earlier about designing cars for different tyres, there's a sort of motor racing myth about designing cars for different drivers - we're simply not that clever. As you develop a car, a driver's input may push things in a certain direction but not something as fundamental as weight distribution.

It's an interesting thing about how a driver can adapt to a new car. We saw Montoya leave Williams really on a bit of a high, yet never get to grips with a McLaren. And Fernando may find - of course he will have a reasonably competitive car - but he may find it a pig to drive, or he may find it absolutely suits his style and is the best thing that's ever happened to him. We really don't know.

AR: In terms of next year, is your car going to be an evolution of what we've seen so far?

PS: Engine-wise, it is Rob!

(Laughter)

BB: Yes, it is.

AR: What about '08? There seems to be disquiet about the regs...

PS: Well we've agreed to put back our super overtaking cars until 2009, so that means 2008 regs are settled. For 2008 we have the common ECU, the side intrusion stuff has to be different. I saw the test results on Monday and it was bloody impressive - they have a head-on impact into the side and without replacing anything they have a rear impact in the same place.

BB: These are the secondary bolt-on panels that we have to put on the cars for next season to increase the level of penetration resistance. They are a bit of a behemoth to manufacture but certainly, as Pat was saying, they do work in terms of strengthening the resistance of the chassis to the impact of the other car.

AV: Did you do any research into what Ferrari were doing with their rear wheel rims?

BB: Yeah, we did try them and didn't find the benefit that Ferrari seemed to. There was a very, very, very small gain - it wasn't worse, but it wasn't enough to go on doing it. We'll re-evaluate doing it again for next year. Maybe with the different shape of the Bridgestone tyre we will see more effect. It's possible for next year.

AV: What's the theoretical benefit?

BB: No idea. You'll have to ask Ferrari that. It is like all of those things around the rear wheels, just managing the airflow passing through the wheel. If it's not passing through the wheel, it's passing around the diffuser, affecting what it does. The exact nature of the interference, I wouldn't want to speculate.

AR: What about the other non-movable aerodynamic devices Ferrari had last year?

BB: I think, what we call the cascade element that sits across the front wing, where it was opening a gap to the nose, is a bit of an over-reaction probably on the part of Honda. I don't actually think it was as big a deal as they were making a fuss about. I think it was much more important what was happening at the rear wing. We staggered to a solution on that, but I didn't think it was a particularly big issue, did you Pat?

PS: No, I think it's one of those things where it probably wasn't until there was a camera on the car that they realized. We had a similar thing with some bodywork at the first race a few years ago. There was a rearward facing shot and the bodywork was flicking up and we immediately thought 'Christ, we've got to fix that' and then the FIA came along and said 'you've got to fix it'.

AR: Do you think most teams were indulging in that last year?

BB: Sometimes we don't know that it's doing it, we don't know the consequence of forces as in the example Pat mentioned, where we didn't know how much it was flexing until we saw the pictures. And then there's the other type, where everybody will exploit to the limit of the regulations and there are probably some who go a bit beyond that. But it's not something we overtly did, and I suspect it's not something most teams overtly did.

AR: The regulation seems to be quite clearly worded...

BB: But whatever it is, some teams will look to find a way around it.

AR: Or the FIA lets them find a way around it...

BB: Well, that's a different case.

(Pause)

AR: Do you think there are any things you could have done better last year?

PS: Not changed the tyres in Hungary.

RW: The engine couldn't have blown up!

AR: So how many points do you think you dropped?

PS: We absolutely dropped ten in Hungary. China we dropped two. Monza I suppose six. And then Fisi in Bahrain, but I'm not sure who to work out.

BL: He had the problem in qualifying and started 13th and overtook a Toyota even with the problem

AR: So at this stage of the season do you sit and analyse those problems?

PS: It's a bit late to leave it until now, isn't it? It's on-going.

AR: Do you have inquests?

PS: Yes, it's like an air crash investigation. It depends on the severity. But if it's something that's affected the race weekend, there is a very formal procedure to look at all the problems that occurred, whatever that might be.

RW: When you're running a team as big and complex as Renault, inevitably you're trying to learn the lessons early enough not to have bad incidents during a race - it's part of the objectives of the fault management systems. But inevitably is does happen that it effects us in the race, and if it's particularly severe, to some extent you're bolting the door after the horse. It absolutely shouldn't happen again if you have one in the race, but obviously it's preferable to have them before.

AR: What happened after Monza?

RW: I think that's an example of level of activity that goes on behind the scenes. In hard factual terms then things accelerate immediately, and you have to travel through the stages of diagnosis and understand why it happened both in planning and executing counter-measures, and validate those measures.

In the period after Monza, where the engine blew relatively unexpectedly, in the three weeks to the following race we drew up the logistics of getting to China more or less to a normal two-week timeframe, so we did exactly that. We looked at the debris, and fortunately or unfortunately we had another example of the same failure in testing and that led us to the confirmation of what was happening, and then it was all hands to the pump and in round numbers the factory accelerated to three times its normal rhythm in order to execute the tests of mechanical solutions for China.

Typically, circumstances meant there was a level of uncertainty in the solutions you work on, and this was a case in point. So we went to China with two candidate solutions, one of which was a little bit more known than the other one. In F1 racing, we find ourselves in this position of having to choose based on the very latest test results - either track or dyno - or from stripped-down physical analysis of the bits, which is the version we want to put in the car for the race.

This is a case in point where we chose absolutely at the last moment what would go in the car - and even after we've chosen that there will be a look at the final bits of information to determine exactly how it gets used.

It's behind-the-scenes stuff that's not very sexy but involves a lot of graft, a lot of grind by all of the people at the factory, and you have to call on the partners and suppliers - a case in point, we needed to build more engines at that time, so some of the pieces were on just in time delivery weren't normally available so you collaborate with the partner to find a solution. We have particularly good relations with all our suppliers, and that's one of the things that allows us to respond at these difficult times.

AR: When you have to make a call like that, is it based solely on the data, or is there a degree of gut feeling?

RW: If there's the data available, it's often a lot easier. But it's inevitable that you end up having to make decisions without sufficient data to be sure and therefore gut feeling, skill, risk management - call it what you will - doesn't have a choice because the race doesn't move. There's a human element, but it's not randomly plucked out of the air. There are quite explicit processes for managing the risk for the choices that are made to minimize the risk of making a bad choice.

AR: Do you think the engine failure was because of the amount of development?

RW: I think it's an incident that revealed a weakness in the evaluation process. Of course it was a consequence of trying to find a balance between performance and reliability - that is part and parcel of a championship battle. So it wouldn't have happened if we hadn't changed the spec of the piece, if we had run the engine before. But, equally, trying these things is part and parcel of the championship, and we wouldn't have it any other way because of course regret of having made the mistake that led to the failure.

AR: It's intriguing that Ferrari had a failure two races later...

RW: I'm sure that we were pushing each other very hard at that point.

AV: Going back to something mentioned earlier about wings flexing, Mallock is making micro cameras, would you use these?

BB: The problem with that whole process is not finding cameras small enough, but getting licenses from FOM. That's our biggest headache. It's strange that we go to a lot of effort in Formula One - there's probably no one more involved in that than Pat - in improving safety, and yet with things like that - putting cameras on the car to monitor the health of the car - it's not as straightforward. It is very useful information, but as I say it's not a straightforward process.

'Consistency was key to success'

AR: What do you think you guys have done right that the others didn't?

BB: One thing is the consistency of the team. We've suffered a reasonable degree of expansion - certainly on our side, on Rob's side things have been much more stable - to get up to the level that we needed to, but we've kept good people.

To me, Benetton, our predecessors, were always a team that were capable of winning the world championship; they were just waiting for the resources to come along and to allow that to happen - the good, quality people needed to make that happen were already here. I think Renault unlocked that potential. Whatever we've done, we've got our heads down and dealt with the basics; we haven't been clever about it.

I think it was born out of a very strong nucleus of people. Renault were an important part coming back in, as an engine manufacturer they were equally dominant and when they were unleashed again with the core of Benetton, it was a very strong organization supplemented by good resources.

But I think the way that Renault handled us is very appropriate, because they leave us alone and let us get on with what we know best, which is designing a winning racing car - they don't tell us how to do our job, they tell us how much money we have to do the job, but they don't tell us how to spend it.

That very hands-off approach works well for us, and I think a lot of that stems from Flavio - his confidence in us - he just lets us get on with it. I think the whole ethos of the team, the way we operate, shows our racing heritage. It's very, very important.

PS: I think also we have a lot of integrity. I think we're quite honest with ourselves. We don't really have a blame culture. And that means that people are honest. If they make a mistake - if it's one of these organizations where people are hiding their mistakes, they can never get on top of them. We never kid ourselves if something is wrong, we just try hard not to make it happen again. It's just built up like that.

AV: It's interesting how many British people are successful in F1. Why is that?

BB: Have you read the book Vulcan 607? It's about the bombing of Port Stanley. If you want to know why the British are good at motor racing, read that book, because it wil explain to you that the pluckiness of the British of being in a problem that nobody else knows or even considered and that sort of jingoistic inventiveness - will tackle any problem, you know, and laugh about along the way, just says it all. I think it's that crossover from that wartime aeronautical and motoring heritage that has filtered through to today and is still there. That sums it up for me.

PS: I think it's a brilliant book. It's such a good book. If it was fiction, you would think it was a bit far-fetched.

BB: It's as if Frederick Forsythe has written it. It's got a great level of technical detail, but he's got a great narrative too.

PS: I think the other thing that Brits are quite good at is not being too emotional. I think in motor racing just being calm and taking things for what they are and getting on with it aren't a bad way to go racing.

AR: Motor racing is a bit of a mad activity anyway...

BB: I think it helps, but I would take my analogy too far. F1 has moved on a long way since its heady days of garages and so on.

RW: I think the capacity to do serious work but not to take oneself too seriously is a big part.

AR: You seem to be a happy team...

BB: We're the only team to play music in the garage. You don't get that at McLaren.

PS: If you want to be an astronaut, that's the place to go.

(Laughter)

PS: I think it's terribly important to have fun while you're working, because we do work hard. I think it's something - I was going to say fostered - but I don't know...

BB: I think it's part of our culture now. And that goes back to the Benetton days.

BL: And Flavio as well.

PS: On his day, he can be one of the funniest people. Absolutely hilarious at times. You guys miss so much of that. There's one little story I'm sure Flavio won't mind repeating. We have had a engineer called Paul Monaghan.

AR: Pedals

PS: Yeah, Pedals. And Flavio's not a terribly easy guy to understand. I've worked with him for 17 years, and I think I've got a diploma in Flavio-speak. But a lot of people struggle, and Pedals certainly struggled because Pedals is a terribly polite person. We were on the pit wall in Austria and Flavio mumbled something on the intercom and pedals said, 'I'm terribly sorry, I didn't understand what you said', and Flavio said 'don't worry about it, I didn't understand what I asked'.

(Laughter)

AV: You mentioned ingenuity and innovation. On a personal level, you must be frustrated that so many things are being mandated...

BB: Of course. As engineers, we've got to do what's best for the sport in the long term. But on a personal level, it's frustrating.

PS: I think it's particularly frustrating when the obvious thing is to do something that's outlawed, and you then have to find something not so obvious, off the wall and complex, that you know is not an elegant solution.

Without dwelling on the point any longer than we have to, the mass damper is such a massive example of that. It's such a simple device, and because I think we all believe that you can't un-learn something, you have that taken away from you and you think, how can I get back some of the benefits? There are ways of getting it back - some, if not all, are immensely complex. The device, as I've always said, is something an undergraduate could design.

AR: Why do you think it was banned?

PS: I said we wouldn't dwell on it.

(Laughter)

AV: I want to know how it's a movable aerodynamic device, but we're not dwelling on it...

Hungary "low point"

AR: Was that the low point of the season for you?

BB: No. Hungary was the low point for me.

PS: I think I'd go along with that.

BB: It was such a dominant performance. But to not complete it was really the most frustrating part.

AR: The first lap was amazing.

BL: He just deserved the win. It was like Senna in 1993.

PS: He was very gracious with the team as well.

BL: He was in Monza too.

AR: You can see that Fernando is a very emotional guy, but he doesn't articulate that very often. But at Monza and at Suzuka he said he felt isolated. What are your reflections on having a guy like that in the team?

(Pause)

BB: Go for it, Pat.

PS: I think generally, when he's in the car, he's quite unemotional. The incident in Hungary this year with [Robert] Doornbos was the only time I can really think he's shown any sign of emotion. Yes, on occasion the finger will go up, but that to me is pretty standard sort of behaviour.

Out of the car, I think there were occasions where he didn't express himself particularly well, where he hadn't really though out what he was going to say, and I think the press conference in Japan was an example of that.

Flavio and I spent a long while talking to him after that, and I think I fully understood what he meant, but it wasn't at all what he said, and I believe in the guy enough to know what he meant was true. I think he suffered a little bit with that.

But I think the only time he really - we were talking earlier about drivers' biggest challenge is beating their teammate - the only time I've seen him get really riled was when Fisi beat him. That really, really got to Alonso, really found that difficult to handle.

AR: Any particular occasion?

PS: Indy was a good example.

AR: Was it how it looked, he just couldn't get on terms with him?

PS: I believe it was. He's never been good around that circuit. It's the one circuit where he's not magic. He's OK there, but he doesn't have that extra little something.

AR: Is that a characteristic of the circuit?

PS: One assumes so. I don't really know what else you can put it down to. Quite what that characteristic is, I don't know. Indy is a circuit where it's very, very easy to over-drive, but Fernando is not a guy who normally over-drives. I really don't know what it is.

AR: What was he trying to say in Japan?

PS: I'm not sure really that we should talk too much about that. Certainly not in any detail, but I suppose in a nutshell there was an element of perhaps asking for the Michael Schumacher sort of situation, should everything be sacrificed for him and asking whether that was a better way to go racing.

AR: Is that something you've considered?

PS: Many years ago we thought about it. But it's not the way we go racing.

BB: I think the only other memory of mine that springs to mind of him showing emotion in the cockpit was on the slowing down lap in Brazil. That's when it all came home to him, what he had achieved and what the team meant to him. He came across very passionately.

BL: He came over very passionately on the team radio. Articulating what he felt. The year before he was all at sea.

AR: Is he a Michael Schumacher-type figure?

BB: There's no doubt he's got enough ability to emulate Michael's achievements. So much will be dependent on things that were outside of his control - what McLaren are able to deliver to him, and what relationship he has with them. When Michael moved to Ferrari, Ross [Brawn], Rory [Byrne], [Nicholas] Tombazis went with him. It was a lot more than just Michael. They all grew up within Ferrari. That isn't going to happen with Fernando going to McLaren.

PS: All things are relative. You have to ask, would Michael have been as successful statistically if Ayrton [Senna] hadn't died? The answer is no, but one can never know by how much. So when you look at the next generation, now that Michael has retired, you have to say who else is around. Both drivers and teams - it's not so easy to say.

Bob's absolutely right. It's not the same as Michael cherry-picking and building the team around him, but equally is there a challenge? Is Kimi the challenger? Is someone like Heikki the next one?

AV: How do you compare Fernando with Michael?

PS: I think the thing that they both showed in abundance was their ability to read a race, and they are both obviously very quick drivers. They're both intelligent people, and they both have this very high understanding of how to make the most from a race - or even more particularly, how to make the most from a championship. When to go for it, when to hang on to things. They show an awful lot of similarities in that respect.

Michael is obviously a much more polished character, but he's considerably older, but then you forget how young Fernando actually is. Thinking back to when you were that age and how immature you were - I was, anyway - and I think we were all the same, and it's easy to forget that. And, equally, it is difficult to think back to when Michael was that sort of age and drove for us.

Michael has had a big advantage in that he came through the Mercedes training school - that sportscar Mercedes programme, which was incredibly good; it was so much more than just a racing scheme, it really was a programme that we certainly learned a few things from. And I think that helped Michael at that age and added polish to him.

But they certainly have a lot more similarities than differences.

AR: Is Fernando a better driver now than in 2003?

PS: He's got a lot more confidence. Is he a better driver? I don't think he's learned how to make a car go around a corner any quicker, but I think his racecraft has continued to improve as his confidence increased.

AR: Any weaknesses?

PS: A few we might list for next year. (giggles)

RW: He's got an incredible bandwidth. He's got the capacity to drive the car extraordinarily quickly, using just a fraction of his mental capacity, which means he's able to manage the race, understand what's going on around him, and his serenity in the car sometimes is quite extraordinary.

PS: We saw that the first year he drove for us, in Canada. He set fastest lap of the race and was talking all the way around that lap - well 75 per cent of that lap he was chattering. That's always a pretty good sign.

BL: You never get him on the radio when he's accelerating hard, he only gets on it in slow corners, when he knows people can hear him.

PS: When we have our pre-briefs in the morning, he sits there, and at first you think the guy isn't listening. But he absolutely takes everything in. And then afterwards he'll question it. He really does take things in, and if you ask him on any day about certain situations and what you have to do in the car - like if a clutch fails and you have to press this button or do this and do that - he'll just rattle it off.

AR: In Melbourne, he said the most important thing about the season ahead was to beat Michael. Did he express that?

PS: In the end he said he valued it more because Michael was still there.

BB: To beat Ferrari on form is a big thing. It's a lift for everybody in the whole team, and we did that this year.

AR: Better to beat Ferrari or McLaren?

PS: Ferrari. They've been the dominant force.

BB: And last year they dropped out of the reckoning for whatever reasons, and it was never really a fair fight. This year, they've been on the top of their game, particularly on a set of tyre regulations, which I'm sure they felt would benefit them. It's a tremendous achievement for the whole team and in fact, towards the end of the season, Michael was completely unleashed, he had nothing to lose - could go absolutely flat out - and to beat him under those circumstances is particularly satisfying.

AR: Is it hard to keep composed during a Ferrari onslaught?

BB: I don't think it was particularly difficult. We as a team are able to move into a new area without a lot of fuss, we just get on with it and are not fazed by what other people are doing. And that was important towards the end of this season. This year was very different racing Ferrari as opposed to racing McLaren. You could pretty much bank on McLaren making mistakes, on Montoya helping us, but we knew that with Ferrari that wouldn't be the case, they wouldn't make any mistakes. So it felt a lot harder.

AR: Did they offer any congratulations?

BB: Yeah, we all got Chianti!

(Laughter)

PS: Ross came to see me after the race.

AR: What did he say?

PS: He called me a name! He just said 'well done'.

AR: A vintage season?

BB: I think a lot of people will remember the last race, because it was Michael's last race. And that race in Hungary people will remember.

BL: And China. Michael was 40 seconds behind when Fernando pitted and then 25 seconds ahead, and that yo-yoing was great. I don't know what Pat thinks, but it was also about keeping composure with the tyre situation as it swung from day to day. Look at Japan, where they were a second ahead in qualifying only to swing back and forth.

PS: We had to do a lot of thinking on our feet. You couldn't pre-suppose too much. Barcelona was when we first saw it on Saturday. We thought, 'oh crikey, we can't do this'. Then, on Sunday, we suddenly see that it's coming to us, and you have to be ready to exploit that.

BL: In Silverstone too we saw our pace in Q2 and could put a bit more fuel in the car for Q3 to give us an advantage.

AV: And we'll lose this in a single tyre formula...

PS: You'll lose that, but you'll probably see other things develop.

RW: Barcelona was a monster, because on TV in many ways it was one of the dullest races of all time, but it was a really tense race for us in the pits from really early on. From lap three or so we could see that this was do-able - we were quicker than we should have been, or whatever.

It was a race in which the two best cars and four best drivers were lining up qualifying lap after qualifying lap. It was astonishing, really, but you have to get into the painful gory details of performance analysis to realize just how tight it was and how much of a competition it was. It's kind of a tragedy of the sport that you have to do that.

PS: I thought we were racing for second place or even third, and then on Sunday it just turned around.

BL: The temperature went up by two degrees, and that was it.

PS: That was the bad thing about the tyre war. It evolved to this point where you had incredibly critical tyres, where literally five degrees would make or break you.

ST: How much running will you do on the Friday next year?

PS: It looks like it's going to be left open to us which drivers we use. But some teams are pushing for rules about young drivers. I'd like to use the race drivers. It will be a big thing for Heikki.

ST: BMW have announced they are going to use Vettel...

BB: Have they?

ST: So Heidfeld out by the end of the season!

PS: They were one of the teams that were pushing hard for that.

AV: Red Bull as well, I guess...

PS: You have your Barcelona, Silverstone and Monza, where you test, so it might be those ones where you stick your test driver in.

AV: How is Nelson Piquet Jr. getting on?

PS: OK. He hasn't done a great deal yet. He did a test at Silverstone and then another low-key test on the south circuit.

AV: Too early to judge ultimate potential, then?

AR: There seems to be quite a few good young guys...

PS: I think [Robert] Kubica's very good. He did the test for us before BMW, and he was very impressive.

ST: He was in the RDD, wasn't he?

PS: Questions been asked as to why he wasn't kept on...

AR: Any evidence that Heikki is a future star?

PS: You can definitely see that something's there. It's intelligence, application, work ethic. It may sound trivial, but winning the Race of Champions - the guy had to adapt to different cars, won against Michael; I know it's only a couple of days in the winter, but even so. He's a very bright guy. He's like a sponge, he soaks up every little thing.

AV: He'll change people's perceptions of what Finns are like.

PS: He changed mine! (laughs)

AR: Was Nico [Rosberg] a victim of a bad car or...

PS: I still think Mark's a reasonable driver. And Nico's out-qualified him I think three times

AV: Six

PS: Six, was it as many as that? So I don't think he's done badly.

AR: How close did Mark get to driving for Renault?

PS: I can't say he got particularly close.

AV: How do you think the Red Bull-Newey project will pan out?

RW: The engine will be good. One of the lighter moments of the whole thing was going to Red Bull for the first time, and it's symptomatic of Formula One that there are a lot of familiar faces, and there were very few people around that didn't know one another. A lot of key people there are from Renault, and there are still some people there that I know from Jaguar days - it's a lot less green than it used to be. And a lot less tartan than it was before that.

PS: Someone was telling me the other day that it's known as a tartan-free zone.

ST: Will they suffer through the late decision?

RW: It's a feature of modern Formula One that engine decisions are taken too late to take in the mountain that the engine supplier has to climb. Of course they have a clear strategy. I think that throughout the time we were discussing, it was important for Renault to supply its engines to Red Bull to find a solution to allow that choice to be made. Red Bull set out their stall to minimize their problems.

AR: Why did they push so hard for a Renault?

PS: If you have a look at their testing reliability, you might get the answer... That was very noticeable.

AV: Renault has a big history of supplying engines...

RW: For 2007, it's quite clear that supplying an engine will go some way to compensate the activity due to the limitations on engine development, and some way to compensate for the amount we can learn through the limitations on testing. Once the decision was made to do it, it's up to us to do the job well, and we will do the best possible job for Red Bull. We will supply the same engines we supply our own team.

AV: Will there be technicians feeding back?

RW: There will be Renault people present in the Red Bull operation, and the Renault engine information that is created will form part of the knowledge under which we operate both engines. It's a principle that in neither direction can we allow any non-engine information to pass between the two teams. We will construct in the organization the necessary physical barriers that there's never even a suspicion.

AV: How do you confront that challenge?

PS: Battling against them!

BB: We'll be alright.

AR: Is an RB3 a rival?

BB: I'm sure Adrian will make a strong car, but there's a lot more to winning races and the championship. The whole team is still relatively young, and there are a lot of operational and organizational aspects that have to develop, as well as just the performance of the car. But in the end I think it's a challenge we should relish.

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