Q & A with Emanuele Pirro

Emanuele Pirro: "I believe some people give too much importance to qualifying tyres. Even in the past when everybody was using qualifying tyres, most of the times were not made on qualifiers. Because when you only have one single lap, it's very unlikely that you'll have one clear without traffic.

"A normal qualifying attempt is when you have soft tyres and fuel loaded for two or three laps. It gives you two or three very good laps, not on the level of qualifying tyres, but gives you a better chance to find a new lap, that's a qualifying attempt. We haven't used qualifiers and we haven't tried to qualify fast, I don't know about Peugeot.

"If you go out with no fuel and the right tyres in that first 15 minutes of the second session, between 2200 and 2215, when the track is cool and all the times are made, you can do really well.

"At Audi we never really gave so much importance to qualifying in general and especially this year. We have to work on the weapons we have, not the weapons we don't have.

"The weapons we have are race consistency, a user-friendly car that's nice to drive and enables you to push for a number of laps without getting too tired.

"We were trying to find a nice balance for the race, we did the time with half a tank of fuel which is not the very best we can do."

Q. Do you have any particular strategy?

EP: "The strategy issue is another myth which should be busted. Nowadays you can't really have a strategy or one car to go fast.

"Now, there's nothing you can really do to break the car. If you're going to have a mechanical problem it will happen whether you're going fast or slow. You know the engine isn't going to break if you push, you can be very hard on the tyres and brakes, the only little thing is that you can be a little bit more or less aggressive over the kerbs which can make a little difference.

"Mainly, it's the way you drive in traffic. You can take more or less risks and every lap you come across at least a dozen cars. When you have a 50/50 situation you can decide to be conservative or go for it, this is the only place that strategy counts any more. Maximum attack or being a little more conservative.

"You can also have a more or less aggressive set-up which affects the tyres, fuel and driveability. When you go low downforce you have a faster car but very nervous, harder in traffic, and easier to lose it when something goes wrong. We are normally on the conservative side."

Q. Does Peugeot's decision to field a lot of recent grand prix drivers give them an advantage or a disadvantage?

EP: "If you are a grand prix driver, immediately you are held one step above the others and this is completely false. My career has been really long and I've come across a lot of teammates, and I've been in Formula One so I can evaluate the level of drivers.

"There have been drivers who have never reached Formula One, Roberto Ravaglia, Frank Biela, Dindo Capello, Tom Kristensen. I don't think that having three seasons in F1 makes me any better than them.

"There are a lot of others who for sure if they'd had luck could have been very good grand prix drivers. Some grand prix drivers are coming to sportscars like Mika Salo, Jacques Villeneuve and many others. They are not better than the others.

"There are some very very special drivers in Formula One who are very outstanding. But from that very elite, one little step down, I think we are in the same league. I really disagree that Peugeot have a stronger line-up just because they are grand prix drivers.

"If I was a manufacturer my perfect driver would be the one who could have made it to Formula One but didn't. These people who have the talent but haven't made it and now don't want to make it.

"Some people are here now but if they get another offer in F1 they are gone the next year, so you can never build a team that bonds well together throughout the years.

"I think the best driver for these cars is one who has F1 out of his mind so that this is his ultimate target. When this is his long term plan he can build a relationship between him and his team-mates and they can really become strong. You don't form a couple in one night.

"I think this is a good strength that we have. We know each other well and we don't want to beat each other. If I can't go quicker than you because of the circumstances, I'm very happy that you make the fastest time. We've gone through this phase of our careers because we've been together for many years."