SESSION ONE: Martin Whitmarsh / Eric Boullier
Q: Why were the teams able to change the cars after the red flag in Monaco?
MW: I was disappointed, but that’s what the regulations allow. Clearly the two cars in front of Jenson had very worn tyres and it would have been very difficult for the drivers to get them back up to temperature and they would have been in big trouble if they hadn’t been allowed to change their tyres. But, regrettably, the regulations were changed two or three years ago and they now allow that tyre change to happen and it was a shame for Jenson because he was in a very strong position. There was a bonus, however, in that we were able to reconstruct the back of Lewis’s car. Overall, I would rather that we hadn’t been able to change tyres, but I don’t think anyone is contemplating a change to this rule in the future.
EB: First of all, I am sorry to have caused this red flag! You have to comply with the regulations. It would have been nice for Jenson to have a big push at the end and do some attacking manoeuvres, but the regulation is as it is. Going forward, maybe this topic will be raised by FOTA and discussed with the FIA.
Q: With the regulations getting tighter, how are you going to ensure that F1 remains the pinnacle of motorsport?
MW: Over the 20-odd years that I’ve been involved in F1 we’ve had lots of regulation changes that were designed to save costs and nearly every single one failed. They failed because we have creative engineers who have found other ways to spend money. There have been one or two changes, primarily sporting changes, that have helped, such as limiting the number of engines. In the good old days of Honda we would go to a race with 15 engines and we’d change them during the day, let alone every evening. We enjoyed it at the time, but it was clearly a wasteful thing to be doing. All the changes to the technical regulations – banning materials, banning active ride suspension systems – in my opinion saved no money. In fact they cost us more money because we got there by other routes that required more money.
F1 has to demonstrate that it remains the pinnacle of motorsport, that it’s the most technically advanced branch of motorsport in the world and, thankfully, it still is. But we also have to demonstrate that we’re socially relevant.
Starting as an engineer in this sport, I can tell you that we had great fun doing things that were of no interest to anyone other than us engineers. In fact, most of the people who watched grands prix didn’t know what we were doing; we were just indulging ourselves. The teams at the front of F1 are relatively well-funded teams, but we need to race against 10 or 11 other teams and they have to be sustainable. Through the teams working together, we’ve sought to limit the amount of expenditure in F1 and that’s caused quite a bit of pain in the bigger teams. We’ve had to lose quite a few people within our organisation, which is always a sad thing to do. Having said that, I think the sport is healthier as a consequence and the chances of keeping all of the teams in F1 have been enhanced and you now hear about the engineers talking about efficiency and being smart about how we spend the finite resources we have. That’s good business practice; it’s healthy.
Overall, F1 has to remain the most technically advanced branch of motorsport. That’s a key part of the DNA of F1 and we mustn’t ever lose it. That DNA has made F1 the third largest sporting even in the world. I accept that some people aren’t interested in the engineering side of our sport, but there are many people who are thrilled to try and understand some of the technology and engineering that is used in F1.
EB: Some of the fans aren’t interested in engineering, but the overall view is that it must be the pinnacle of motorsport and we must attract and interest and entertain different types of fans.
Q: How is FOTA going to handle the potential sale of F1 by CVC?
MW: While there is a proportion of fans who are interested in the business of F1, to have us haranguing each other in public isn’t the right way to find a partner! If we can, we’ll handle the sale as privately as the sport allows. I accept there is a lot of press and media speculation, but the teams are for the first time together through FOTA and we’re dedicated to finding ways in which we can improve the sport. There is a balance that needs to be found between technology, entertainment, accessibility and relevance. We’ve got to get all of those things right.
I’ve been involved in the sport for 23 years and so I’m criticising myself when I say we haven’t done a very good job at managing the sport. We haven’t worked together. Historically, the teams spent most of the time fighting each other seven days a week, not only on the racetrack but also in court – everywhere! McLaren and Ferrari have been through 30 years of fairly bloody conflict at times, but we’ve wised up. We both have very similar business models and we’re passionate about F1. We will be here in five years time, 10 years time and 20 years time. It is our core business; it’s the heart and passion for both companies. We desperately want to beat each other on Sunday afternoons, and that’s how it should be, but away from that we can work together. There will always be the tendency between highly competitive F1 teams to get into squabbles about legality of cars and other issues, but we’ve got to try and rise above that. We have to work harder to make the sport more sustainable and to reach out to new fans. As for the ownership of the sport, the commercial rights holder will want to keep as much money as possible and the teams will want to have as much as possible as well. But while we’re squabbling about who gets how much of the pie, what we ought to be concentrating on is growing the sport and making the pie bigger.
The product F1 must be very good. To be the third largest sporting spectacle in the world and to have been so badly managed over the last few decades, means that if those of us involved get our acts together, the sport can be even bigger and even greater. Just as the squabbling among the teams has reduced, I’d like to believe that the squabbles with the FIA, the governing body, and the commercial rights holders, have reduced. CVC have said they are not going to sell, but they are venture capitalists at the end of the day. I’ve just said some of us as teams want to be in F1 in five and 10 years time, I wouldn’t put too much money on CVC being here in five or 10 years. Maybe I’m wrong.
Q: Why are we moving towards small capacity, turbo-charged engines in 2013?
EB: Traditionally, any change creates some confusion and resentment. But sometimes we need to change the regulations to keep our engineers motivated, to bring in new partners and new technologies, and to create some new challenges. We understand the concerns of the fans and there has been a lot of noise in the media about the small engines not revving very high and not having a good noise. But nobody knows yet and the best thing for F1 is to have a clear commitment from the teams because whatever we do, F1 has to be better and greater.
MW: At the start of winter testing, when I haven’t heard an F1 car at full cry for a couple of months, I still get tingles down the back of my neck listening to F1 cars. That’s after 20-odd years in the sport. The sound really is important. The concerns are really well placed and the actually CO2 emitted by the cars at the circuit is a very small percentage of the footprint of our sport. We’ve got to make sure we get the sound right.
Q: There isn’t as much F1 coverage in US as many would like. What is F1 doing to improve that situation ahead of next year’s US Grand Prix in Austin, Texas?
EB: We have just started looking at how we can improve this situation. We’re looking at doing a showcar run somewhere and we need a location. Just an idea that’s being developed.
MW: we’ve got to make a success of the US. We’ve screwed it up a few times before and we’ve really got to get it right this time. F1’s got to learn about marketing; we’re not very good at it because we’re used to going to markets that want us and understand us. We take it for granted that people are going to turn up and they’re going to be enthusiastic. The US doesn’t need F1. We need it more than it needs us and that’s something that we’ve never previously accepted. We need to do things: we need a cavalcade of cars that sound great going through Time Square, down Sunset Boulevard and the rest.
Q: We now know that the Bahrain GP isn’t going to happen this year, but why was it even being discussed?
MW: We’ve been going to Bahrain for a number of years. It’s a very popular race and they’ve done a great job. But we’re a sport, we’re not a political organisation. But is it for us to decide on human rights? Whether we go to China, or Russia? We’ve got to be very careful if we’re suddenly going to become the moral arbiter of what country has the right level of human rights.
SESSION TWO: Mike Gascoyne / Heikki Kovalainen / Nico Hulkenberg
Q: Are the double DRS zones in Montreal and again in Valencia a good thing?
MG: The technology behind DRS is interesting. it’s the first time we’ve implemented something that gives the true advantage to the car behind. But we have to be careful: we’ve had a lot of overtaking this year, but a lot of that has been down to the tyres. DRS is still something that we’ve got to perfect and it will be very interesting to see how the double DRS zone affects it this weekend. But it gives the car behind a true advantage and so it something that we’ve got to stick with and work with. It was never something that was going to work straight off. In F1 we’re too quick to change regulations and then change them back in a knee-jerk reaction if they’re not doing what we wanted them to do. We’ve got to stick with this.
HK: It will be very interesting to try it this weekend in two DRS zones. We should see the full effect of DRS. It will be interesting to see if we get more overtaking into last chicane, or into Turn 1.
NH: A lot of the overtaking has been dominated by tyre degradation. I haven’t used it in the race, but in practice I use it pretty much after every corner and it’s quite a challenge. The overall package of new tyres, KERS and DRS has made the racing very exciting.Q: The new rules encourage the drivers to overtake, but the stewards seem to penalise them whenever they do. What do the drivers feel about that?
HK: This is a hot topic after the race in Monte Carlo, particularly after what happened with Lewis [Hamilton]. Monaco is a special event; something controversial happens every year. We had more controversy than normal this year, but I wouldn’t draw too many conclusions. Every time you try to overtake someone in Monte Carlo, there is a risk of an accident, and overtaking opportunities presented themselves more frequently this year due to the degradation of the Pirelli tyres. There were quite a few good overtaking moves too. it was entertaining. Let’s make a judgement at the end of the season, not just after Monte Carlo. We have more overtaking this year, so we are going to have more incidents.
NH: the appointment of a driver steward has been a very good thing. Only an ex-drier can judge what happens inside a car.
Q: How much of F1 is down to the driver and how much is down to the car?
MG: F1’s greatest strength is also one of its weaknesses. Its strength is that we all have to be constructors and you have this fantastic team identity as a result. But that inevitably means that someone is going to do it better than the others and that car is going to win, so its strength is its weakness. I think the differences between the drivers are much smaller than the differences between the cars. You’ve got to be very careful about changing that. You don’t want to create a false formula: F1 is meant to be about excellence, both in terms of the drivers and the engineering that’s behind the cars.
NH: There needs to be more similarity in terms of budget, resources, number of people. That way, the smaller teams stand a chance of progressing further up the grid. It’s difficult to control because big companies like Mercedes can probably still do things to gain their advantages. Its not only the drivers who fight on the track, the sport is also about the engineers fighting back in the factories.
HK: The balance that we have at the moment is okay. The cars are fun to drive and you just want to have the car with the most grip. The driver has to make his input still.
Q: Should F1 be greener?
MG: Motor racing is never going to be particularly green because we’re going round in circles, burning up lots of fuel to get to the sub total of nowhere! But F1 is used by sponsors to get messages out around the world and we should treat green initiatives and green technology very much in the same way. We should be embracing biofuels, energy recovery. The current KERS systems in F1 cars are about the least cost-effective energy recovery you could ever imagine, but the message that it’s sending out is the right one and we will get to the stage when we do them efficiently. The move towards more efficient power trains incorporating energy recovery is a pretty costly exercise and you’re only doing it so that 26 cars can go round in circles. So you can’t say it’s a green initiative, but it will get the message out there, which is very important for the future.
Q: Do this year’s Pirelli tyres have too much influence on performance?
HK: I would always go for pole position rather than save a fresh set of tyres for the race. This topic is popular because we have had a couple of guys racing from the back of the grid this year on a fresh set of tyres. But on one of those occasions you’ve got to remember that it was a Red Bull. The performance of the car helped a lot. In Barcelona I went as fast as I could in qualifying, using the tyres we had available. If, however, you can get pole and save a set of tyres, then of course you’ll do that.
NH: Big tyre degradation is tough because you’re struggling with everything: oversteer and understeer. We all agree that the racing has been very spectacular this year. Tyre management is something strategic, which is always going to be around in F1. The way these Pirelli tyres work is a challenge: you cannot predict on Saturday what they are going to do in the race. If you think it’s going to be a two-stop race, it can end up being a four-stopper. It’s always a surprise and I think that’s good for F1.
MG: This shows that you can’t please all of the people all of the time. Everyone said they wanted higher tyre degradation and bigger gaps between the compounds. Pirelli have been very brave to do it because no tyre company is going to like someone getting out of the car at the end of the race and saying their tyres were absolutely shit. That’s not why they are in F1. In some races there have been too many pitstops, but if you’re brave, as Pirelli have been with these tyres, you’re going to get it wrong sometimes. Every time we change the rules in F1, there are unforeseen consequences that we hadn’t thought of. What we mustn’t do is then make knee-jerk reactions. I think the tyres have been great for F1.
HK: I think the fans are getting to see some really special laps from the top guys this year. One really good lap, instead of lots of average ones.
Q: Why does F1 change the rules midway through a season, such as with the blown diffusers?
HK: The blown diffuser has a massive effect on the car and a massive effect for the driver. It’s something that you need to get used to because it’s providing the cars with a lot of grip at the back. If you took that away, it would feel like an F3 car for a few laps. From a driving point of view, you wouldn’t want to take that much grip away suddenly.
MG: I have some sympathy with the FIA because they have 10 guys trying to control the rules and several thousand engineers trying to get around them. As an engineer, one of the joys of F1 is the chance to out-think the opposition. If something thinks of a good idea, those who didn’t think of it will try and get it banned. It’s always been like that. F1 is about innovation, it’s about being the best. Charlie Whiting and his guys do an incredibly good job in an incredibly difficult area.
Q: Should we re-think what happens on the Friday of a GP weekend?
MG: At the moment we have two 1.5-hour sessions and I think Fridays should be used as a test session and we should run all day.
SESSION THREE: Luca Colajanni, Adam Parr, John Allert
Q: What can be done to keep us up speed on the race while adverts are on the TV?
JA: It’s about getting a balance between different distribution channels. Free-to-air has dominated the landscape in F1 traditionally and, most recently, pay TV has grown in importance as it’s penetrated various markets. Pay TV is obviously a different financial model and with that comes the need for self-funding and the only way they can really achieve that is to sell advertising. It’s something the commercial rights holder is responsible forThe big opportunity for the teams is for us to look at other distribution outlets: mobile, web, different apps to try and supplement the experience. They help to fill those awkward periods when someone is trying to sell you a new sofa.
Q: How should F1 embrace the United States?
LC: It’s crucial for F1 to be back in the US. Two races if possible, when you consider the size of the market. We have to promote the sport in a different way to how we’ve done it in the past. When we went to a new country in the past, we said ‘we’re F1, we’re the best, come and see us’. In countries where there wasn’t a culture and knowledge of F1, we didn’t explain the sport properly and we missed the opportunity at the beginning of the last decade to explain ourselves when F1 was at Indianapolis. We have to be careful this time because we cannot afford to miss another opportunity.
AP: I went to Austin last year to check it out. I was doing an interview with the {I}Austin Stateman{I} and I made a joke, which I’ve learnt is not a good idea in any career! I said to the journalist that for F1 not to be present in the US would be like having a sport that only played in the US and was called the World Series. If we want to be a global sport, we have to be big in the US. The problem is that we don’t have an American driver and we don’t have an American team; it’s tricky. The time difference is very difficult for North American-based fans, the TV situation isn’t great and having TV commercials in a live sport which has no natural breaks is terrible. I think we have a lot of work to do.
Q: How do you convince a country like America that F1 is worth following?
JA: We’re heading to Watkins Glen with Lewis next week and the best way for us to show people what F1 is about is to get the cars out and about across the US and Canada. We need to give people the experience that gives people the tingles on the back of the neck. It’s a sport that’s very difficult to appreciate only on TV. Seen up close, heard and smelt, it’s extraordinary.
LC: I was in Kansas last weekend to attend a Nascar race. It was a very different experience to what I am used to, but I saw 70,000 passionate fans. I cannot understand why we can’t reach the same level of interest as Nascar in the US. We have such beautiful cars, but it’s up to us. We have to do it this time. AP: If you look at American Football, it’s quite strategic in terms of how you stop the play and bring on a different group of people. If Americans spend a bit of time getting to know us, and if we present it well, they’ll enjoy the complexities of what we do. I think that’s a very strong selling point for us.
Q: Has F1 got the balance right between sport and entertainment?
JA: I was involved in both of the FOTA global audience surveys. Last year’s, which polled 80,000 F1 fans in 130 countries, told us that they wanted more overtaking, more excitement and greater proximity to the drivers. All credit to FOTA, I think we have delivered a vast majority of those things. There’s certainly more overtaking. What is the right balance? I think we’re pretty close to the right balance this year and I hope the fans agree.
LC: There have been too many pitstops at a couple of races and that makes it difficult for people with a lot of experience to understand, let alone the casual observer. As Europeans we follow every lap as if it was crucial, Nascar fans don’t mind missing five laps because they know there will be another safety car and they start from scratch again.
Q: How do these ideas from FOTA actually get implemented?
AP: The ideas come from different places, but mostly from the sporting and the technical working groups. They generate ideas, such as the DRS coming from the TWG, and the FOTA executive committee had a big debate about tyres. Pirelli are meant to be giving us tyres that have different characteristics and they’ve stuck with it. They could make a harder tyre that lasts for 2,000 laps, but that’s not what people want.
Q: To what degree can Ferrari be seen as the conscience of F1?
LC: No-one can deny that we’ve been in F1 since the very beginning, since 1950. As was said by Martin before, we will be there in years to come because racing is part of our DNA. I am sure the same can be said of McLaren and Williams as well. I don’t think this is something that makes us arrogant. We play an historical role in F1 and there’s nothing wrong in saying that.
Q: Rubens Barrichello has the most followers of any driver on Twitter. What is your global vision for social networks in F1?
JA: Twitter is a terrific medium for F1. It’s a dangerous medium for any sport because we’ve seen it backfire on a number of high profile sporting personalities. It’s something that needs to be treated carefully by all of the teams because, unlike something like soccer, we have a lot of confidential information that, if leaked, could give an advantage to our competitors. Our drivers have total autonomy on what they tweet. Sometimes they have too much, but that’s the magic of the medium. That it’s real. Anything you read from our two drivers has been tapped out with their own thumbs and you can see the spelling mistakes to prove it! We supplement that with our own feed, and I know other teams are doing it and doing it very well.
LC: Social networking and the internet as a whole presents a big issue: anonymity. I often have to deal with rumours spread on websites, of which I don’t know the source. I can mention one today from a Dutch website, which says Flavio Briatore is coming Ferrari. It’s complete bullshit! As it’s nearly impossible to control, sometimes you have to take decisions that are unpopular. Unlike McLaren, we don’t let our drivers use Twitter because we don’t want them writing something that can be misinterpreted. We want control and we need to find the right balance.
AP: I’m a bit old-fashioned, I don’t tweet and I’m not on Facebook. I struggle a bit with it because sometimes you can get a bit too involved in other people’s lives. I had a very interesting meeting in New York the day before yesterday with a fashion label and they said people like Burberry are using social networking almost exclusively now. It’s foolish to ignore it, but I struggle with it personally.
Q: Why can’t we see more TV archive footage?
LC: You’re completely right that we mustn’t forget our history. We need to have an organisation that wants to invest in the promotion of the sport, using the heritage that we have. We risk having an audience that is getting too old, we mustn’t lose the new generations. We need to address this as a sport because no-one can do it on their own.
JA: We’re certainly doing everything we can to dust off the archives. We’ve built a heritage section on our website, and we know that other teams have some fantastic heritage material. Interestingly, 50% of F1 fans around the world are under the age of 36. The most powerful people in our sport are you, the fans. You’re the ultimate stakeholders; whether it’s through the pressure of eyeballs on TV, or on-line, you need to demand what you want.
Q: Are you scared of what social media can become?
AP: When Murdoch buys us, it’s all going to change! The way F1 is consumed is going to change over the next few years. There’s so much content that you should be able to enjoy. Bernie has two or three cameras on every car, and then there are all the circuit cameras. There’s an astonishing richness of material and we’re not really touching that at the moment.
LC: If we want to have an interview with our drivers at the end of qualifying, we can’t do it because we don’t have the rights to do it. Or we have to pay significant amounts of money to Bernie Ecclestone for something, which, in terms of Intellectual Property, could be considered to be our own. The situation is that we would like to do more, but the current Concorde Agreement doesn’t allow us to do it. Until 2012 we can’t do as much as we want, let’s think about changing that for 2013 and beyond.
AP: There are two things that Bernie thinks about. First, he likes to control the amount of material that’s available. He believes that rarity is an important characteristic of our sport. Second, he believes that if he sells the rights to the BBC in the UK, for example, they should have the rights to everything. They can re-play it on their iPlayer system; they can do the internet; they can do everything. He thinks that’s the way to maximise revenue. The problem is that our total TV revenues as a sport are less than $500 million. By comparison, the NFL is $4.2 billion and Turkish soccer is a little bit more than us. I think it’s time that we challenge him. This is an incredibly expensive sport to put on as a team. We’re not giving you what you want and we’re not getting what we want either. There are a few fundamental problems that need to be addressed and we need to change a few things.
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