With Fernando ALONSO, Jarno TRULLI (RENAULT), Cristiano DA MATTA and Olivier PANIS (TOYOTA)
Q: Jarno, can we have a voice level, how is it?Jarno TRULLI: It’s so-so. Not very loud…
Q: You’ve mentioned that this circuit is a technical one, and one that you enjoy; give us your views of it now that you’ve had a good look at it? JT: As usual, it’s been one of my favourite circuits. It’s quite technical, a lot of different kind of corners: slow speed, high speed, medium, changes of direction, hard-braking, so it’s a circuit I like very much and I believe any driver can enjoy it.
Q: But why do you enjoy technical circuits more than say Spa? JT: Spa is very technical as well. I like it very much; it’s probably my favourite one. The two, I cannot say, are dissimilar but they are close to each other. Spa is more like an older style circuit, which is fantastic. This one is more natural, a contemporary circuit with a lot of big run-off areas, but I still prefer Spa.
Q: You’ve mentioned that you find yourself very popular here in France; why do you think that is?JT: I think it’s because I was driving for Prost Grand Prix, a French team, and I had a lot of French supporters at that time which I eventually found again when I joined Renault a few years ago. And the fact that I speak French fluently so I can give interviews to all the French journalists made me very well known around France.
Q: So you regard this as a second Grand Prix for you? JT: Probably the third, the first is Imola, the second is Monaco, the third will be this one, and the fourth one will be Silverstone!
Q: Now obviously people are becoming fairly aware about the speeds in Formula One at the moment. It’s something that you have spoken about earlier on this year. What are your feelings regarding that? JT: Well, to be honest, it’s nothing to do with Ralf’s accident but obviously the USA (events) just proved that Formula One cars are very quick and we need more safety, we need to take care of the speed and to slow them down because we all know that there is a lot of technology in this sport and every year we improve our performance - we ask the technicians to make the cars quicker. On the other hand I think the FIA has to work to slow the cars down and to give more safety to the drivers, to the spectators, to everybody, and to give more of a show to the spectators.
Q: Is it in braking, is it in G-force or is it overall? JT: I won’t go into details but there are a lot of areas where we should work and it’s not up to me to decide which areas, it’s more likely to be decided by the FIA and I think the FIA, together with the GPDA, we can suggest to them what we think as drivers could be the best way to slow the cars down, or to make our sport safer, but for sure, there is something to do.
Q: What about the GPDA feeling after Indianapolis; was there a feeling that perhaps something could have been done to lessen the impact, for example, of Ralf Schumacher’s accident? JT: More than impact, we weren’t very happy about some actions that were taken, like the doctors, the ambulance, the fact that for seven laps we were going through the same place where a lot of debris was on the track, where Ralf crashed. There are a lot of little mistakes, which can be cured in the future and we will probably discuss it this afternoon in the drivers’ briefing and afterwards with all the GPDA members.
Q: Fernando, first of all, Rob White (technical director, engine) says that the team can take the fight to Ferrari on some circuits. Do you think that’s possible in the second half of the year? Fernando ALONSO: I don’t know. It’s probably a little bit too optimistic but why not? I think we are working OK, we are the only team who have won a race apart from Ferrari and we guess that the second half of the season will be better than the first half, considering we started with a very new engine project and we know we can develop the chassis a lot more as well. We know we have a very strong potential with the Renault car and during the last half of the season, we will probably take 100 per cent of it.
Q: And a new engine specification here, I believe? FA: Yeah, we have something… (laughs) well, you know, every race we have something new coming with the engine and in the chassis as well and here we have something more and hopefully it will help us to be more competitive.
Q: The last couple of races haven’t been very good for you, so what’s your mood coming here? FA: Well, work at the maximum as usual and wait for luck to come back to me a bit, or even just not bad luck, normal luck because in Monaco I crashed with Ralf in the tunnel, at the Nuerburgring I had a steering rack problem, in Canada I had the driveshaft problem and at Indy the tyre, so I’ve not been very lucky at the moment, but I’m sure it will change from now until the end.
Q: What about your feelings about qualifying: it’s not being changed, were you looking forward to the new qualifying system? Which would you prefer? FA: Well, you know too many changes in too short a time and you get confused as to what you want and what you don’t want. I don’t know. The drivers like to run with low fuel, this is nothing new, everybody knows that because we like the feeling, we like to do… all the people with the same strategy with the same level of fuel in the car for qualifying, like this you see really where you are and you can do the maximum. With fuel on board, you always have speculation and rumour that some people have more, some less and it’s not really qualifying, I think, from the drivers’ point of view. But last year and this year I think we had very good races for the spectators, for us as well. Strategically, I think the engineers’ work with fuel on board in qualifying is much more important now and with the new format that they wanted to impose, we lost a little bit of that but now, maybe, we keep everything as it is now and nothing changes. I don’t think the drivers’ point of view is not really important.
Q: You’re joined at this Grand Prix by another Spaniard, Marc Gene. What does that mean for you? FA: Well, it’s good. The way he joined us isn’t good because another driver had a bad accident, but it will be a good opportunity for him.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Dan Knutson – National Speedsport News) Jarno, looking at this weekend specifically, how competitive do you think the car will be and what are your hopes? JT: I hope, or we hope the car will be competitive. Last year it was quite competitive. Obviously we’ve noticed that this year the car seems to be performing very well in some places and a bit less in some other circuits. It’s something that we will probably find out during Friday’s sessions and Saturday’s, but we are confident because it is a technical circuit and hopefully we can both have a very good weekend in front of our home crowd of French people.
Q: (Stefan Bomhard – Kicker Sportmagazin) Jarno, imagine they do slow down Formula One. How would you feel about that as a racing driver because you are always searching for the limit? JT: Well, I’m sitting here as a racing driver and as a GPDA director, so on one side as a driver, we all want to be very quick or as quick as possible. But on the other hand, I have, with the other GPDA drivers, to take care of ourselves, to take care of our safety, in the circuit, around the circuit and also regarding the spectators. We’ve seen in the past a lot of accidents have happened to them. I don’t think any of us want to return to the time when we lost two drivers in one weekend, so we want to prevent this, we want to try our best, to make Formula One as safe as possible because we want to show, to the whole word, that we are able to build quick cars, safe cars and to make a very good show.
Q: (Dan Knutson – National Speedsport News) We’ve seen some big accidents this year. When you’re in the car, do you guys think of the danger, because let’s face it, no matter how safe any sport is, Formula One can be a very dangerous occupation. Do you think about it, or do you blank it out, that you could get hurt? FA: I personally don’t feel any worry when I’m in the car. As soon as the race starts, I feel completely safe. When you lose a car or when I lost the car at Indianapolis, after the first movement I knew that nothing was going to happen to me, because the car is very safe. So from that point of view, I think us drivers feel 100 percent safe when we have a crash. But at the same time, we know that speeds are very high and we are in a sport where the risk is always there.
Q: When you had that accident at Indianapolis, do you think it would have been made worse by having some sort of protection against the wall? FA: At that point? Yes because I touched it and the car was sliding and I had no problems. If you had a tyre barrier or something maybe the car would stop and you would have very high deceleration. But it has been proved that tyre barriers help in 90 percent of the cases. But at Indianapolis we know that to have only the wall on the straight is probably better.
DRIVERS: Cristiano DA MATTA and Olivier PANIS (TOYOTA)
Q: Olivier, your 150th Grand Prix at Indianapolis and you scored points. That must have been very satisfactory for you. Olivier PANIS: Ah well, I’m sure that the Indianapolis for us and for me was really good. One hundred and fifty Grands Prix is good, it’s a number, it’s good to have it but for me the most important thing is the result at Indianapolis. We looked really competitive all weekend. We managed the race very well, for everything with the many incidents that we had, and to finish fifth is good for the team and myself.
Q: What did you learn from Indianapolis, which direction do you push in now? OP: We knew from the Grand Prix before Indianapolis that we were qualifying very well but we have some problems with the rear tyre degradation, more in comparison to everyone else speaking to Michelin. I think Indianapolis helped us a lot, because the tyres looked really, really competitive for us and also saved us with the problem that we have, and that’s why we were very quick during the race. I think I did the fourth quickest lap time, which means something, 0.6s behind Ferrari which means we are on the pace. That’s it really. I think we have a good compromise mechanically and aerodynamically in Indianapolis and we managed to score the result. It was really good.
Q: Can that translate to here though? OP: Well, I think we find some direction to set up the car, particularly on the front to help the rear tyres and I hope it’s working here as well.
Q: Speeds in Formula One are coming under scrutiny at the moment, not necessarily because of what happened at Indianapolis. What are your feelings about the speeds in Formula One at the moment? OP: If I feel that Formula One is too quick then I will stay at home.
Q: But you don’t think it’s too quick for the circuits? OP: Ah well, all the time we are speaking after accidents. I’m sure Ralf’s accident was very bad, I feel bad for him, but I think it looks OK; this is the most important thing. But all the time we are talking about speed after accidents. I think that what we did with the FIA and all the drivers was really good because we improved the safety of the circuits, we improved the safety of the cars, it’s fantastic, but we need to push for that and we need to continue. But at the end of the day Formula One is dangerous. That’s what I feel.
Q: So you don’t feel the cars need slowing down? OP: Of course we need to do that one day, but for me, we need to have quicker cars in Formula One because that’s why we’re here, why we like Formula One and everybody else too and also we need to have some fighting, some overtaking even with drivers who perhaps take some a little bit of a risk. But this is Formula One for me. If you need to make a rule for speed, a rule for overtaking, a rule for everything, there’s no point at the end of the day. This is my feeling. Somebody might not agree with me, but this is what I feel.
Q: What about your own future? We’ve asked you this before, but has anything changed since we last asked? OP: No, well for me, I’m so motivated and determined. I’m working really hard with the team; both of us have been working really hard with the team for two years. Now I want to profit from the result, which is why I am continuing to push really hard and preparing for next year.
Q: When you both read all these stories about who is coming to the team, do you take them seriously or do you just ignore them? OP: I just say welcome to them. Cristiano da Matta: Well, it’s the type of thing that you cannot do anything about. Because you’re inside the team, sometimes we have a clue… many of the things we read in the press are all… sometimes they make no sense and some of the other ones we know make some sense. But obviously we cannot get too worried about it because at the end of the day it’s not our decision, all we can do is do all we know, to do our best, to drive the car, to focus and to keep on trying to do the best job we can. If you want to stay with the team, this is how we are going to do it, not being worried about rumours and internet websites saying a couple of different things. We just have to focus on the work.
Q: Your preview comments for this race suggest that the car lacks downforce and perhaps that’s what the advantage was at Indianapolis and perhaps could be the disadvantage here? CdM: Yeah, I think at the Indianapolis as well as here… well, that our car lacks downforce isn’t news, that we’ve known since the beginning of the year. I think what helped us at Indianapolis is that it’s definitely the type of track where there is a long straight so maybe not having as much downforce as some of our competitors didn’t hurt us as much as it could hurt at some other places. And also Indianapolis is a very smooth track so our car was running well there because of that also. We have some difficulties over bumps and kerbs and this kind of thing, so here, on the one hand, the downforce could hurt us a little bit, but on the other hand we could have the expectation to do well here and maybe to score points as a team, because the track is so smooth, it’s the type of situation that kind of suits our car a little bit more than other types of tracks. So obviously here and at Indianapolis, we had both things helping us. Here we will have only one of them but still I think our target should be to be in the points at the end of the race. I think we need a little bit of luck to get that but that’s what I have to focus on.
Q: Is downforce what the new car is going to be bringing? CdM: Well, the biggest difference about the new car and the old car – there are many different things but everything is towards getting more downforce and less drag, because we know that the number one problem with our car is aerodynamics so the number one problem we’re focusing on right now is increasing downforce and obviously lowering the drag level which is too high at the moment, so let’s see how it comes out.
Q: What about the fact that qualifying isn’t being changed after all; what do you feel about that? Were you looking forward to the new qualifying format? CdM: Well, I hear all the drivers talking so much that it was so much fun to qualify with low fuel and many different attempts and you could really abuse it. Right now, obviously we can abuse it but obviously only to a certain limit because you only have one try and if you get it wrong you end up way far back on the grid. It was more or less our type of racing. Every type of driver during his whole car, that’s the way qualifying is anyway. So I was kind of looking forward to it but in a certain way, for the teams that aren’t doing so well right now this other type of qualifying that was being suggested to replace the one lap qualifying would define more the quicker cars and the slower cars, and you wouldn’t have more the surprise factor that this one lap qualifying brings to us, and this could be not very beneficial for us because sometimes you can try to play some different games to qualify: maybe a little bit lower fuel level to be a little bit further up the grid, try different strategies. So I think for the race overall, single lap qualifying is better. Maybe from a fun point of view, maybe the other qualifying was a bit more fun but it’s not fun when you’re qualifying and then on race day you’re starting further back. So it goes both ways, you know.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) I would like to have Olivier’s opinions on the qualifying system? OP: Well, for me, I know both systems from the past. I like both. I like to qualify with low fuel, for me, as Cristiano says, I feel it’s more fun, it’s easier to use the car at 100 percent and with the new rules that we were talking about, I feel we also have more chance, even if you have traffic, but for me, I don’t complain about the one that we have right now. One thing I am very surprised about is that everybody pushed in one direction, and then two weeks afterwards everybody went back again and nobody has really taken a decision. This is what has shocked me a little bit, but it looks like this time.
Q: (Heinz Pruller – Kroenen Zeitung) Gentlemen, you have the new car in Hockenheim presumably. Can you tell when you test it for the first time and what’s your impression? CdM: Well, we’ll be testing in Jerez the week after Silverstone for the first time, but we’re only going to have the new car, the new parts but the new aero pieces are not going to be ready until the weekend of Hockenheim, so it’s just going to be a shakedown for the new chassis which has a couple of different things but the aero pieces which is the area where we are expecting the big gain, we are not going to have it until the week after Silverstone Jerez test.
Q: It’s going to be a bit of a surprise, a bit of a learning curve for you…OP: Yeah, this is true, but I think the mechanics of the car are mostly the same. From the reliability point of view it’s OK. If you put on the aero kits, there’s a downforce inefficiency. You don’t really need to set up the car for that – a little bit, it’s just the speed. I hope so. No, I’m looking forward to that because everybody in the factory has put in a lot of effort to produce the car but we need to wait and see in Hockenheim.
Q: (Heinz Pruller – Kroenen Zeitung) Excuse me but an Austrian question for the start at Indianapolis. You were both around Klien when there was his first lap accident; can you tell me what happened? OP: I was in front of Cristiano, I didn’t see anything behind me. I don’t know. I have no idea. But he crashed into Coulthard in front of me in Canada, I was behind that, but I have no idea in Indianapolis. CdM: The only thing I felt was a hit from behind from him as I started to brake to go into turn two, I just felt the hit from behind, but I couldn’t say exactly what happened from his point of view.
Q: (Heinz Pruller – Kroenen Zeitung) He thinks you slowed down suddenly. CdM: Well, I was running beside Olivier and I had to give him room to go into the corner, otherwise I was going to T-bone him into turn two and obviously I didn’t want to do that, so I had to slow down to give him room to go into the corner and obviously I had to back off a little bit earlier, but it’s the type of thing that happens at every start, it’s the type of thing that you have to expect. You cannot go into turn two on the first lap of the race as you go into a qualifying lap, for example. Obviously you have to expect things to happen. Some people are maybe going to have to back off a bit sooner so you have to be prepared for those things. F
