Still savouring his team's sixth consecutive Constructors' Championship, and one day after the sixteenth anniversary of the death of team founder, Enzo Ferrari, team boss Jean Todt sat down to answer a few questions.
In 2003, race winner Fernando Alonso lapped Michael Schumacher, there's been quite a turnaround since then.
"It's true that last year we had a tough race at Budapest," the Frenchman agrees, "but Michael was still in the lead of the Drivers' World Championship after the Hungarian Grand Prix. The year ended well, because in 2003 Ferrari were World Constructors' winners for the fifth time in succession and Michael was World Drivers' Champion for the fourth successive year. This year one could say that Ferrari has dominated hugely, so have Bridgestone, so has Michael. Which means that if you compare the 2003 Hungarian Grand Prix and the 2004 Hungarian Grand Prix you have two races which were fundamentally very different."
Today was an amazing demonstration. "All weekend we have seen a very competitive Bridgestone-shod Ferrari. We saw it on Friday and it was finally confirmed in qualifying, where we had to do one quick lap as opposed to the race."
Have you been a bit surprised by your domination here? "No," he replies, firmly, "I knew that we should be fairly competitive at Budapest and that we confirmed on Friday morning."
With five races to go, there are still records to be broken: poles, the number of one-twos in a season etc, do statistics help motivation? "There are figures and statistics," he replies, smiling, "but they don't help you beat records, do they? Figures and statistics exist, but on the other hand this has been a historical year because Michael has just won his 12th race out of 13 this season, so that's a record, and Ferrari has become World Constructors' champions for the sixth consecutive time, another record. Records give us pleasure, but having said that, we tackled this race as just another race."
Can you give your opponents a crumb of hope, that you might be distancing yourself from the sporting side in your role as managing director? "No," he responds. "I'm organising my life slightly differently but the difference between the head office of the sporting department and the head office of the commercial side is 300 meters, so it's easy to do both jobs."
How do you keep up the motivation of all the team with all these titles and wins? "It's because we continue to collect them, so I think that's easy."
Last year you were lapped by the winner, this year you almost lapped everybody else, so in one season you've made up nearly two laps on the opposition. Is it a surprise what you've managed to achieve in 12 months? "It's just simply that we've been working the right direction," he says. "We've been working in the right direction and we have understood the problem, which was that we weren't competitive enough, but I must say it was mainly a tyre problem."
So, do you see that as one of key factors, particularly this weekend, that the big step forward has been tyres? "There are a lot of ingredients," he says, "but clearly, with Bridgestone, we have been doing a good job on tyre construction, on tyre consistency and it has helped us a lot to be competitive this weekend.
Do feel that the gap appears to be growing between yourselves and your rivals? At the start of the season in Melbourne you were 30s ahead of the third placed car and now you seem to be able to push it up to nearly a minute, 40s over Alonso. Are you surprised that the gap is growing? "It was growing this Grand Prix," agrees the Frenchman, "but at the previous Grand Prix the question was 'are you not scared that now they are back?' You should remember what you asked me then! The last Grand Prix it wasn't like that. This Grand Prix it is like that."
"But there has been a big step forward particularly from the tyres. Ross said that the test prior to Hockenheim at Jerez was a big step forward for you and it will carry on.
"It is," he agrees, "but that doesn't mean that it will be the same at Spa or Monza. Every time it's a new challenge, which is what makes it interesting. But even if we know we have a good package, we know that the others are pushing like hell, because they hate seeing us in front, and we hate seeing them in front. That makes the competition."
On the TV pictures, there appeared to be a problem with the fuel rig; what was that?
"I don't know exactly what the problem was," he replies.
Did it have any effect on the stops? "Not at all. It just had the effect that we had a certain amount of time to solve the problem, but it seemed that we were going to solve the problem, which was what mattered."
Were both rigs affected? "Only one," he responds.
Would you say there's a secret to Ferrari's success? "A secret? There's no secret," he says. "It all depends on what you call a secret. The secret is people, people and partners. That's the secret. But everybody has partners and everybody has human resources in the company. But maybe the way we handle, the way we deal with the people, it's our style. Each company has its own style of management and of running a company. But I think everybody is aiming to get the best out of it."
