Guest questioner: James Allen (ITV)

Q: Obviously today has been dominated by the rule package for '05/'06 - package two confirmed, no great surprise, but confirmation of two race engines for next year, and 2.4 litre V8s from 2006. Just a reaction from each of you to that please, starting with Mike.
Mike Gascoyne: Well, I think first and foremost relief that we've actually got some regulations and from the chassis side, pretty much what we expected obviously, and what we've been working to. So relief on that side. Toyota have always supported the 2.4 litre V8 and the two race engine for next year, so that's not a problem for us. The only thing where our stance is at odds to what's happened is that Toyota wanted freedom in the engine regulations and freedom to put technology in the engines which is one of the reasons that Toyota came into Formula One. So we're disappointed, but overall it's pretty much what we expected and, as I say, just a feeling of relief that we can get on with it and design and finalise the design of the cars.

Pat Symonds: Very similar comments to Mike. The rules are really exactly as we expected, there are no surprises in that. We also have supported, in general, these changes, certainly accept that something needed to be done on the engine side to reduce performance. I think it was a good thing, at the same time, to maybe look at a few cost-saving options and those have been incorporated so all in all, a package that we're quite happy with.

Sam Michael: Same for us, nothing was really a surprise in there because it was all basically formulated in the last three or four TWG (Technical Working Group) meetings anyway. I think everyone's been working to the new bodywork and aero regulations for next year, but as the guys have said, it's very important to make sure it's on a bit paper that says that's what's happening for next year. Same thing with the tyres, there's no surprises there and also the engine, all of that was nothing new to us so it's good for next year.

Ross Brawn: I think in common with the other guys we recognise that periodically you need to slow the cars down. We all work very hard to make them as quick as we can but then you start run out of space on the circuits, so it's necessary, periodically, to slow the cars and I think they are a sensible set of regulations to begin that process. I think we've got 2008 coming up which will be a blank sheet of paper for Formula One. I think we need to really think about what we want in Formula One from 2008 onwards. There's no constraint of a Concorde Agreement at that stage, at least not to the present understanding. I think vis-à-vis the technology of the engine. We were totally supportive, we believe it will reduce costs, and I believe there has been an imbalance in the regulations, I think we have a 40-page technical… the technical regulations consists of 40 pages of which one page was about the engines. The other 39 were about the car. That doesn't seem sensible. The constraints we place on the car, I think we are now starting to place some constraints on the engine, but there will still be plenty of potential for people to create discriminating technology between the cars and engines.

Q: One set of tyres for the weekend, does that mean more testing, because presumably to evaluate a set of tyres that's going to do three or four hundred kilometres you've actually got to do three or four hundred kilometres to understand what they'll do. So does that mean you're going to be out running a lot more often?
RB: I think there will be a lot more predictive techniques developed to avoid that because I don't think it's practical to be out testing every set of tyres for three or four hundred kilometres. I think the teams and tyre suppliers will develop techniques whereby after a short period you can make an initial assessment and then when you're down to the - let's say - a short list of candidates you may well do long runs on them, but I don't think it is necessary for us to do that sort of mileage on every set of test tyres.

Q: So much for Bridgestone, what about the Michelin contingent? Do you share that view?
SM: I think it's the same. It's pretty much difficult to do much more testing than we do at the moment. It will have to involve either testing those compounds, or doing less long runs on those compounds or using predictive techniques which has just been mentioned. So it's a similar (unclear).

Q. This morning in the team principals meeting three car teams were mentioned again, running a third car was mentioned again. Is this becoming closer to becoming a reality and if so how will you approach that?
PS: I believe it is becoming closer to reality but like all things, it's is a binary decision, it either happens or it doesn't and you don't know until the last minute. It shouldn't be underestimate, the difficulty of running a third car. Of course , we have some experience of it from operating under the Heathrow agreement last year. It's surprising how it ramps things up. It is pretty difficult to co-ordinate and control two cars at times, and three cars is that much more difficult. It involves quite a lot of expense for us, the obvious ones of building the extra parts and things but even the number of personnel you need at the circuit, the number of people you need backing up at the factory. Just simple things like modifications to trucks and what have you, it's an expensive exercise and what's perhaps a little bit unfortunate is that the way things look at the moment there's a high possibility of running three cars in 2005 and perhaps a low possibility in 2006, so there's an awful lot of work there for one year.

MG: We obviously ran three cars today. When it is just one day and you are not racing that car you can plan for it. It still involves extra effort and extra expense. We have extra people here to be able to do that and we would have to increase that were we to do it so that we were racing that car. So I don't think it should be underestimated. Like most things in this business, it's do-able, we could do it, but that doesn't necessarily mean to say that we would want to do it under ideal circumstances.