Q: In the end, I believe, you all signed the document supporting Minardi. The Stewards have made their own decision. What is your feeling?
Christian Horner: I am happy to state that I am delighted that the Stewards have taken it on. As far as I am concerned, the FIA are the regulators of Formula One and I don’t see why the teams should be involved in saying whether someone should break the rules or not. The rules are the rules at the end of the day it is ultimately down to the regulators to police that.
Nick Fry: I think it is good that the teams eventually all stuck together and tried to be supportive of Paul, but at the end of the day the referee is the referee and the sport does need to have an independent referee and I think they made a brave decision and good on them.
Colin Kolles: Basically, I have the same opinion. We didn’t sign the paper today. We just said we wont protest against Minardi because we think that rules are rules. I think that Jordan was in a worse situation than Minardi in December and January. We managed to bring the cars confirming to the 2005 regulations and so I think it should be possible for Minardi.
Q: Colin, for you, it is quite a jump to go from your own Formula 3 team to Formula One, and much the same for Christian. What are your feelings and how are you getting on with the job?
CK: I don’t have any problems until now. We will see in the future. For the moment, it is quite okay.
Q: Is the team going to change in the future?
CK: The biggest change is that we have some motivation in the team now. It was low in December and that is the biggest change. In respect of personnel there is no major change.
Q: You have lost Mark Smith, however… Are you looking for a new technical director?
CK: I think we have a good choice for this.
Q: How do you think the drivers got on today?
CK: Yes, it is a transitional year for us and we are not looking only at this year, but also at the future. We have to improve on today. We are not happy with our positions. We will do some improvements in times and I think they did a good job.
Q: Nick, new to the job as it were… How much have things changed for you?
NF: New to the job but not new to the team and worked with David (Richards) the last four years, the last three as MD. A lot of it is much the same with additional responsibility of doing things like this. Having Honda on board as 45 per cent owners has made life much easier and a lot of barriers have come down and communication is much easier and we can draw on their resources and I am having a blast.
Q: But you were second last year so …
NF: Yes, different objectives. Obviously last three years we’ve gone from eighth to fifth to second and it has been a great improvement but we didn’t win a race and we were a country mile behind Ferrari. So, we shouldn’t pat ourselves too much on the back. Our objective this year is to win a race even if we have to compromise our championship position somewhat, we will make the trade-off. It is good fun. We have a highly-motivated team and two hugely-motivated drivers and a great team spirit. We will go for it.
Q: You and Christian have a marketing strategy for a fun factor for Formula One. Is that going to carry on and develop?
NF: From our side, we have to recognise that we are competing against each other, which is clearly key to this, but we are competing as a sport with a whole bunch of other sporting activities like watching Desperate Housewives or American Idol, or whatever it happens to be. And I think there is an increasing realization that while Formula One is very popular our school reports tend to say ‘could do better’. And that’s what we have to do. Adding more entertainment and listening to the fans, I am glad we have experts like Red Bull, a marketing company, really involved. We can learn a lot from them.
Q: Is that your strategy?
CH: What to have some fun? Yes, well Red Bull has a very clear objective. They want to appeal to the man in the grandstand and that is what this activity is all about. And coupled with that we have a clear objective of what we want to achieve on the circuit and one has to work hand in hand with the other. Red Bull obviously is a marketing driven company and has interesting plans for this year.
Q: And for yourself? It’s a big step up from Formula 3000…
CH: Yes, that’s why I’ve got names on the shirts so I can recognise who all the people are to be honest. The philosophy remains the same. It is a people sport at the end of the day and if you surround yourself with good people that are motivated, focused and share a common objective, that is what it is all about. It is how you react to problems and deal with them. I will use the methods that I utilized at Arden here at Red Bull.
Q: And today, was it a surprise for you?
CH: It was a positive start. I got used to seeing Vitantonio’s times at the top of the sheet last year but there were some impressive names beneath him today. Obviously the drivers were working to different programmes. We are happy with the progress we made and we think we are in reasonable shape.
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