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French GP: Friday Press Conference

NEWS STORY
14/07/2006

A question to all of you: we understand that this weekend is going to be a crucial one regarding the early implementation of the 2008 engine rules; what are your thoughts about this? Will it happen?
Jean Todt: As everybody knows, we had a Formula One Commission meeting and over the meeting, it was agreed that the decision concerning the future engine rules would be taken at the end of the weekend here in Magny-Cours. Whether I'm optimistic about that, I honestly don't know. I know it's very difficult to make everybody take the same line. We have seen that, that's why very often it's up to the FIA to make the final decision. The options are simple: either we find an agreement – what we have been calling the Indianapolis agreement for the engine, which would be implemented from January '07 - or we don't find an agreement and in this case we will follow the '08 technical rules, from '08, and unless other things happen, it will be the status quo for the rules until the end of next year, and the implementation of the rules from January '08 with the new Concorde Agreement and the new technical rules.

Flavio Briatore: I pretty much agree with Jean Todt. We had a meeting at Indianapolis and at the time everybody was in agreement. I'm very disappointed that there have been movements because for us it was very good to have the frozen engine, it was really really perfect. The cost of the Indianapolis agreement was quite important, we're talking about 14 or 15 million more. I don't understand why we need to spend this kind of money because, sure, we won't see this on the track. But to have an agreement from everybody, to have everybody together, and Ferrari, Mercedes, BMW and Renault, everything, we made the effort to agree at Indianapolis and after that, we had the Formula One Commission again and a deadline was made for this Sunday and let's see what happens. Now it's only Friday. If something happens, it happens. As Jean said, we have an agreement for 2008, for 2007 it looks like everybody will spend an enormous amount of money to come back in 2008 at square one. That's completely stupid. But anyway, we have three more days and we will probably find a solution.

Colin Kolles: Well, my feelings are basically as Flavio said, it's complete nonsense to spend huge amounts of money in 2007, and I think the proposals which have been made, especially from the independent teams are more than fair. We are not asking for a free engine supply. We are just asking for an engine supply at reasonable prices, to secure the future of Formula One. It's very simple.

Are you confident an agreement will come this weekend?
CK: To be honest, it doesn't matter for us. We are happy in any case. If they are not coming to agreement, we will run V10 engines next year so we are happy with this. And if they find an agreement, we will have a good V8 engine, so we are happy, whichever way it goes. I think that the four other manufacturers won't be so happy so they had better make their minds up.

Ron Dennis: First of all, everything that Jean and Flavio said is correct. There is a common desire for all the people who manufacture engines to be aligned. Their alignment is so close that it's an easily resolved issue, which can comfortably be resolved over the weekend. I'm not at all concerned about coming to a common position on engine regulations. Of course there is a desire of the FIA to then have affordable engines and again, I think there is a solution to that. But I'm not convinced that in my own mind, that even if those two solutions are found, that other people won't take the opportunity of a unanimous vote to try and seek other commercial objectives, so I'm a little bit cynical about whether we can actually find a final resolution or not on a unanimous agreement, but I do think we can find an agreement on engine technical regulations and price. I don't want to differ with Colin here, but the dispensation for V10 engines was for one team and it was very carefully documented, it's not automatic that everyone else can use them, but that's maybe a question that's relatively immaterial because, as he said, the objective is for everybody to be on the same pace. It's more than possible, as Flavio said, for us to resolve this by the end of the weekend, and the consequence of not resolving it is more cost for everybody. There's no one for whom it is not going to cost more money.

Ron, how did the Montoya thing happen? How come he stood down? Can you just go through what happened?
RD: I'm not going to give you phenomenal detail but the first thing I should correct is that Juan Pablo is fully contracted through to the end of the year, and if we so choose, he will test and race again, so that is at our option, nobody else's. There is plenty in the press that differs with that fact. The way that it unfolded: clearly Juan Pablo has struggled at times and I feel that the team has always been totally supportive of him and continues to be supportive of Juan Pablo. You might find that difficult to believe in the circumstances but we are. A few races ago, we had a conversation that was based on his desire to continue with McLaren, his desire to stay in Formula One and we came to the clear understanding that it was immaterial whether his objective was to stay in Formula One and whether the team would keep him, or whether he would go to another team. The objective, the best way to achieve that was to have the best results over the latter part of the season and that's the way we move forward and I felt that if he was focused on having the best end of season, then a) to use my exact words, it would be easier for me to take a decision in the team, or b) that it would be easier and better for him… he would get better offer, so the common objective was 'let's get the best out of the balance of the season.' Obviously, that objective was somewhat changed when he decided that in 2007 he would race in NASCAR, so then our objectives became different, I think. The appropriate course of action for the team was to let the whole thing cool off and let him sit and think about the circumstances that surrounded his involvement in the team until we had a very common objective for the remaining races.

How long is Pedro likely to race for? Could Lewis Hamilton or Gary Paffett drive?
RD: Highly unlikely. Their programmes are well mapped and their programmes didn't include racing a Grand Prix car this season, so highly unlikely. It's more likely that Pedro will continue in the car but we are a team who decides how the drivers are utilised and those drivers are all contracted to us and we chose to go down the path we've gone down.

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