Colin, what has been the effect of the Spyker take-over, has it already made a difference?
Colin Kolles: Well, obviously everybody is very motivated. I think there is a very clear direction. We are associated with a car manufacturer, it's not the largest car manufacturer in this world but it's still a much better position for us than before.

We've seen that already, they've changed the livery for instance, and are advertising for many more people, is there going to be much more investment in terms of recruitment?
CK: No, we were actually recruiting people all the time but obviously, now, we will run the wind tunnel 24 hours a day and we will have certain requirements and therefore we placed this advertisement.

What other financial effect has it had in terms of development?
CK: Well, we always put, as efficiently as possible, all the money into development. Obviously we don't have the same funds as the big manufacturers but we try to do the best and work in an efficient way and we will see what we will achieve.

Do you think there will be a 'Gascoyne effect' when Mike joins; will he ask for more people?
CK: No, we are very clear with Mike in this direction. I think it's not the quantity, it's the quality of the people.

And how close are you to deciding on your engine for next year?
CK: Very close. Maybe we can announce it this weekend.

Nick, talking of engines, we are quite used to getting a Suzuka-spec engine from Honda, are we going to get that?
Nick Fry: No, it's not here. We are using the same engine that we used at the last race. The ones that we had some problems with on Friday in Monza, a version of that engine will be the one we run at Suzuka and subsequently in Brazil. In fact the problems we found at Monza were more related to manufacturing and build issues; it wasn't anything to do with the so-called Stage Four developments that we had in place, so the so-called Stage Four engines ran reliably at Jerez in the couple of tests we've done since then, did more than the 1500 kilometres that we usually require so we will be going forward in Japan with that specification and that's the engine that will start the freeze process for the next couple of years.

What is the challenge of these two back-to-back races, particularly with Suzuka coming up?
NF: I think from a logistics point of view we are well-versed in back-to-back races. I think for us, it's more dealing with the number of guests we have. Obviously here, with 555 sponsorship on the car, we've got a substantial number of guests with us. In Japan, clearly with the Honda and other Japanese sponsors that we've got, there's a lot of people there, and in Brazil it will be British American Tobacco's or Lucky Strike's last race so it's the end of an era, so we have a large number of people there, so our concerns are more handling that side of it rather than the logistics of running the car.

It's been a season of ups and downs for you. Looking back, early on, a bit disappointing then latterly, of course, more competitive. What have you learned from this year?
NF: I think this year, in fact, has been the best year that our team has had. Clearly 2004 was better from a results' point of view but I think that was probably as much to do with other people not having a good season rather than particular brilliance on our part, when we look back. I think this year we have understood a lot more about how the car works, delivering the full size wind tunnel ahead of time and in fact getting it calibrated and working in a very satisfactory way and in a very short period of time has been a huge achievement and our improvement over the last few races is really down to using that piece of equipment effectively, so I think we now know a lot more technically that we did before. Winning the race in Hungary was an obvious bonus but based on the knowledge that we've now got we can continue to progress.

Mario, we've seen you use young drivers this year to remarkable effect: obviously Robert Kubica but also latterly Sebastian Vettel as well. What is BMW's policy regarding young drivers? You have a staircase of talent with Formula BMW, tell us your policy.
Mario Theissen: Well, the general policy with our entire Formula One project is to groom the team in-house rather than take on people from the outside. Obviously, if you want to ramp up (your personnel) by 150 people in one and a half years you have to take on people from the outside, but wherever possible, we take young people on the engineering side as well as on the driving side and develop them on our own. On the drivers' side, there is a particular resource with Formula BMW. Guys go there at the age of 15 or 16 so we have quite a close relationship, get a very good idea of what they are capable of, and then we have them on our screen as they go up through the other formulae, so I think it's quite a successful approach to watch young drivers and to evaluate them. That led us to taking on Sebastian Vettel which certainly is extraordinary for a 19-year old guy. Generally, I'm not proposing to take on younger and younger drivers into Formula One but in the case of Sebastian, we thought he's there, he's ready to take the job and apparently he's proved that. If you are successful doing so, I think it's the best approach you can take. You have to be careful to pick the right guys.