Nick, would you like to clarify Honda’s position regarding the McLaren-Ferrari situation?
Nick Fry: Yeah, our position is as it has been for some time. As everybody knows, we’ve interviewed rather a large number of senior engineers over the last two or three months, if not a bit more and hired a few that people know about now. Nigel Stepney was one of those people who applied to us, so the first correspondence was from Nigel to us and he asked to be considered for a position. I saw Nigel and it was the first time I’d ever met Nigel in my life in fact, so it was a perfectly normal get-to-know-you-type of discussion, nothing confidential, nothing was offered, nothing was received but he did mention at that time that there was another person who might also be interested and told me it was Mike. I subsequently saw both Mike and Nigel together and the second conversation was principally with Mike, as I’d already had a discussion with Nigel. Again, Mike was not someone I knew, so we again had a get-to-know-you-type of discussion, not in great detail, more about what he’d done in the past, about what the issues with our team were. And that was the end of it. Again, in the second conversation there was nothing at all that made me vaguely suspicious at all. Neither of them said anything inappropriate, they were both loyal to their teams, obviously not overly happy with various circumstances, but there wasn’t any finger-pointing or anything and subsequent to that, that was the end of it. There’s been no contact with either of them since that discussion. I was asked by Jean – I’d obviously spoken to Jean and Ron about it more than once – and was asked by Jean, in fact, to write a chronology of those discussions which I did, which I sent the Monday before last – what’s that? July the ninth - to both Jean and Ron and also to the FIA saying that was the chronology of events, and if they required any further information, then obviously we would be happy to provide it. Since then I’ve heard nothing at all, so I can only assume that the matter is now between Ferrari and McLaren. From our point of view, I think I wouldn’t be doing my job if, when you have offers of the chief designer of one of the top Formula One teams and the person who has been involved in probably the top Formula One team over the last decade, saying they want to work for you, I think I would be somewhat remiss not to at least see them. But I emphasise that neither of those two gentlemen said anything or offered anything or nothing was received or asked for on our part. It was very straightforward.

So how is the building of the technical team going?
NF: I think making some progress now. We came to a very sensible arrangement with Williams over Loic Bigois and he’s been with us now for one whole week and has already made some small suggestions which we are in the process of implementing. I think he will settle in very well. He knows a number of our aerodynamic people quite well from past jobs, so we’re not starting from scratch. There will be other people joining but they are (joining) between now and the end of the year. I’m sure we can make a little bit more progress this year but obviously a lot of work is now going into making sure that we have a better car for next season.

And do you still have a technical director, you still have Shuhei Nakamoto?
NF: Yeah, Nakamoto-san is senior technical director, that’s his official title. We’re reinforcing some of the skills underneath Nakamoto-san. Jörg Zander who will come from the BMW team is someone who has worked again at BAR, as it was in the past, (and who) will deputise for Nakamoto-san and I hope that he also can make a contribution.

Gerhard, an ex-technical director of Honda has joined the Red Bull technical team. Do you expect Geoff Willis to have an effect on your team?
Gerhard Berger: Well, I have to say that I’m not directly involved in the Red Bull technical side but obviously they thought they have to strengthen their technical director position and they decided that Geoff is going to be the right guy for them.

There still seem to be stories around that the team is for sale; could you just clarify that situation? Where they came from?
GB: Well, I don’t know. It’s very simple. I didn’t offer anybody to sell something and nobody asked me. So on my side, I can only say it’s speculation and it’s been going on since the beginning of the season so just let them go on!

Now Sebastien Bourdais and Sebastian Vettel; perhaps you could clarify the situation with the two Sebs.
GB: Well, we’re just coming into the second half of the season and obviously we are looking to improve our situation on the technical side and we are also looking at what is the right decision for the future on the drivers’ side. There are a couple of names that we’re interested in, where we know they are able to do a good job and one of them is Sebastien Bourdais, another one is Sebastian Vettel and hopefully we’re going to see some more possibilities and we’re going to check everything very carefully and then make a decision: what is the right thing for us for the future.

Mario, what plans have you got for Sebastian Vettel?
Mario Theissen: I can’t say anything about it at this point of time because we are talking to the drivers, we are evaluating the situation and certainly we will do this internally. As soon as we have a decision, we will announce it.