Continued from part one

PS: I wasn't asked to come, Eddie, let's be clear.

EJ: Yeah, okay. But I think, if we could, possibly, as a result of this meeting.. I think if the five of us here, if we can try and make sure that we leave this weekend with some positive.. if the ag (aggression) factor that seems to be here can come.. I mean, what Paul needs is immediate support. Let's see if it can be done. I'm actually 100 per cent behind Paul because I don't want to have to run a third car if I need to. I don't think…I certainly couldn't afford to do it, that's for sure.

Q: You said before you never would take charity from another team. Who paid your leasing rates for the trucks in Barcelona?
EJ: I don't actually know that and I don't know anything about who pays leasing rates. There is all sorts of people who pay different sponsorships.

Q: Okay, so you would swear it, never to get money from another factory or another team to pay your trucks?
EJ: Trucks? Sorry, I think we are really losing the plot here. Can we please try and keep on the subject.

Q: Well, I had a question and I wanted an answer. That was everything.
RD: Let's move on.

Q: Ron, you and everybody else has made it very clear that you were the initiator of the fighting fund. Could you explain why, in your view, it hasn't come through. Normally, when you initiate something you expect it to come through. Why hasn't it? Why has this situation arisen?
RD: It is in everybody's interests who is competing in Formula One to have stability and to try and to have stability means to try and keep everybody together pointing in the same direction. But life is about balance and the primary motive I had in initiating that was to create stability through this season and next. With stability you can make defined plans for your Grand Prix team. If something comes along and affects dramatically either the technical or sporting regulations then you have another cost which manifests itself and so that was the driver for me. And of course, keeping the cars on the grid, Paul and, to a lesser extent, Eddie. There are many, many ideas discussed in team principal meetings, many ideas, and they are initiated by different people for different reasons. Bernie has often supported teams and provided fiscal bridges to help them through difficult times. But these things don't come into the public domain, they are just the inevitable pluses and minuses that exist in Grand Prix racing and it is all very well to cherry pick a moment of time but, and I don't wish to go back to the subject, but Paul read out a paragraph and within the paragraph it made it very clear that rule stability was an essential ingredient in the objective of putting together a fund. What we haven't had is rule stability and we have incurred significant cost, all of us, and we are going to incur more cost in the future, and if you don't know how you stand financially how on earth can you look at what amount of money you can contribute to whatever person, team or situation requires. Running a business is about balancing the income to the expenditure and if you can't control your expenditure you need to make damned sure you have some degree of reserve in your income. It is simple economics and again I will echo Frank's words. This is a sporting event. This is a wholly inappropriate forum to discuss these issues in. Wholly inappropriate.

Q: You did once say at this very Grand Prix that Formula One is all about business, except from lights-to-flag, when it is sporting
RD: Of course, of course, that is the case but this is not the forum for discussing the commercial aspects of Grand Prix racing, it is just not the right forum. I have sympathy with everybody who is in hardship, I try to make life easy for lots of people as and when circumstances develop, but it is nothing you need to share with the world. This is tough times, you know, for all of us.

Q: A question for Frank. Earlier in the week Jeff Gordon was down running one of your last year's cars. What is your assessment of his performance in his car, what would it take, would you consider giving him a formal test, and the final part of it, how much would an American's involvement in motorsport do to alleviate some of the causes of the problems that we are seeing here?
FW: In answer to question one, I was absent but the reports I have received from those present were that he is a really, really good driver, that he was unafraid of the car. His NASCAR car was braking at 250 metres, approximately, at the end of the pit straight and after about two laps he was braking at 75 metres in the F1car. Juan was braking at about 60 or something like that. And his lap times were one second slower than Juan's. Now, this is no Grand Prix practice event, there were very few laps available for either driver - for Juan to set up the car or for him to drive it - but we were truly, and not for the benefit of any North Americans here, we were very, very impressed. The good news and bad news is, the good news is he is very, very quick, the bad news is we can't afford him. He is a winning NASCAR driver and his earnings, I am told, are out of sight! (Laughter) So that doesn't really answer your third question but I should say on behalf of all my colleagues here, we would all love to have a world class US driver in a Grand Prix team.