11/10/2004
NEWS STORY
Following a difficult, and highly different, weekend, Ferrari's Michael Schumacher was back on the top step of the podium, having given the Italian team its fifteenth win of the season, thereby equalling its achievement in 2002, and McLaren's in 1988.
Thanks to a typhoon that never arrived, the teams had no real dry running before the race got underway, therefore it was more about guesswork than out-and-out strategy, or was it? Ferrari's strategist, and technical director, Ross Brawn, sat down to answer a few questions.
"Firstly, what was the most important factor today? Why did you win?" "Because the car was very, very good," he replies, "it's a compliment to the people here and the people in the factory that the car was straightaway was good. The tyres were excellent, it's this new family of tyres which we first raced in Hungary and they worked very well today, so compliments to Bridgestone because the tyres were very, very good. So yes, it was a very straightforward race but always with a lot of potential to be difficult but everything worked well today."
"And are you happy with the choice of tyres specification?" "I don't know," admits the Englishman, "because we don't know how the other tyres would have performed. I have to be happy with the result. Both drivers said the tyres were excellent in the race, they were consistent and they had lots of grip, so we can't ask for more than that. So yeah, I was pretty happy with the choice."
"Did you change the strategy during the race, or was it the one you planned?" "It was always the strategy we planned," he responds, "a pretty aggressive strategy but we stayed with that strategy, we adjusted it a little bit with Rubens because he was starting that far back, but the strategies were as we planned from the beginning."
"Let's talk in general about this Ferrari, did you think it would be so good before the season began?" "No never," he admits. "I don't think it's in our character to assume that we're going to have such a successful season. We do the job we do, we have some great people working at Ferrari, and I think every year we've been able to produce a car that has been competitive. Of course you don't know what sort of job your competitors are going to do, the results are a function of the job you do and a function of the job your competitors do. I think our people did a great job. The car from 2003 to 2004 was a very good step and I think some of our competitors struggled this year so if you put the two together, it's given us a fantastic year but it's the sort of year we only dream about and this year it came true again."
"What, in your opinion, was the race you enjoyed the most this year?" "I think we've had some very interesting races," he reveals. "I think Magny Cours with the four stops was a very exciting race. I think Hungary was a very significant race for us because of the tyre situation, particularly after last year. Bridgestone is a great company to work with and we have a wonderful partnership and it was so rewarding to see the results they had in Hungary, because last year we were unhappy but they were especially unhappy. I think Bridgestone sometimes feel the pain more than we do when we don't do well. So Hungary was a very significant race for us. It was a new type of tyre, quite a different philosophy of tyre and it worked extremely well and we had the same tyre here today. So I think Hungary was a pretty critical race for us."
"And which disappointed you most? Monte Carlo?" "Yes," he smiles, "though I try not to think about the disappointments too much but yeah, we work as strong as I would have liked in Monte Carlo but certainly we had an opportunity to win the race and I think we made an optimistic or brave decision for the race and if I had to rely on somebody who could have done what we wanted to do Michael is the man who could have done it, but he never got an opportunity, so I was frustrated because it was a race we might have won, but it would have been a fantastic race for everyone to see, so yeah, that was probably a major disappointment."
"we now head to Brazil, Rubens has had two wins and would like to win again. A difficult race from the pit wall." "Well we would like to finish the season on, let's say, good spirit," he replies, "and I think our drivers are very competitive, they're human beings and they want to beat each other, but in a nice way and not in a nasty way, so I think Rubens is going to do everything he can, it's his ambition to win Brazil, but I don't think Michael is going to make it easy for him. Michael has hurt quite a lot these last few races being beaten by Rubens, so I think today was something a little bit special for Michael and I think in Brazil they are going to be tough competition for each other but of course we don't know where we will be regarding the opposition. We'll have this new tyre in Brazil and I think that will be a big help, but if we can be competitor, I think there will be a very strong race between our two drivers."
"How easy is it to work out dry settings by simulation?" "The difficult thing for us is that this new tyre that we have from Bridgestone is quite different to the old tyre," he replies, "and therefore we can't take the set-ups we had with the old tyre and necessarily adapt them, so we were looking very carefully at the Hungary data where we raced this tyre and extrapolating the set-up from Hungary, and there was a lot of work done before Friday but of course that work is never considered to be quite so critical because you assume you are going to have a couple of days practice but then when it became clear we were not going to get any practice before the race, the engineers spent a lot more time examining their conclusions of what they'd arrived at and changed it just a little bit, and the combination of the race engineers and technicians here and the combination of people back at the factory they did a fantastic job.
"The car is good and of course with a good car it's sometimes easier to find a reasonable set-up because it's not a car which on a knife edge. This is a car which is forgiving to some degree, but I think the balance the guys were able to find for the race with no practice was really fantastic and compliments to them all."
"Did you experience graining due to the green surface?" "We did a little bit," he admits, "and there was on the first set, the first set grained, but nothing like China. There was a different to compound and in fact we chose this compound because it's a compound we know works a little bit better in damp conditions. The two compounds we had, I suspect on a normal day in normal conditions the other compound could have been a little bit better but knowing we had a damp track when we arrived this morning, we opted for this compounds, because it's a compound which works reasonably well in damp conditions. But there was no significant graining.
"It was widely noted that Michael appeared very down after China." "I think this was just typical Michael," says Brawn. "When things get a little bit tough, he gets a little bit quiet, sort of introspective. He came here this weekend with his normal high level of determination but maybe even a bit more. He asked to do a test between China and Japan and really the test was not hugely significant but he asked to do some driving and I think he broke the lap record at Jerez so he wanted to just to polish his technique a little bit. He just becomes a little bit more focused, as much as he can. He's an incredible professional already, but I've noticed it before, he just gets a little bit more focused, he concentrates a little bit more. It's not negative at all, it's positive."
"Ferrari seems to have opened up the gap to their competitors a little bit again. Was it only due to the tyres?" "I think we had a great set-up today," he replies. "I think the car was very good, the combination of the tyres and the balance of the car. The car was as good as we manage after two days of practice so maybe we should push for one day meetings all the time."
"When did you first run this spec?" "Well this has been a spec that has been developed for the last three or four months," he admits. "I can't remember particularly but it's been run for several months now and the first race with this construction was Hungary which was very successful, but the high speed performance of the tyre hadn't been proven so we didn't take them to Spa or Monza, and now we are back on circuits where we can use the tyre again, but it's in a different compound to what we had in Hungary. It's a different approach. I don't think they classify them these days as crossplies or radials. They are combinations. But it's a tyre that has evolved as a result of the close partnership with Ferrari, for sure. It's a concept of tyre which we discussed last year and did a lot of simulation together. Bridgestone have designed the tyre, don't get me wrong, but there's been a very close liaison between Ferrari and Bridgestone to arrive at this tyre."
"All-in-all, what did you think about today's race and qualifying, all on the same day?" "It was a different format for us and in some ways we enjoyed it," he responds, "because it was a different way to go racing. I think with the number of races we have now, it's at its limit for the people and to have our mechanics, our technicians our engineers away from home so much, plus the fact that a lot of them get involved with the testing to give the continuity, it is tough for them, and I think we really are at the limit. We've had a great season, but it feels like quite a hard season and we've got another race to go.
"I think that if there was a wish to increase the number of races we should really look at the format," he adds. "I think it's fair to say Ferrari have been an advocate for two day race meetings for quite a long time. We've always felt that three days may be too long and that Saturday and Sunday is perfectly adequate to have a good race meeting. Prepare on Saturday morning, qualifying on Saturday afternoon and race on Sunday, or maybe have a second qualifying on Sunday morning. There are lots of things you could look at. I don't think we need to have a three-day race meeting from a team perspective. From the promoters' perspective that may be different. Maybe they feel they want to have the three days for those reasons."