04/09/2020
NEWS STORY
Today's press conference with Mario Isola, Mattia Binotto and Andreas Seidl.
Q: Let's start, if we may, by talking about Williams. Can we get each of your thoughts on yesterday's news that the Williams family is leaving Formula 1 after this weekend. Andreas, you worked with Frank in the 2000s, perhaps we could start with you please.
Andreas Seidl: Yeah, first of all, obviously sad news to know that the Williams family is not involved any more in Formula 1 in the future. At the same time also positive news that, first of all, the Williams name stays in Formula 1 as far as I understand. For the future in front of us for Formula 1 there is actually interest of investors to join. And last but not least, I think it is very important for the employees as well in the Williams team that they know they have a good future. And then, regarding my personal experience with Williams. It was obviously great for me as a young, and keen engine engineer to learn my way in motorsport in a Williams garage. I always admired this unbelievable commitment and passion all these guys had at Williams in the garage, which was a great education for me. And what was simply inspiring for me was how Frank, as a team principal at this time, was also interacting on the human side with his people. I still remember when he was coming in the garage every morning, saying hello to everyone, calling out the name also, and exactly the same again each evening. That's something that, yeah, I still admire and was very inspirational for me.
Mattia, you've had a constant rivalry with Williams throughout your tenure at Ferrari.
Mattia Binotto: If I think of Williams I cannot forget all the challenges we have as Scuderia Ferrari. Our history, Williams is part of the history, always a very fair battle, a very fair challenge. I think that Williams has contributed to the F1 of today. Williams certainly is an important name, an important family for our sport so somehow it's maybe sad but it's also important and great to know that the Williams name will remain in F1 for the future because I think, as I said, it's really part of the history and as Ferrari we can only remember the great challenge we had with them.
Q: And Mario?
Mario Isola: I agree with them. I remember Maldonado's victory in 2012. It was our second year in Formula 1. Obviously I have a lot of fond memories as a Formula 1 fan but my direct involvement with them was since 2011. It's great that the new owner wants to keep the same name. I hope they can keep the same passion. I read what Claire said yesterday to guarantee a bright future of the team. It is hopefully the right decision and I wish them all the best because they deserve a better future than the last couple of years.
Q: Andreas, Carlos said yesterday that he's concerned about reliability, believing that he's lost up to 30 points this year and that he's had only two clean races. Would you agree with that assessment?
AS: First of all, I fully understand that he's disappointed that he lost out on many points this year so far but we share this disappointment because we lost the points as well for the team. And in the end it's always important to simply stay to the facts and look into the details of what actually happened. I think in terms of reliability, the issue was actually only the last race where he couldn't even start the race and lost out on many points after an engine issue. But then we had other topics as well. We had the tyre failure in Silverstone where he lost a lot of points. But also on the team side, not everything went to plan. We lost out on some points with issues we had at the pitstops early in the season and that's obviously something to look into. And, as always, as I said, it's important to stick to the facts, analyse in detail what happened and make sure. And it doesn't matter who was at fault to simply try to do better and avoid it. I'm sure that also with the way Carlos is approaching the situation within the team we will still have a lot of good results in front of us together with him until the end of the season.
Q: Mattia, coming to you. Spa was probably the team's most difficult race of the season so far. Did the post-race debrief reveal anything that will help you this weekend here at Monza?
MB: Sunday we had a long debriefing back from Spa. I think it was only a very few days to analyse because in the meantime we had to prepare Monza, to come here and be somehow ready for the race weekend. I think Spa is a difficult circuit for our car package today. It's a difficult circuit because of power, how much it is sensitive to power and aero efficiency. So, I think it did not come as a surprise, our bad performance in Spa, knowing where our weaknesses are today. We could have done better, I believe so, I think that we started in a bad position on Friday. I think we didn't optimise our entire full package there. And when you start behind on the grid the race is certainly a lot more difficult. So, we could have done a better job all through the weekend - but certainly it would have been anyway a difficult race for us around Spa. If I look at the entire season, hopefully the worst one.
Q: Coming to you Mario, it's been announced recently that you'll host a 30-minute development test at the Portuguese Grand Prix. What are the plans for that?
MI: Obviously we have collected a lot of information from Silverstone and Spa and we decided to postpone the tests that were planned at the second race in Silverstone and at Barcelona, to redesign some prototypes. The idea to slightly revise the construction for next year. As you said, it's only 30 minutes. We will supply different compounds to different teams in order to try to collect as much information as we can to define the tyre for next year. So, this is the plan for Portimao. Obviously it's a new track. We don't have a lot of data from Portimao but from now onwards we have a lot of new tracks so we had to decide on which track we wanted to test and Portimao is a high severity circuit where we probably find some good weather and that's why we decided to nominate Portimao for our test.
Video Conference
Q: (Christian Menath - motorsport-magazin.com) Question for Mattia. Ferrari is struggling a lot at the moment but Sebastian seems to have even more problems. He had a new chassis in Spain but that didn't' help that much. Do you have an explanation why he's more struggling than Charles - or is it just a normal gap between the two drivers.
MB: I think at first we should say that Charles is very fast at the moment and when you are comparing yourself to such a fast driver is never easy, even if you are a four-time World Champion. I think that Seb is struggling a bit with braking stability. He's not too confident with the car and certainly it's down to us to help him. We know that he can be very fast, we know that he can be as fast as Charles but at the moment, if we look back at the last races, somehow sometimes yes, he drove well and he could drive as fast as he could - but sometimes it was not the case. There is nothing really specific. It's really him to find the right confidence with the car all through the weekend, to have a great quali and possibly to start as much ahead as he can.
Q: (Dieter Rencken - Racing Lines) Mattia, could you confirm whether or not you confirmed your appeal against the Racing Point reprimand from the Spa grand prix, and also your reasons for continuing with the appeal over the original verdict please?
MB: So yes, we confirmed our protest, so have appealed the decision of the stewards at the past races. The reason is that we are fully convinced that what Racing Point did this season is not right. We believe that's against the principles of our sport and we believe that cannot happen in the future. In that respect we are asking for and seeking clarity with the FIA. If, let me say, regulations will be put in place, a Technical Directive for the future in 2021 where we are pretty sure it will not be possible to copy, eventually we are ready to withdraw our appeal.
Q: (David Tremayne - Grand Prix +) This question please to Mattia and Andreas. Toto Wolff recently suggested a rival had been spotted trying to scan Mercedes whole car. Can I ask each of you what your feelings are about the morality of that - and how it can be stamped out.
AS: Obviously I can't comment on that because I haven't seen it and I just want to reiterate what we said also two weeks ago. For us, we are happy with the outcome of all these discussions we had since Racing Point has put this car on the track the first time in Barcelona. There's a commitment from all stakeholders in Formula 1 that they don't want to see something like this happening again in the future. That was important for us, for our existence as a team and also for our competitiveness also in the future because we don't have any of these, let's say, co-operations in place. Therefore, nothing to add really.
Mattia?
MB: Not really much to say. I'm not too aware of the facts. I think that looking at competitors, trying to understand what they do, trying to study their car has been part of F1 history and I do not see anything bad in that. I think that to copy an entire design, that's a different against the spirit because that's IP. Me, myself, had I been Mercedes, I would have protested someone copying myself. It's not within the spirit. So I think that, I don't know, taking pictures has always been done and I don't see anything wrong in it, in the fact itself.
Check out our Friday gallery from Monza, here.
Q: (Luke Smith - Autosport) Question for Mattia. In July, Ferrari announced there was a restructuring of the technical department in response to the poor start to the season. I was just wondering how happy are you with how that has gone. Are there any future plans to bring in any more reinforcements on that side. Andy Cowell, for example, from Mercedes, he's a free agent for next year. Are there any other sort of ringers, I guess, you're looking to bring in on your technical team.
MB: So, obviously as we said, in July, we're restructuring the technical department. Now it's only a very little time since it happened and I think normally to see the results of a reorganisation it takes some more time. I'm pretty happy, the way I can feel that the people feel responsible, understand the matter of urgency of our situation and are working hard, are committed, united in the way to progress the car and somehow progress our competitiveness. So, I think that that's great. In terms of new people joining Ferrari in the future. I think in F1 you can never be self-satisfied, so if there is anyone that can bring added-value to the team, it's our responsibility to look for it and eventually to do it. You mentioned Andy Cowell. As far as I'm aware, he's still working in Mercedes currently but certainly there are great names in F1. Is there someone very soon joining Ferrari? It's not the case.
Q: (Adam Cooper - motorsport.com) Question for Mattia on the engine mode Technical Directive. Obviously it was delayed from Spa. What sort of preparations have you made for it? Do you come here knowing exactly what you're going to run on Saturday afternoon and Sunday - or is that a decision you make Saturday lunchtime. It has to be more complicated for you because you've got two customer teams and obviously you have to run the same modes across all six engines.
MB: Maybe starting from the end, I don't think it's more complicated for us. We always run the same engine modes and same specification on our customer teams so whatever we will do for Ferrari will be applied to them. The Technical Directive has certainly affected all power unit manufacturers but maybe not all of them in the same entity. What we did since then is run our proper simulations, understand what was the optimum engine modes that can be used for the entire quali and race distance, knowing that the engine obviously needs to be used for several races. Eventually you will not use the same engine mode at every single race: there are races like in Monza where you may afford a higher performance mode while in other races you may decide to be more protective because it is less sensitive in terms of power. But we are as well running dyno simulations, reliability homologations at the bench to optimise our engine package towards a single engine mode. For what is Monza-related, I think what will be used here is not too far to what we're already using in the past in the quali and that will be for the entire race distance, obviously.
Q: Andreas, how much sim work have you been able to do with Renault ahead of this change in the engine modes?
AS: Obviously I think with us being a customer the question is better addressed to Renault. We're simply curious to find out what it does in terms of the pecking order also - especially in the battle we're in also for this P3 to P6 in the Constructors' Championship. I think to a certain degree each team is having, or was having a kind of qualifying mode and the race mode but we don't know how big is this gap between and for each engine manufacturer. We're interested in how it will pan out and also what the race power is for each team. We will find out on Sunday.
Q: Mario, coming to you, this is the first time we've seen you in this forum since the Sakhir Grand Prix was announced. Bahrain 2. Can you get your thoughts on the layout of that track, and the impact you think it's going to have on tyre performance?
MI: It looks like the second Bahrain race, the Sakhir Grand Prix, is slightly less severe on tyres compared to the first one. We've got some simulations from FOM on that, so we are analysing the simulations also because we have to announce the compound selection quite soon. It's a new layout and, as always happens with a new circuit, we perform some analysis thanks to the support of the teams, providing simulations as well and that's all. I don't have any other information on that.
Q: (Scott Mitchell - The Race) Mattia. A few races ago, when you talked about the impact of FIA clarifications and Technical Directives on Ferrari and other teams, you said there were still other things that might need clarifying from the FIA. Does this engine mode Technical Directive take care of any of your questions, or do you still think that further clarifications over the engine rules are required?
MB: Clarification towards regulations has always happened and will happen in the future. I'm pretty sure that new Technical Directives may be raised on the issues related to the power unit. Regulations being as well, so complex. So the TD that has been released here for Monza, certainly it's an important one, showing how difficult it is to police the situation, knowing the complexity of the regulation itself. I don't think it will be the last one because it's normal not to be.
Q: (Oleg Karpov - Motorsport.com, via email) Mattia, you talked recently about Mick Schumacher's chances of stepping up to Formula 1, but what about the other academy drivers? Who has impressed you the most so far? And finally, when it comes to promoting them to Formula 1, will the decision solely be based on performance?
MB: I think this season in F2 we have great drivers. We have certainly even three drivers battling for the championship - Robert Shwartman, Callum Ilott and Mick. I think they are all doing very well. They are shown progress compared to last season. For Robert, it's his very first season in F2 and normally when you are a rookie it's certainly more difficult and I think that as a rookie he is doing very well. I think the other two as well are doing well at the moment. Looking ahead, looking to next year, I think all of them merit a place into an F1 seat. But I think as well that the second half of the season will be the most important for them, especially for Robert, because he's a rookie, let's see how he will progress. Finally, will their performance be the only one. No, I think more important for a driver is to see he is developing and i think that he's showing the capacity of developing himself and to make progress.
Q: (Edd Straw - The Race) Mattia, obviously though the car performance isn't what you wanted it's clear that Charles' performances have been very strong this year. How big a step has he taken since last year and in what areas has he improved his execution of race weekends?
MB: I think that Charles is a great driver, no doubts. We all know that. He is a fantastic talent, he's very fast, he's capable of battling, protecting the position, overtaking and I think when he is on track he is certainly fantastic. I think there is nothing to prove or to demonstrate on that one. He is still very young and he still needs to get experience and he needs to develop as a man, as a person, as a leader, finally, for the team. And if there is anything he is focused on at the moment it is really developing his leadership. Developing leadership means as well to help the team to progress and to get better results in the future and I think he is doing well in that respect.
Q: Andreas, can we get your thoughts on how Lando Norris has improved from last year to this?
AS: Yeah, obviously I'm very happy with what I'm seeing so far this year. I think he had a very strong rookie season already last year. But it was also clear, which is also normal for a rookie going into F1, that there were things at the end of the season that he could improve for this year. I think he did a great job over the winter, together with his team and his engineers, in order to digest his first season. They made definitely the right conclusions and came back a lot stronger already from the first winter test onward and I think the way he has stepped up now as a person and as a driver inside the car but also outside the car in terms of interaction with the team I'm very happy with. And I think the results show that he made this step, which you also expect from a young guy. If you want become a top driver in the future you have to make this step now and I am confident that we will have a great future with him at McLaren.
Check out our Friday gallery from Monza, here.
Q: (Dieter Rencken - Racing Lines) A question for Mario. If my memory serves me right, when the current tyre contract was negotiated it was for four years - one year under 13-inch and three years under 18-inch tyres. Obviously now with COVID we have a situation where we have two years on 13 and potentially two on 18. Will you be renegotiating so that you have three years to spread the costs of developing the 18-inch tyres.
MI: As you know there is a tender. The tender duration was for four years. Nobody was in a position to predict what happened with the COVID-19 situation. You are right to say the plan was to have three years with 18 inches. It's a big investment for us, in terms of development, having a new tyre like that. But also it was a very good product to promote our image, our branding and also the technology transfer from motorsport to normal production. Now we have a different situation. We haven't spoken to F1 yet, but the tender is for four years, so at the moment we are in Formula 1 until 2023.
Q: (Scott Mitchell - The Race) Mattia, the manufacturers were also asked to supply some information relating to the design and architecture of their ERS recently. Do you think this is going to be a big step in helping the FIA make sure that they can police these rules effectively?
MB: A big step? Not sure. I don't know actually. It's normal to supply to the FIA information if they are required. If after so many years they are still looking for such information it means that they systems, the battery packs, the ERS is certainly very complicated to be understood. I see it as a normal action. I do not see it as a game changer.