Taking questions ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix Fernando Alonso,
Rubens Barrichello, Tonio Liuzzi, Felipe Massa and test driver Pedro de la Rosa take part questions this afternoon in Barcelona.
Q: (Dominic Fugère – Le Journal de Montréal) Skipping ahead a little
bit, you’ll be in Montreal in two races and it will be the first race there without
Michael Schumacher who has dominated there for six years out of ten, and without Jacques
Jacques Villeneuve who was one of the big reasons for F1’s popularity. I’m just wondering how you feel about that race and how different it will be this year?
RB: Everyone loves to go to Montreal and I think that love of going there, because the city is nice and the track is good for overtaking, transforms to the public. The public is always very good in receiving us and so I think people will mostly feel for Jacques not being there. For Michael, they already got used to the situation by watching the race on TV, so they’re expecting him not to be there and that’s it, but I think the race will run with good expectations.
PdlR: I think that everyone will miss Jacques in Montreal as we have been missing him for the past year and that will translate in people, just missing him. I’m missing him, I thought he brought a lot of things to Formula One: a great character, a great person, different in many things to all of us and I thought that was unique. I’ve always regarded him as a very very strong personality but he will be back somehow, for sure.
FM: Well, first of all I was Jacques’s team-mate and I saw how important he was to Canada, to Montreal and also to Formula One, so it was very nice to see the crowd, all the people there, most of them wearing his cap and really supporting him a lot, which already came from his father who was a legend. Also, we remember that it was just 25 years that his father passed away. Anyway, I think it will be a very important race, very nice to remember Jacques, his father and I think that’s the important key to the race as well. Michael, for sure, drove some fantastic races there but I think people are really really crazy for the
Jacques Villeneuve family. It will be nice to go there, and for sure I will meet Jacques again.
FA: Same as everybody. I think people will miss Jacques more than Michael, no doubt. It is Jacques’s home Grand Prix and we saw a lot of people supporting him every year, great people there, enthusiastic about Formula One and about the
Jacques Villeneuve’s, so I think that will be the big loss this year when we arrive there. But we will see many people supporting him anyway, even if he’s not racing, he will maybe be there watching and people will be there for him as well.
Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Fernando, you are coming here as the leader of the championship with a new car. Is the pressure different from last year?
FA: No, it is the same. It is the third consecutive year that I come to Spain leading the championship, so for me it is something very special, but it is the same as the previous years. It is normally fourth or fifth of the championship so it is difficult to get too much stress or nervous about the race because we are only at the beginning of the championship so this race is more for fun that the last four or five when you are more tense.
Q: (Jon McEvoy – The Daily Mail) Fernando, Ron Dennis said that he had a word with you before Bahrain and put his arm around you because you may have felt resentment at the spotlight falling on Lewis, and not you. How do you feel about that?
FA: Well, I had no conversation with Ron, so that is not true and I feel very good. We have a fantastic relationship between all three drivers, Pedro, Lewis and me, and we try to help the team as much as we can and we did a good start with five podiums, six possible podiums, in three races for the two cars, and thanks to that we are leading in both championships, drivers and constructors. I think that is the mentality of the team and the atmosphere we need to keep if we want to win. We will see, we have done only three races, but for sure it is good to have competition in the team as I have had in the last three or four years in the first few races.
Q: (Dan Knutson - National Speed Sport News) Fernando, are you at the point now when you feel you can extract the full potential from the car?
FA: I don’t know. It is difficult to say, probably, after one or two races I was thinking that I understand the tyres now more or less and the car, I can drive with much more comfort, that I know what I am doing, and then we arrived here in the last week to the test and I learned so many things again about the tyres, the long runs, everything, first lap performance. So there is no doubt I keep learning about the new car and the reactions of the car and the tyres and it will take more time to be 100 per cent confident and comfortable in the car, but I think all the drivers are the same. Everyday in the car we learn more things. Testing and racing are also for that, not only for the engineers’ point of view to keep developing the car, but also for the drivers to keep learning new things about our car.
Q: Is that the case, Felipe, do you feel the same?
FM: For sure. Everything is changing so quickly in Formula One so drivers need to adapt as quickly as possible to the new changes, rules, to the new everything! So, for sure it is the same for everybody. Even if I was using Bridgestone last year, the tyres are so different now compared to last year you have to adapt quickly. It is the same for every driver.
Q: (Livio Oricchio – O Estado de Sao Paulo) A question for all drivers – one month without a race, is that good?
RB: It is a bit too much. I start to drive a bit too quick on the roads so I miss the speed.
VL: Definitely, too much, especially because we have just one testing in between since February. I would prefer to have it every week.
PdlR: I am not racing so it doesn’t make a big difference to me, but I have worked hard these past months, so I prefer it when we have some races.
FM: It is a bit too much, but fortunately we did some tests in between and that helps a little bit. It was good to have a little bit of a break.
FA: Same thing. Nice to have a holiday, but also good to race.
Q: (Carole Capitaine – L’Equipe) Fernando, Spain your home grand prix, can you explain how you have not only a new car but new colours, but not blue and yellow?
FA: We will see a lot of blue and yellow anyway in the grandstands, I guess, I heard some people are coming and they will be blue and yellow and so the grandstands will not change so much from the last couple of years. My feeling is always the same for me and I always feel very motivated and I feel a lot of people behind me try to support me and enjoy the race as well as, at the end of the day, they try to enjoy the whole weekend. They arrive on Friday, they sleep somewhere and on Saturday they don’t sleep at all and on Sunday they see the race and then some of them sleep and you know it is a big show and a big party for everybody and that is the most important thing that people enjoy the race and for me it is very special. There is only one of these feelings per year and it is always here in Barcelona, so I am happy to race here.
Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) We are going to have another Spanish race next year with Valencia for the next seven years and it is going to close the championship. It is going to be a city track. What are your feelings?
FA: For me, it is not going to be a big difference. We have 17, 18 or 19 races in the calendar, or whatever, and we go always to every country and we are happy to race in any place. Now we have two Grands Prix in Spain and for me it will be okay and I twill be nice to see how it develops in Spain the last four or five years as before we didn’t even have television coverage four years ago and now we are going to have two Grands Prix in the country, so it is very special. So I am happy for the motor sport in Spain but for us it is not a big change to take the plane to Valencia or take the plane to Italy.
Q: (Heinz Prüller – Kronen Zeitung) Fernando, may I ask you which was the first Spanish Grand Prix that you saw live and the first you saw on television?
FA: Live, never. I never came to a circuit. And TV, none. None of the Spanish Grand Prix.
Q: (Miguel Angel Santos – Diario AS) A question for Fernando, in terms of lap times, who is faster Lewis Hamilton or Pedro de la Rosa?
FA: I don’t know. I will do a comparison next time and take the watch to the track. I don’t know. It is very difficult to see and very difficult to compare this. Any of us if we take the same car and we go out for one timed lap, maybe you do a better time but the other one may have more or less wind on the straight and even with the same set-up the Formula One cars can change so much. It is impossible to do it but for sure Pedro is very quick and Lewis as well.
Q: (Toni Lopez La Vanguardia) For Pedro and Fernando, do you prefer to race on a real circuit or on a street circuit?
FA: I don’t know. The direction that Formula One is trying to go in the last couple of years is to improve safety (we have changed the last couple of corners in Barcelona) and to slow down the cars and now to have a race on the streets when we have a circuit only 20 or 30 kilometres away in Valencia, that is a little bit difficult to understand, what the Formula One bosses want, but for us so far as it is safe and they put in what is required to make it safe we will race anywhere.
PdlR: Absolutely, for me it is the same. We are extremely happy to go there. Two is better than one and three is better than two. The most Grands Prix we have in Spain we must be proud of it. We are all the drivers asking for safety first, ahead of your nationality. We want to be sure we will be as safe as Barcelona, for example.
Q: (Tatiana Cunha – Folha de Sao Paulo) Felipe, would you say the championship starts now for you and forget the first three races?
FM: You cannot say that because it started already in Australia. For sure, it is different now. The first two races were not what I expected but the third was fantastic. We cannot say the championship starts now, but we will work hard to try and repeat what happened in the last race or be consistent on the podium. That is the most important thing.
Q: (Peter Windsor - F1 Racing) Pedro, it looks as if Williams were victims of the new test regulations. Does that sound alarm bells? Do you have spare cars now for testing in the future?
PdlR: Well, nowadays, I think you go testing it is very different from last year. The fact that you have only one car means you have to maximise the running time and you cannot compare data to a second car. You can only compare yourself to yourself with limited new tyres. It means we are trying to maximise the running time. Other teams, like Williams, for example, lost a car in testing makes it a huge setback for everyone so you definitely not only have to maximise your running time, but also do very good quality testing and don’t get lost. You could have spare parts as long as you have only one car running, but I don’t think Williams had that and that is why they packed up.
Q: (Peter Windsor - F1 Racing) So you guys have a spare car when you go testing?
PdlR: Normally, yes. Obviously in some exceptional conditions, we don’t have (one). We don’t have one standing next to the other one. Let me make that clear. The team manager is the best-prepared person to answer this question, but we have a maximum amount of spare parts in the truck, but we don’t have a second car waiting there. We only have one running car with some spare parts.
FM: We have spare parts as well, but need to mount and it takes time. And we don’t have another car there ready to run.
Source FIA
