TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Zak
BROWN (McLaren), Christian HORNER (Red Bull Racing), Toto WOLFF (Mercedes),
Frédéric VASSEUR (Sauber)
PRESS CONFERENCE
Zak, if we could start with you, please. there’s been a lot of McLaren news
in recent days, most of it financial, so can you tell us what’s going on?
Zak BROWN: Yeah, we’ve had some great. We’ve had Mr Latifi, who had invested
in McLaren Group, which is fantastic. We’re a very fast-growing company,
both our automotive business, of course our Formula 1 and racing efforts, as
well as our applied technologies business, so great to have Mr Latifi as
part of our shareholder group. And then, announced this morning, is a new
partnership with FxPro, which is going to be sponsoring our team and there
are a couple more yet to come out this weekend, so it has been a good week.
What impact will Mr Latifi’s shareholding have on the racing team
specifically?
ZB: Ultimately his investment goes into McLaren Group, so the board and the
shareholder will ultimately decide where they want to invest that money. I
presume it will ultimately be sprinkled into all three business in some way,
shape or form and Formula 1 obviously has a big thirst for expenditure to
try to keep up with the teams here to the left of me that have a larger
budget, so I’m sure some will go towards investing in our racing team but
also developing our road car and our technology business.
And what will it mean for the drivers in the F1 team. Will there be pressure
to put Nicholas Latifi, son of new shareholder Michael, in the car in the
future?
ZB: No, it’s never been a discussion. He’s doing quite well in Formula 2. At
McLaren we’re always looking for the best drivers we can get. He’s doing a
good job but it’s never been part of the conversation.
Thank you. Christian, there was a lot of pre-race hype surrounding Red Bull,
and it seems justified after the first free practice session, with your cars
first and second. How do you view this weekend, do you view it as your
biggest chance so far?
Christian HORNER: Firstly, it’s only Thursday morning, so it doesn’t mean
too much, but what we can say is that the circuit is very quick this year.
The re-surfacing has definitely improved lap time and the cars are
circulation close to 1.5s faster than this time last year, so that’s
encouraging. Both drivers seem reasonably comfortable in the car. But as
we’ve seen, Saturday has been our weakness throughout the season. We’ve
always had a strong race car, but Saturday is where we’ve tended to
struggle, at the business end of qualifying. But hopefully with the shorter
straights here and with this circuit layout, it offers us our best
qualifying chance of the season.
You’ve got a lot on your plate, looking ahead, with both an engine and a
driver still to decide upon for 2019. Are they interlinked? Does the
identity of next year’s engine impact on your ability to keep Daniel
Ricciardo?
CH: No, not really. Daniel is fully aware that we are wanting to make the
best choices for the future regarding the power unit, to put us in the most
competitive position we can possibly be in, and of course that is absolutely
in his interest. So, during the next month or so engine things will probably
pretty much come to a head and then drivers will inevitably follow on from
that.
Drivers do tend to think shorter term than race team though, don’t they?
CH: Yes and no. I think Daniel has been with Red Bull for a long time now.
He’s aware of the capability of the group and the team and he is very
comfortable in the team. So once the engine scenario is sorted I think
things will move reasonably quickly.
In percentage terms, how confident are you of keeping him?
CH: It’s always difficult to put a number on these things. But we’re very,
very happy with Daniel. He does a great job in the team, he’s a popular
member of the team and there is a desire for us to retain him for next year.
Sixty per cent?
CH: That’s your number.
OK, thank you Christian. While we’re talking about drivers, perhaps let’s
move on to Fred. You’ve worked with a lot of young drivers in your career,
so tell us a little bit about Charles Leclerc. How impressed have you been
by him this year?
Frédéric VASSEUR: For sure, he is doing a very good start of the season, but
it is very difficult also to compare from 2018 to 2006 or ’07 and you don’t
have to do this kind of exercise. He is on the learning curve for sure. If
you have a look at the start of the season he struggled a little bit on the
first two events and then he made a good step from Shanghai or Baku, but
still a lot to do. I think he is very focused on the next events and he
avoids to be focused on the future and that is a good thing.
You mention China there, did he change something on the car or did he change
his driving style, because that seems to be the breakthrough race for him?
FV: From an external point of view you have a big change after China, but it
was not really the case. A small mistake at one stage of the race could
change completely the situation. He did a very good first stint in China
before the spin and I think the pace was already there. In Melbourne he did
also a good race. The method is just to put everything together at the same
stage. There is a huge step between Formula 2 and Formula 1 and step by step
he is managing the situation.
We haven’t spoken to you in this forum previously this year. Can you tell us
a bit about the car, the C37? How good is it and the improvements from last
year to this year, is it solely the engine? How pleased are you with the
chassis?
FV: I hope it’s not only the engine, thanks! No, the fact is we’re pushing
like hell, but for sure the process is a long one. We have a huge inertia on
the system, on the chassis side, it’s very difficult to recruit and when we
identify someone they don’t want to give the green light – thanks to you –
but step by step we are improving. I think on the chassis side we made a
good step also, not only on the engine, but it will take time. But we know
exactly what we want to achieve.
Toto, Monaco was your bogey track last year. Have you seen enough evidence
this morning that you’ve overcome the problems from last year? How’s it
going?
Toto WOLFF: Thursday morning was very good for us last year too. In terms of
pure lap time we were the fastest car out there. But we started the weekend
in a tricky place – the set-up didn’t make a lot of sense, but the lap time
was quick – so we got a little bit lost through the weekend. We know what
happened. But the fundamental issue, that you can see certain cars perform
circuits, remains and this hasn’t been one of our top circuits in the past.
The drivers said yesterday that you are better prepared for this race this
year. What have you done differently?
TW: We have understood what happened last year in terms of set-up. We have
improved our simulation tools and I think we know our weaknesses. We will be
trying to put the car in a place where we can extract the maximum
performance it is able to deliver around Monaco.
Lewis said yesterday that he is not in a hurry to sign his new contract. Is
that feeling mutual?
TW: It’s a funny situation because we have been discussing for a long time.
We get together and sort things out and then get busy in our daily operation
jobs – us on the team side and Lewis on his preparation. It shows that we
have great confidence in each other; nobody is pressuring each other. We
haven’t set a fixed date where we want to announce but I can tell you that I
don’t see a reason why this shouldn’t be happening.
When will it become a priority for you?
TW: It is in the process of just closing. There is a bit of an email
ping-pong on details. I don’t want to set a date because then you will be
asking me why, why hasn’t it been done, but maybe we choose one of the nice
grands prix in the future, in the next couple of months.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Scott Mitchell – Autosport) Toto and Christian, Ferrari is an immediate
competitor for your respective teams. There have been some rumblings in the
background leading up to this race about the processes they may or may not
be engaging in on the energy recovery side. I just wanted to know your
respective understandings are of the situation, and how happy you are with
the actions that appears to have been met by the FIA this weekend?
CH: We’re not an engine supplier, so maybe Toto can answer more on the
engine specifics but there have obviously been some rumours that no doubt
you guys are cottoning onto as well. I’m sure that the FIA have all the
competence to be able to able to measure, administer and look at the car
that’s presented for scrutineering and during a grand prix weekend, and of
course it’s the team’s obligation to ensure that that happens. I think the
FIA are probably the best people to point that question at.
TW: Yes, Christian is absolutely right. We have legality topics come up
regularly. Some are more controversial but it's the daily business of the
FIA to check what the teams do. It is the obligation of the teams to comply
with the regulations and this is an ongoing process. I have great confidence
with whatever issues are coming up, be it on the engine or the chassis, the
FIA has been on top of it a lot. And as far as I understand this is a
process that’s taking place as we speak and we will see what the outcome is.
Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines / racefans.net) Fred, on that topic, it’s
no secret that you obviously get your power unit and energy storage etcetera
from Ferrari. I believe that from FP1 this morning, Ferrari have had an
additional piece of hardware built into their car at the FIA’s insistence to
check whether they are running anything. Have you had to add anything to
your car at all?
FV: No. I’m not aware this kind of thing, that we have just to deal with the
engine we have into the car, and I trust Ferrari on this point. I don’t care
about the situation.
Q: (Jerome Pugmire – AP) Question for Toto. Lewis was saying yesterday that
he’s in no hurry to sign. Today you’re saying there’s no date set. Seems to
be a bit of confusion about when this is going to happen. Is it a case that
Lewis can decide when he wants?
TW: No. This is, as I said, a pretty normal procedure, that you talk to each
other and you negotiate in a completely normal procedure, similar to what
happens in some of the other teams. I mean, Daniel’s and Christian’s
situation is maybe similar. This is work in progress and we see no hurry to
pressurise each other into signing a document that will eventually anyway
happen. I don’t know what he said yesterday but we’ve had very good
conversations and there is no desire for him to leave the team and we have
no desire for us to lose him.
Zak, this might be a question that we could put in your direction as well
regarding Fernando Alonso.
ZB: Well, I think our situation is the same as everyone’s. It’s a little
early in the season. Of course, we’re all talking to our drivers, probably
talking to each other’s drivers to a certain extent up and down the pitlane.
I think that we’re now back in Europe, it’s usually around the summer time
that things start really taking shape as far as our conversations with
Fernando. Just like last year, we decided to wait ‘til about the summertime
and I think Fernando will let us know what he wants to do here pretty soon.
Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action / Speed Sport) Zak, a two-part question. In
the short term, where do things stand with a title sponsor and in the longer
term, where does the group stand with having maybe more shareholders?
ZB: More shareholders would be decided by the shareholders. I’m not aware of
any conversations going on in that sense, I think everything’s quite settled
and everyone’s quite happy with the shareholder makeup that we have. Then,
as far as title sponsor goes, y’know, we’ve got a great commercial team that
is trying to find partners, as does every Formula One team, every day. I
wish I had a crystal ball to predict exactly when that will come on board –
but we’re making good progress, we’ve brought on four or five partners,
which I believe is more than any other team at this point, in the
off-season. So I think, happy with the progression that we’ve made, and we
announced yet another one this morning. We’ll just keep going: you can never
have enough partners in Formula One.
Q: (Jonathan McEvoy – Daily Mail) To all but Mercedes. In your minds, is
Lewis still available – or is it such a done deal that he’s going to stay at
Merc, that that’s that?
CH: Well, I can only imagine that a delay can only involve money. And I
should think it’s such a grotesque amount of money that Toto’s talking
about, it probably is what’s making his and Niki’s eyes water at the moment.
So, yeah, he’s got an expensive lifestyle. He’s a four-time world champion
and I doubt he’s cheap. I can only envisage that that’s probably got
something to do with the delay.
Zak?
ZB: I’d be very surprised if Lewis wasn’t in a Mercedes next year. So I’m of
the view that it’s just a matter of time before until the arm-wrestling…
someone wins. But I think Lewis will be in a Mercedes next year.
Fred?
FV: I trust Lewis and Toto and I think they will continue together.
Where do you think Charles Leclerc will be next year?
FV: I hope with us. They look very happy with their respective drivers. I
will do the same.
Q: (Matthew Marsh – Fox Sports Asia) Question to Zak. We’ve been delighted
to see Gil de Ferran in the paddock the last couple of races. Can you
clarify his role with the team?
ZB: Gil’s a good friend of McLaren, we have brought him on as an advisor to
McLaren. We want him to help with our young drivers. We are looking at some
other forms of motorsport, most notably Indycar is under review – he
obviously has great history there, having owned a team, won the Indy500 –
and generally is a great racer that knows his way around a garage, and so
any expertise he has that he can volunteer to help us improve, we’re very
open-minded to that. So you’ll see him around: in Detroit at the Indycar
race in a couple of weeks’ time and around our Formula One garage often.
Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines, Racefans.net) Zak, with reference to
Michael Latifi, you called it exceedingly good news, or very good news – yet
your group kept his identity hidden behind a BVI – British Virgin Islands –
entity until we revealed it. Is that sort of opacity any good for a company
like McLaren? And second, after his investment, what is the shareholder
breakdown now of the Group please?
ZB: Shareholder breakdown is, I believe, published, so anyone that’s
interested in that can look that up accordingly. And any time you have,
whether it’s a sponsor announcement, a driver announcement, an investor
announcement, you have a time in place in which you hope to announce that
and you did a good job in getting ahead of that story. So that news was
going to come out in due course. We chose to accelerate that news after the
word got out.
Q: (Agris Lauzinieks - Kapitals) A question to the whole panel: how
disappointing is it for you to have grid girls this weekend on the track and
do you feel that if they wanted to, they should be at other races too?
FV: I’m not very disappointed to have the grid girls back. I think that at
the end of the day it’s up to the track also to decide if they want to put
grid girls on the grid. I think it’s a good move.
TW: I think if you ask five people you will have eight opinions on grid
girls. I think it was not discriminatory at all, it was part of the history
of Formula One. It has become sponsorship property, thinking about Emirates
or Heineken and not to have Hawaiian Tropic girls we remember 30 years ago.
So I’m happy to see them back on the grid in Monaco.
CH: Well, the girls here I think are provided by TAG Heuer, our partner, for
this weekend and I think it’s a subject that has obviously raised huge
debate across different spectrums. To be honest with you, I think the girls
make a welcome return this weekend. I think that it’s something that should
be open to all categories, so some races will choose to have grid kids,
others will have mixed grids and I think that so long as it’s done in an
appropriate manner, then it’s ultimately down to the promotor.
ZB: I don’t really have anything to add beyond what my three other team
bosses have added on the topic.
Q: (Louis Dekker – NOS) Can you tell me your first impression of the
hypersoft; will it change the outcome of the race? Or will it just be
another tyre?
ZB: I landed about 30 minutes ago so I’ve not had my debriefing yet so I
don’t have a view yet.
CH: It’s certainly the softest of the Pirelli suite of tyres and there’s
quite a jump between that and the next compound. I think probably what
you’ll see is as the circuit rubbers in with all the cars running around and
the Formula One mileage that goes in over the next few days that by the time
raceday comes, that tyre will probably be absolutely fine. It’s a very low
degradation circuit around here, there’s no big inertia corners so that’s
why, compared to other circuits, we’re running at the softest level of the
Pirelli compounds.
TW: In the morning the jump was quite big. We have been running the
hypersoft and the ultrasoft and it was more than a second between the tyres.
We have seen quite some deg which was expected on the hyper; you could see
that on the other team, Ferrari, running it. We observed that Red Bull had a
different run plan but as Christian said, the circuit is going to rubber in
and the picture could change over the next three days. I find the tyre
exciting. With the new asphalt and these cars and the hypersoft, the lap
times are going to be absolutely mind-blowing.
FV: Yeah, the gap with hyper was probably the biggest one in Barcelona last
winter and I think it’s the same today but we will have also to have a look
at this during the weekend because the track will have a huge grip
evolution, it will completely change the system. We will see on Saturday.
Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines, RaceFans.net) Given the uncertainty of
Formula One post-2020, how difficult is it to sign major deals such as
drivers, engines, major sponsors etc?
CH: Well, we have a meeting tomorrow where hopefully a lot of detail will be
put on the table as to what Liberty’s next steps are. They need to be
responsible steps, because some of the things like budget caps involve
literally thousands of jobs through teams and suppliers and sub-contractors.
It’s certainly heavy in the UK. But we’re waiting with interest. It will be
interesting to see what the next stage of that roll-out is.
TW: Highly complex matter because the cost cap or potential cost cap… it’s
about technical regulations, revenue distribution so there’s multiple balls
in the air which you need to catch and insofar I hope also that the meeting
tomorrow is productive, so we understand more and can act accordingly.
FV: No. I think that we had our first meeting in Bahrain and the meeting
tomorrow morning is an important one. We need to have clarification on the
different points and it will be the start of a new era but we need to move
forwards quickly, also for F1, I think.
ZB: Well, I think the question was around the difficulty of signing drivers,
sponsors and making engine decisions, so everything the guys to the left of
me mentioned as far as addressing how you’re going to run a team is all
accurate and we need to know pretty soon and definitely to be able to
respond accordingly but as far as signing up sponsor partners, they all know
Formula One’s going to be here in 2021 and under the direction of the sport,
should be more competitive, should be higher fan engagement so I think
sponsors are excited about the future direction of the sport. I think
drivers either want to drive in Formula One or not so I don’t hear any
drivers contemplating whether they want to drive in the new era of Formula
One and then maybe engines because that isn’t yet defined. That may be the
one area that’s a bit difficult, sitting here today, to make decisions on
because I’m not sure every engine manufacturer is definitively committed for
2021 so that would be the one area that would be difficult to maybe make a
decision on today, but I think we have to have faith that everything is
going to go in the right direction and the sport’s only going to get more
exciting so I don’t see anyone leaving.
Q: (Scott Mitchell – Autosport) Fred, I believe Marcus and Charles have a
new combustion, turbo and MGU-H for this weekend. Is that just for
reliability reasons to freshen up after the first five races or is it
related to a performance step, a spec two from Ferrari?
FV: No, we are sticking to the plan that… it was planned from the beginning
we will change the engine for Monaco. It’s a performance update like as
planned.
Q: (Maximilian Wendl – Mannheimer Morgen) For many drivers this is a special
track, Monte Carlo. How special is it for you and what is special in Monaco
for you team bosses?
TW: Monaco is the signature track, I would say, for Formula One. It’s a
street, city circuit, very difficult to drive these cars around here and the
environment is very special. It’s glamorous, it represents – for me summer
represents Formula One like it was in the old days and it’s good that we are
keeping to the tradition in racing in Monte Carlo.
CH: Yeah, look, I mean all the races have the same points, but this one just
means that little bit more, the history. I think this is the 76th Grand Prix
this year and to win this race is something very very special. You know
working conditions have changed dramatically over the last ten years here.
We’ve seen another step up this year with the pit complex which is hugely
impressive. So it’s got its uniqueness, it’s got its challenges. Obviously
it’s a track that is probably the hardest on the calendar to overtake at.
It’s probably the most expensive hotel room you’ll have all year but it
epitomises Formula One and as Toto says, there’s a huge amount of history
surrounding this event.
ZB: Yeah, I don’t have a lot to add, other than that it is certainly the
most prestigious race on the Formula One calendar. Other racing series,
whether it’s the 24 Hours of Le Mans sports cars, the Indianapolis 500 or in
NASCAR the Daytona 500, each racing series has its most famous event that I
think any driver… if you kind of said pick one race to win other than maybe
their home race it would be Monte Carlos so it’s always great to race here.
FV: It’s probably one of the most exciting races throughout the world, not
only in Formula One and the test for the winner is also a particular one.
Even if you only score 25 points like everywhere else, the test is
particular. Also because I think it’s more driver related than everywhere
else so for them it’s an exciting challenge.
TW: Bernie’s place in Paul Ricard is more expensive than the hotels here. |