Ross, Rubens Barrichello is celebrating his 257th Grand Prix. You have worked with him quite a lot with Ferrari and now Honda. How much has he changed? Give us a little appraisal of his current state.

He has not changed at all. But what is great, not only about the achievement of 257 races, is the fact that he is still as strong and as competitive for many more. When Riccardo Patrese reached the record he was retiring, but there are no signs of Rubens needing or wanting to retire in the future.

Do you think he is still learning?

I think every driver keeps learning as do the engineers, technicians and all the other people involved. There is always something to learn in F1.

We saw Jenson Button in the points in Barcelona. Is that the product of new bits and pieces coming through but is it also perhaps a development of the Brawn effect?

There is a good programme of development with the team and with the car. I think there is some benefit from the changes and the progress we have made with the car. From where we were with the car in winter testing I think we can be quite pleased where we are now. What I want to do in the future is start the winter testing with something a lot stronger than we had this past winter. On your second point I hope I have been able to give the team some more confidence in doing the right things. They are all capable of doing a very good job. I think sometimes it just helps to have a reference point with someone who has been fortunate enough to win races and championships and who can say ‘guys you are not that far off, let’s just work hard and focus on the important things and we can do it.’ That’s the thing I have tried to bring to the team.

As well as that, how much has it been a case of putting the right people in the right places?

There is always that in every team. Every successful team is a combination of a lot of very good people, all highly talented people and sometimes it is a question of helping them see each other’s needs as well as their own and getting the whole group to work together. You will only succeed as a group. You will not succeed any other way.

Your feelings about the loss of the Super Aguri team.

I think it is always a great shame to lose any team from F1, we cannot really afford to be losing teams. I think they showed a lot of character and a lot effort in the past couple of years but circumstances prevailed and they were not able to carry on. But it is a shame that they were not able to find the funding to continue.

You’ve mentioned that on the one hand you are not too sad to see Super Aguri go, but on the other hand perhaps not unhappy given the drain they were proving on Honda’s finances and what impact that might have had on your team’s plans not only for the end of this season but for next season as well.

First of all, I am sad to see Super Aguri go but it had no impact on our team. I think Aguri Suzuki made the statement in Japan that he wasn’t able to find the money and continue but there was no strong relevance for our team.

Ross, if I could just follow up that question. It seems that Nick Fry has been labelled in some of the media as the guilty party in the Super Aguri exit. Do you feel that he has perhaps been unfairly targeted by some people and by Suzuki? I gather in the press conference he spoke out against him particularly.

Well, I’m sure it’s a very difficult time for Aguri. He’s worked for two years on this project and I think he realised that the end had come. I think probably when he reflects on the things he said he will reflect a little differently, because what I saw was that Nick was making big efforts at times to try and keep the project alive, far beyond any reason for us, personally. It was because of the connection of Aguri with Honda that Nick did a lot of work to try and find a viable solution for Aguri and it looked as though the Magma option, which I know Nick worked on very hard to put together, was a strong viable solution. And when that didn’t happen, there were no other viable solutions.

[Do] you think there are manufacturers out there willing to invest as much as Toyota?

I think it’s extremely difficult to see a privateer coming in because of the investment and the facilities needed, but it’s viable for a lot of manufacturers at the moment, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be viable for other manufacturers in the future, particularly the expanding market for Formula One. Different countries are now starting to establish our sport, I think there are a lot of opportunities from that direction in the future.

Does the fact that Danica Patrick has now won change anything?

We can all see the commercial attraction, how exciting it would be to have a female driver in Formula One. I think the key thing is that they can be competitive, because it would be a shame if, purely because they were a female driver, they got put in the car and couldn’t compete properly, but if they can compete properly, absolutely, it would be great.

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