By Phil Huff
February 27 2007

A day before the launch of Honda's 'earth' car, RealHondaF1.com got the chance to sit down with Nick Fry at the Natural History Museum for an exclusive interview. You'll have read some of what he had to say in other stories, but here's the entire unedited transcript... In a break from tradition, Nick starts the interview...

So, what do you think? [pointing at the car]

It's certainly bold. It looks very good in the flesh - at least better than the images I ran on Friday. While it's great there, how will it translate to TV? A number of teams have fallen foul of that in recent years...

It seems to work ok. We've actually tried it on a Formula 3 car in secret and it worked pretty well. We've had a good go. This is the end result of a vast amount of work. To get an image of the earth on a Formula One car has been a huge task. We started off with maybe too much brown, and then we had too much blue, but I think we've got something there that really does stand out. We're pretty pleased.

It's all to promote an environmental image. How does that sit with the less than environmentally friendly image of F1?

Well, I think there's something to be said about. Firstly, Formula One has to move in a more environmentally friendly direction. This is something that Max Moseley has, rightly, been very keen on, because the days where engines run on 1300 horse power and special fuels, that's all gone.

Sadly!

In a way, maybe, but on the other hand that's a very selfish view that we inside Formula One might have had great fun, but car companies are not going to invest significant amounts of money unless its relevant to what they're doing in their road cars. People, especially in an environmentally sensitive global situation frankly are not going to put up with Formula One unless we move with the times.

It's nice to look backwards, and we all had great fun in those days, but unless we do change in this direction then Max and I think all the teams are aware that we're not going to be around for long.

We're all very much behind the changes in 2009 and 2010 towards energy recovery systems, and that's the big contribution that Formula One can make.

I'll give you the perfect example: these things decelerate from 200mph to 50mph in a couple of seconds. The amount of energy dissipated is huge. What we're trying to do is capture that energy in a couple of seconds, store it in a capacitor of some kind, and then use it later in the lap to accelerate out of the corners.

Now, today in a hybrid road car it does pretty much that, but it does it in a much more controlled situation. Deceleration is much less, in fact it's a fairly inefficient system and it weighs a lot. In 2009 we are going to have to do that with a unit that weighs 20 kilos or less.

The beauty of Formula One is because it's competitive we will give, all the teams will give their utmost to do that, and we've got now a couple of years to sort it out.

If it was in a road car situation, it might be an R&D project that goes on for five or so years, so by chucking extremely motivated Formula One engineers its much more likely to be developed that much more quickly and then it can go on to a road car.

Unless we do that, as I said earlier, frankly we will be dinosaurs.

It's fair to say that recently Formula One hasn't contributed much to road cars. It used to an awful lot, but that stopped about 10 years ago or so. This is obviously something that can be transferred directly to road cars - is that something you're working on already, and how long have you been working on it?

Well, the so-called KERS system, which is the Kinetic Energy Recovery System, has been worked on for about the last year. As always with us, it will be developed smoothly, cleverly and quickly, and now they've got their teeth into it and understood the parameters.

We've got to be racing it in 2009, that means we're going to have to be testing it next year, so this year will be the development phase but, you know, that's just the thin end of the wedge.

That's the first big job. The second big job is that in 2010 we're going to be required to do energy recovery systems, and then in 2011 there's going to be an all-new power plant. It's all going to go in the same direction. It's the only way for Formula One to survive. It's not going to survive if it just carries on doing things that are great for 20 Formula One cars, but no good for anyone else.

As well as the engine regulations, Max Mosley wants to introduce standard components and aero parts. How do you feel about that?

I think, as with all things, there's bits we like and some bits we like less. It's got to make sense. If, for example, we're only allowed to develop the aero twice a year, or change the aero twice a year, it's not going to save any money because all we'll be doing is developing all those parts then just storing them up. The ones that work will be kept, the ones that don't work will be thrown away, and we'll end up spending exactly the same amount of money.

We're quite happy to talk about things that genuinely save money, genuinely contribute towards road cars or, in our case, we can look more broadly than road cars; Honda's got a high-efficiency jet, there's lawnmowers, leaf blowers, robots, where there might be a relevance. We're in a better position than some of the other Formula One teams because we can look more broadly. Generally, in terms of direction, we're very much at one with the FIA. The conflicts over the last couple of years have very much been put behind.

Clearly, there's no sponsors on the car at all. How did your sponsors react when you put this idea to them?

It was very interesting. The bottom line is, very favourably. Most people's reaction is, initially, complete shock because Formula One cars have had sponsors logos for 30 years, so what we're doing here is pioneering in the traditional and very good Honda way. We're always encouraged to try things out, learn from it, and Honda have been very supportive, very much behind this. We've been very pleased with the reaction; there were 31 sponsors last year, there was one that was going anyway, Intercond, but all the others have got on board and are very supportive of this initiative.

The good news is that, versus last year, tomorrow we're going to be revealing ten more new sponsors, and two of them are global corporations. A lot of people have said this is a new reason to be involved in Formula One, and a couple of the companies that we're going to introduce tomorrow have not been involved in Formula One before, so that's good for the sport.

Being cynical for a moment, perhaps Alistair Watkins and his team haven't signed up quite as many sponsors over the last few years as necessary and this was almost forced upon you?

I think that's ill founded. I can understand people coming to that conclusion, but when they see tomorrow the ten new sponsors, and a couple of very big American corporations - one company that sells in 50 countries around the world - but the thing for your readers to understand is that we're now owned 100% by Honda.

For Honda to want to use the Formula One vehicle, in broad terms, to communicate their story is entirely natural. The story Honda want to get over is that the environment is very important to Honda. It's got a long history of doing things from reforestation projects to being one of the first companies to get rid of two-stroke motors from boats and motorbikes, and go to more efficient four strokes, efficient combustion technology, the first hybrid in Europe and north America, a fuel cell vehicle being available from next year in some markets, and this is a logical progression.

This Formula One car is seen by the best part of 600 million people around the world every year, so why wouldn't we use it to communicate a Honda message?

So that represents a fairly big change in Honda's philosophy from a few years ago where they could clearly afford to spend the money on the project, but perhaps didn't want to. Now it's clearly all in house, they're prepared to put that money in for their message.

Honda have been incredibly supportive, not only of this initiative, but also the team as a whole. The investment that the teams had over the last couple of years, which fortunately in some cases we've had to catch up, the reality is the new wind tunnel is something the team needed two years ago, and we Johnny-come-lately a little bit on that. We've had to invest heavily in facilities like machining facilities because the ones that we had are now eight years old, hence machining technology has moved on so far that. Honda are very much behind the Formula One programme, especially winning our first race last year was a very big incentive to everyone to try harder again in the future and there's a complete determination to win the world championship.

Honda's realistic because they've been racing so long that that's something that's very difficult to do. It might happen this year, it might be next year, it might be the year after, who knows, but they're very determined to pursue that goal.

Going back to the wind tunnel, one of Max's proposals that I can't see being received too favourably is limiting wind tunnel time. With every team now building second and third tunnels, that's something that's not going to go down too well. That's a point of negotiation, I assume?

I believe it will be a point of negotiation. Coming back to relevance, I can quite understand the FIA's view that spending a lot of time on esoteric aerodynamic technology that's not going to be used elsewhere is maybe not too constructive a use of money or time. If it's technology, even in the aerodynamic area, or CFD, that can be used in other ways somewhere else then I think that's where we're going to end up. We're going to end up with something that's going to be allowed to use them, but we're going to be allowed to use them under controlled circumstances.

The RA107 hasn't set the timesheets alight. Looking at Bahrain, and I believe you were there...

Yes, I was.

You must be shattered!

Yes! [laughter]

..ignoring Heidfeld's low-fuel lap time, you're about 0.8 seconds off the pace of the McLaren. Is that a fair reflection of the pace, and is there more to come?

There's certainly more to come. I think the thing to understand to start with is the development philosophy this year has been 180 degrees from last year. Last year, as you'll have noticed, we introduced two cars at the beginning of January and we did a huge amount of mileage but the unfortunate truth is between the beginning of January and the first race we really didn't develop the car much, and others overtook us.

What we're trying to do this year is something quite different. This car is actually technologically very different. We've taken a bigger step in the longer runs that will give us more potential for improvements, but in the shorter runs it's a bit more difficult to set up. Where we are is we're aiming to start get quicker, start to put the new aero bits on the car in Bahrain. In terms of last week, one lap times were a big problem, but long run times you're probably right, we're probably half a second at least from where we should be.

We've got some more stuff going on to the car next week which should help but, realistically, where I believe we are is that we'll be in a position to score points in Melbourne, but we're trying to win the war and not individual battles, and having a car that actually has development potential is very important to us, so we want to be winning races certainly, and I think we'll be winning races in the second half of the season, and I think we'll be scoring points, hopefully, straight away, but what I'll say to your readers is "please don't expect us to win in Melbourne as we probably won't."

How is the transition to Bridgestone tyres going? I can see the front suspension seems to give you a much greater degree of setup options, although I can't see the rear...

Both front and rear of this car. we tried before Christmas six different rear suspension configurations and decided on one with the geometry that's in front of you now. The front also has been through a number of iterations. One thing which has been very positive about this car is that in terms of not only setting up the suspension but also setting up the aerodynamics, it's got a lot of flexibility, so we can move the aerodynamic pressures around the car and it's proven very good in that respect, but on the other hand giving yourself a lot of options does mean you've got more potential, but it does also mean you've got more potential to get it wrong.

You've got more things to experiment with and we really didn't find the balance in the car until the final Friday in Europe before we came to Bahrain. In that respect we started to say that's the balance direction we wanted to go in, hence the developments this week in Bahrain and also next week.

Has the development of RA107 been hampered by Jenson's injury and Anthony's move to Super Aguri?

Jenson's injury really made no difference. Jenson's not a driver that needs a lot of practice, so he's someone who can just jump in the car and go quick instantly, so that didn't hamper him and I would argue that having a couple of months off probably did him no harm. It's like all of us doing the same thing all the time, even if it's driving a Formula One car, then you're probably not as sharp as if you've had a break and come back.

So when do you get your break?

I wish! [laughter]

The second point is that Christian has been super. He really has jumped in the car and surpassed our expectations, and I'm really pleased for Anthony that he's got a chance of racing a car. I think Aguri and Anthony will be hopefully the surprise of the year.

Has Christian Klien brought anything from Red Bull to Honda Racing F1, and can you learn from that?

Er... no.

This has been a bit of an eye opener for Christian. He can see that there's a big difference between a team like Red Bull was last year and where we are, entering a manufacturer team with 500 people, with huge development resources. It's a totally different kettle of fish from what is a very well funded and very able team, but at the end of the day we're a car manufacturer team and there are certain things you simply can't buy. You cannot go out and buy development expertise that companies like Honda have got.

If you've got lots of money, you can't buy it, and I think that Red Bull are finding at the moment that even if you have got a very able designer actually turning that into a real car is pretty difficult. I'm sure they'll get there...

Christian has brought his own talent, for somebody who's only just 24 he really has been very impressive. He's consistent, he's fast, he's a very good person to work with so he's fitted in well with Jenson and Rubens.

How is the relationship with Tochigi?

The cooperation is good, but what you don't try to do is short term projects as the time zones don't help. You've got to split up the work that the guys in England, but one shouldn't just talk about Japanese engineers in Japan and British engineers in Britain, we've got 30 or 40 Japanese engineers with us in England. Those engineers in England tend to work on the nearer term stuff, and Tochigi works on the mid and longer term stuff. That's a central sub division.

What's happening with the Young Driver Programme? It's all gone very quiet.

James is doing very well. Driving a Formula One car is quite difficult. You do need quite a few kilometres in the car before you're able to really contribute and I think James reached that level in winter testing before Christmas. There was a definite switch point where his experience had got to a level where he was making comments and his contributions were really very positive indeed.

Your question is very pertinent because there'll be another young driver announced in the next couple of weeks. We have signed already someone else. But with the young driver programmes although we work very hard with a number of drivers the reality is that some of them turn out better than others. James has turned out very well, and we're very pleased with that, others have left the camp, and we've had to replace one person who starts some work very shortly.

I can't tell you who it is now, but you can start debating on your website!

One final question: what year will you win the championship?

Ooh! [laughter]

Within the next three!