By Phil Huff (27/06/2003)
June 27 2003

The FIA's Friday press conference took place at the Nurburgring today, and Honda Racing Development's UK Vice President Otmar Szafnauer was in attendance. Here's what he had to say... Q: The first question I'd like to ask is to the engine manufacturers, regarding their situation with customer engines.

Otmar Szafnauer: Honda have supplied customer engines in the past as you know, just the recent past, as well as in many of our other formulas as well - 'bikes, IRL, CART - so we're not against or afraid to supply customer engines. However, our focus in Formula One, having said that, is to stay with one team in the short term. We want to help Formula One and we think the best way we can help Formula One is to have the one team we're with become more competitive. So in the short-term, we're looking at staying with one team and making that team as competitive as we can to help Formula One as a whole.

Q: So you won't be able to supply customer engines, say, for next year?

OS: We have no plan at this time to supply customer engines for next year.

Q: Otmar, I think you've just had one major step forward in terms of engine development. Are you planning more?

OS: Yes we are. The last one, as you say, was at the Canadian Grand Prix and the next one will be at Silverstone, so for this race and the French Grand Prix we will be using the step that we had in Canada and the next big step will be at Silverstone.

Q: Are those steps coming every two or three races, that soon?

OS: Every two or three races. At the beginning of the year, they came a bit quicker as well, some races back to back.

Q: So the pace of development is pretty rapid?

OS: Yes, we're not satisfied where we are and we'd like to do better so we're pushing on development as well as reducing the weight of the engine and improving driveability, so those three areas we're focusing on.

Q: BAR have said that they are not going to introduce their 2004 car until at least after the first four races. What's Honda's reaction to that?

OS: Well, that was planned with us in mind. Our engine will run early in the interim car. I think the entire back end will be new so the introduction of the new car will happen, I think, after the fly-aways and we think it's a good plan. Strategically we will be better off for it.

Q: Are you planning a brand new engine for next year then?

OS: Yes, especially with the new rules, the engine will be brand new. It will run for the first time in November and I think it's bench testing sometime in August.

Q: After what we have seen in this afternoon's qualifying, what sort of changes would you like to see next year?

OS: Well, if it mixes it up for the fans and it is good for the fans then it is good for all of us. We have Friday to show our ultimate potential speed and Saturday is a bit strategic now.

Q: Otmar, I know you have some Honda people at BAR. Are there plans to bring more people there and integrate the two sides?

OS: Yes, we are continuing to do that. Next year's effort will see more Honda chassis people come to BAR and help in some areas where we haven't been helping before. So the answer is yes.