By Various sources
March 30 2009
Furthermore info compilation, courtesy of AFCA
- Baldisserri on the diffuser:
''We will have to review our priorities, we'll be forced to introduce
it. It's not easy. It will be necessary to redesign the whole rear end.
It will be very, very difficult to be ready with that for Barcelona on
the 10th of May.''
On catching up: ''With the radical changes in the regulations that have
been introduced and with the necessity to concentrate on the 2008 title
fight we lost out on 4 to 5 months of windtunnel research compared to
the others. It's the area of an F1 car that counts for 80% and now it
won't be easy to catch up.''
''In Malaysia it should go better. There the tyres don't wear off as
much. Here in Australia we struggled with the soft tyres. In Bahrain
they worked, here they didn't. But as things stand now our performance
is inferior to that of Red Bull and BMW Sauber. All in all though Brawn
GP didn't humiliate us. In qualifying with a lot of fuel we were 1.5
seconds behind them, during the race this gap wasn't there. In fact, I
think that if it wasn't for the incident Kubica would have gone on to
overtake Button. We've thought of a lot of things to enhance
overtaking, but to me it seems that the real show has been produced by
the differences between the two types of tyre.''
''The balance of the F60 is good, but the car is not fast. KERS gives
us some more power, but if the car isn't doing well then it's not of
much use.''
''Let's admit it: we're in much greater difficulty now then we were at the start of last year.''
Tombazis is more optimistic: ''To catch up it will take a smaller
effort/amount of time than one might expect, eventhough we have to work
360° in several areas: reliability, aerodynamics and performance.''
- Schumacher on Brawn GP's success: ''When you're aware of
wintertesting and the story behind the team then it's no longer a
sensation. But they've risen like a phoenix, they were nowhere last
year and now they dominated the first race. You can only grant that
Ross. He's done a superb job and I'm happy for him.''
On Barrichello's poor start: ''Rubens was a bit optimistic there. He
wanted to make up for his bad start. That's understandable but you know
things can get very tight in the first corner in Melbourne. It's better
to back off a little.''
On Brawn GP's chances on the title possibly being bigger than those of Ferrari: ''That's not impossible.''
On being in Australia and also flying to Malaysia: ''The main reason
for me being here is that the organisation has changed a little, there
are several new people in several positions. That's why I'm here and
that's why I'll also fly to Kuala Lumpur, which is a good connection
from here. For us to soon move forward, I hope to be able to take the
right decisions together with our guys.''
On the new regulations: ''The FIA comes up with regulations that make
for really big differences at the start, but then the many engineers
that every team has start to concentrate on it. Then in no-time there's
not much of a difference left.''
''We have less aerodynamical grip and more mechanical grip. That's
helpful for overtaking but the difference probably still isn't
drastical enough.''
''Out of safety reasons the cars were to become slower but that objective hasn't really been achieved.''
- Race control on sending out the Safety Car after Nakajima's crash:
''We didn't have the intention to send out the Safety Car at all. The
message from the track side was: 'everything under control'. Then we
suddenly we saw a crane truck on track. Therefore we had to neutralise the
race for safety reasons.''
When Mayländer came out he had to look for race leader Button. Stupidly
enough he had just gone past. That's why Button had to make up an
entire lap and the Safety Car had to tell all the other cars to get
passed to do the same. Only when that was done the lapped cars could be
picked out and sent forward to unlap themselves. It simply took too
long.
- Howett on Toyota's speed: ''I think we need two to three races before
we can really assess the balance of power. Brawn GP was impressive, but
our laptimes were pretty competitive when we had a free track. I
already look forward to the first race in which we qualify higher up
the grid because I think that we were actually faster in qualifying
than the times suggested.''
On KERS: ''We need more time to gain time over a lap with KERS. Others
clearly have a different opinion. You see though, that KERS brings
something at the start and that the KERS-equipped cars are able to
better attack and defend themselves on the straights.''
- Horner: ''The car definately has the potential to win races. We seem
to be best of the rest, but unfortunately for a third place there are
no big prizes.''
Marko: ''We now have an engine that is homogeneous and a driver that
steps on it. Up till his crash Vettel had a sovereign race. It was
stupid action from both of them because Vettel's tyres were gone and
Kubica must have seen that, after all he gained ground om him by 1.5
seconds each lap. He would have easily gone past whilst accelerating in
one of the corners that were to come. Then Vettel would have certainly
become third. Kubica should not have tried to attack and Vettel should
not have tried to defend.''
Marko will ''obviously'' have a word with Vettel, ''but he knows what he's done wrong anyway.''
The talent spotter highly appreciates Vettel saying sorry over the
radio: ''I find it very good of him that he doesn't look for excuses
when he does something wrong.''
On debutant Buemi: ''He was sensational. I had to fight very hard to
get him into the car, but now all the experts know that it's been the
right decision.''
''He didn't make on mistake the whole weekend, eventhough he was under
great pressure during the race when Rosberg was behind him. I'm really
satisfied becuase he's the youngest driver of the field and he's
another driver from our Junior programme.''
Webber: ''We've showed a lot of potential, no question about it. Now it's only about getting everything right.''
''My leg is fine. It's very bumpy here but it didn't cause any problems. That's very good.''
- 2003 British Formula 3 champion and former BAR/Honda testdriver Alan
van der Merwe has got himself a new job: this year the South African
drives the Medical Car instead of Alex Ribeiro.
Van der Merwe jokes: ''I promised my dad to be on the grid of a Grand Prix one day. And here I am !''
Part1 of this insight info review, at LINK
