By Phil Huff
April 22 2005

BAR Honda's new Sporting Director Gil de Ferran sat in on the Friday Five press conference today, suffering one of the least in-depth question and answer sessions known to man. Here's the full, riveting transcript.

Gil, welcome to Formula One. How did it all come about?

I think this is one of those situations where opportunity meets desire. Certainly when I stopped driving at the end of '03, I didn't want to get out of the sport completely and this type of role was something that I wanted to do. I met Nick years and years ago through Sir Jackie Stewart when he was working at Ford and eventually for Aston Martin and basically we got in touch in December and we've been talking since December. I guess that period gave him an opportunity to get to know me better and I was delighted because certainly this was the best opportunity I could hope for and in a way it feels like a natural progression of my driving career.

So how was the first day on the pit wall?

My first day on the pit wall was wonderful thanks to that man behind me (Jenson). It was great and I guess my task right now is basically to listen and to observe. I've been going to all the meetings - engineering meetings, planning meetings, so on and so forth - really to try to understand how the team functions and who does what and understand the personalities involved, and today it was great to be there in the heat of battle with my finger on the pulse.

How steep a learning curve is it?

Very steep. Actually I started two weeks ago and let me just say that sleep has not been a luxury that I have afforded very much.

And presumably you're back in Britain again?

I am back in Britain again, yes, after a ten year stint in the US, I am back to live in the UK. My wife has been looking for schools and a house for our family.