Team principals: Eric Boullier (Renault), Norbert Haug (Mercedes), Christian Horner (Red Bull), Martin Whitmarsh (McLaren)
Q: (Gaetan Vigneron – RTBF) Question to all of you regarding the decision for tyres for next year. Jean Todt has said that it’s a decision of the FIA and of Bernie Ecclestone. What’s your opinion about that? It seems to be quite urgent, so when could we have a final decision?
MW: I think what Jean’s reflecting is that current regulations require the FIA to go out to tender and clearly that is something we all have a vested interest in concluding. I think teams, the FIA, the commercial rights holder have been working hard to reach a conclusion and I’m sure they will be able to shortly.
CH: I think the only thing to add is that the sole supplier situation that we have in Formula One has enabled independent teams such as ourselves to be competitive with automotive-owned teams and larger organisations. I think the most fundamental thing going forward is that we have equality of tyre supply. In the situation that we have at the moment, we have a good tyre supplier who unfortunately won’t be with us in 2011. I think the teams are clear where they want to go with the options that are on the table and hopefully the FIA together with Bernie Ecclestone can come to a similar conclusion.
MW: I think it’s urgent for whoever comes in. They need to get the tyres designed, developed and work out the logistics of manufacturing the number of tyres required and servicing Formula One next year and for the teams, we need it very urgently, so that we can design next year’s car, because clearly the tyre characteristics are a fundament starting point for the layout of next year’s car. So it’s pretty urgent really, for the tyre companies and for the teams.
Q: (MC) And are you going to want to test those tyres before the end of this season?
MW: I think the two companies that have been expressing an interest have got views on how they would test, whether they would test with teams or by other means but again, the quicker and earlier we can test and validate the design characteristics have been met and the things are safe the better. It’s going to be difficult. All of the teams, over the last couple of years, have now stood down their test teams, so none of us, frankly, are equipped to go out there testing and tyre testing as we did before. There have been a lot of initiatives in Formula One to reduce costs and I think we’ve got to be careful we don’t creep back in the wrong direction in dealing with this change, but I’m sure it’s something that together we will work through satisfactorily.
If you listen to Christian Horner you get the impression that someone made an intervention with Jean Todt and that someone could have easily been Dietrich Mateschitz.
The automotive teams have some leverage to influence tyre suppliers by waving order forms in their direction. I suspect that there was some below table play. From a commercial point of view the Pirelli deal was always the better deal.
