02/01/2005
NEWS STORY
Following his team's Christmas lunch with a few selected journalists, Red Bull Racing managing director, Tony Purnell, sat down in the bar of London's Quod Bar with Pitpass editor Chris Balfe, Autosport.com's Jonathan Noble and Alan Baldwin of Reuters.
In the first part of our (almost) exclusive chat with the Red Bull Racing MD, Mr Purnell talked of Michael Schumacher and his admiration and respect for the German driver. In the second part of our interview he give his opinion on the ways in which he feels Formula One can be made more entertaining, with particular regard to qualifying.
In the past, Purnell has shown himself as having a strong, almost fundamental, view regarding Formula One racing. We began by asking if his views remain the same.
"I still perceive F1 as a big business that is under-pinned by providing entertainment for the people that go to the races," he replied. "And the suggestions I made for qualifying were wholeheartedly aimed at providing better entertainment for people who go to the races, especially on Friday and Saturday, and for television viewers in general.
"I thought that to have Schumacher show he is the best driver in the world in every circumstance, which I believe he is, would be great," he continued. "The public love it when Schumacher qualified badly because there is real interest there. So I am not saying the qualifying was a panacea but it was meant to be a constructive idea to entertain the public with."
So can he see a way forwards for F1, whereby one of these radical ideas will be accepted by the team bosses, after all some of the team bosses appear so protective of themselves that they don't appear to want to see anything that might change the status quo.
His answer is straight and to the point, and extremely depressing. "No," he replies.
That's quite depressing isn't it? "Yes," he admits.
The previous week, when the team bosses met at Heathrow, qualifying was one of the items at the very top of the agenda. At present, apart from anything else, qualifying seems to favour the winner of the previous race, is the format going to change?
"I wish I knew," he admits. "I think there is a sporting chance that qualifying will change again. I was under the impression that in 2003 we had an F1 commission meeting, it was discussed and agreed that we should air some ideas to the public and get feedback from what the fans said and the television companies and journalists, and take action accordingly."
So has there been any talk in the team meetings about how to change qualifying? There appear to be lots of ideas, but nothing appears to be happening?
"No," he replies. "Bernie has got strong opinions on qualifying and so do I.
"To go back, you said no-one has got strong ideas," he continues. "Well, I think I have really."
Do you think we are moving away from the proposed idea of Sunday qualifying?
"I don't know," he admits, which in all honesty is pretty stupid, when you consider that the start of the season is around nine weeks away.
So what is Bernie's desire, the Sunday morning qualifying set-up, like we had in Japan? Is that what he wants, that and the aggregate times?
"You're best off speaking to Bernie," he replies. "Though I don't think he's a big fan of single lap qualifying."
Previously, Purnell had argued for mini-races, which would decide grid order - does he still stick by the idea?
"Absolutely," he replies, without hesitation. "I thought it was a good idea and no-one has told me why it was a bad idea.
"The surprising thing is that what a lot of people were side-stepped by was that it was a bit left field," he continues. "But I have been surprised by the number of people who have said, 'now I have thought that through and given where we are, it could well work rather well'.
"The only constructive criticism I have heard is that it could be more expensive because we'd have more crashed cars and I think to myself... 'what does Joe Public love and would we be able to cope?' Of course we could."
The real problem is that, quite simply, the racing is bad... after all, we're looking at qualifying, but it is Sunday's race that is the issue.
"I think you are alluding to a root cause problem," he replies. "After all, there would be no need to have fuel stops and tyre changes and the sort of things that have been introduced to the sport if the base product is fabulous.
"Actually the base product is not that bad," he continues, "it is just that I think there are lots of people who feel it could be a lot better and it is very hard for teams to compete on a completely level playing field when team A spends three dollars for every dollar that team B spends."
Is there a feeling that more could be done for the public, after all, there was the suggestion of 'celebrity races'.
"It is nice to deal with facts," he replies. "Some produce data that television figures are holding up so there is no problem and if that is the case then you would have to agree that there isn't such a big problem.
"I myself think that F1 would be more appealing with a little bit more unpredictability," he adds, "but I would never want to get away from the best car and the best driver winning. I just want to make it harder work for them."
A website, definitely not Pitpass, recently claimed that F1 needs three things, Valentino Rossi, Murray Walker and a less grumpy Bernie. Would you agree?
"Rossi would be great for F1," he replies, neatly avoiding the subject of Murray Walker and grumpy Bernie.
At the time of the Red Bull deal, you said that the company had put the 'fizz' back into F1. What exactly did you mean?
"Red Bull is the only marketing company involved in F1," he replies. "There are six manufacturers, but Red Bull is a marketing company and I expect them to approach the presentation of the team with a little bit of an edge. That is what I want. Like refusing to announce the driver line-up until the last moment.. when we are ready we will announce it."
Four days after this comment - and despite claims earlier in the day that the team was nowhere near making a decision - Red Bull racing signed David Coulthard.
After several years in F1 at the highest level, do your views, on what needs to be changed, remain the same?
"I think to improve F1, there are a few things I am sure of," he replies. "Provide red hot entertainment for the public and team budgets.
"You will get team budgets if it is fabulously entertaining. Again, I think F1 is inherently entertaining. Could it be more entertaining than at the moment? Probably, but we have got the hero factor with Michael.
"It's never entertaining if someone runs off with the championship. What we would all like is a three or four-way shoot out to the last race, we have had it in the past and it becomes electric and make no mistake, McLaren are working at that, Williams, BAR, and maybe it will happen, but it's just that Ferrari are so strong."
How do you view the Michelin v Bridgestone battle next year, especially given the sheer number of teams that Michelin has to supply (7), whereas Bridgestone can concentrate on Ferrari?
"I was quite surprised at Sauber's switch to Michelin," he admits, "that threw me a little bit, and it suggests that they view the Michelin as superior.
"We have never run on Bridgestones so I don't know, but look at the flip side, MS walked away with the championship and he was on Bridgestones. So I don't know."
Finally, what do you think of 'control tyres'?
"I'm definitely in favour of a control tyre," he admits.