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Belgian GP: Friday Press Conference

NEWS STORY
26/08/2011

Andrew, interesting comment from the Team Principal Vijay Mallya saying that the car is now a car for all tracks. Of course, we knew it as a low downforce car in a way, so what has been required to make it a car for all tracks.
Andrew Green: I don't know if I should tell you that. I think when I started there was definitely a focus towards a high-speed low-drag configuration on the car. Obviously, the car showed its hand on those tracks, especially Monza and Spa. Unfortunately, the season is not made up of Monzas and Spas and we need to be more competitive everywhere. I think we have got a car now that shows good performance in all set-ups, including the low and medium downforce tracks. Quite happy with the way the car has gone and the changes we have made over the last few months and looking forward to the remainder of the season.

So, basically, a bit more downforce and lot of wind tunnel work.
AG: Always a lot of wind tunnel work. That never stops, apart from two weeks in the summer. Yes, and a lot of hard work and a basic change in philosophy. That was the big thing. But these things take time to come through. It's steering a big ship and you make adjustments and these things take quite a bit of time to come through to the surface on the track.

So confidence for the rest of the season?
AG: Yeah, reasonably high. We expect the cars to qualify in the top 10, both cars, for the rest of the season. There is no reason why we shouldn't. That's our target and we'll try and stay on the tails of the big boys as much as we can and keep scoring points. Trying to keep converting performance into points, which is the target for the remainder of the season.

We have seen teams run third drivers before but usually on Friday mornings. What was the idea of running Nico Hulkenberg on Friday afternoon?
AG: It was basically looking at long-term weather forecasts. We had anticipated the rain to come in a little bit sooner. We were wrong. It came in a little bit later. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But I don't think we lost that much by swapping them around.

Paddy, a point made by our press officer here. Every time you come to a press conference your team seems to win.
Paddy Lowe: Yeah, that's happened twice this year. The first time, I was asked the question whether anybody else would win a race this year. At that time Red Bull had won every race. How many other teams would win a race and I said well at least two. We won that Sunday. Well, I hope this is a good omen and we can do the same this weekend.

Well, you have won the last two. Can you keep up the rhythm? What does it take to keep up that record?
PL: Well, as you all know it is very, very competitive at the front and we are competing very closely with Red Bull and Ferrari. It is a question of just finding that edge, both in qualifying and through the race. I think we would be happy if we could get both cars performing at the same time. Get the front row. Get the two guys on the podium. That's our next ambition. But we have won three out of the last five races in fact so we want to keep going in that direction.

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