28/09/2012
NEWS STORY
{omgl}The ebbs and flows of performance are all par for the course in Formula 1 and never more so than in the rollercoaster ride that has been the 2012 season so far. For Eric Boullier aiming high is always the name of the game, but the Team Principal is also keeping his feet firmly on the ground...
How was the Singapore race weekend from your perspective?
Eric Boullier: It was a pretty challenging weekend for the team to be honest. From Friday we could see that the car was not performing as we expected and so we needed to do quite a bit of evaluation work before the race on Sunday. I'm pleased with how well the team worked together to overcome the difficulties, however I think there was more performance in the car and we were unable to make the most of the circuit because we only found our problem on Saturday morning. It is extremely difficult to overtake around Singapore, so as we qualified in the middle of the grid we knew that to be on the podium would be a challenge. Both drivers raced very well, and each brought the car home with some solid points for the team. Unfortunately, Kimi was quite significantly held up by Michael Schumacher during the race and the first safety car didn't help our strategy. Otherwise, I think we could have been in a position to fight for higher positions.
The last three races have been disappointing by your standards. Would you agree?
EB: As I have often said, it is important not to get carried away in this paddock. When things are good, people have to remain calm and remember what the initial objectives are. When times are tough, being overly pessimistic does not help either. With the E20, we can rely on a tidy and reliable racing car and I think we have surprised a few people this year, but we need to progress one step at a time. We've always said that our target this year was to finish 4th in the championship. I'm not saying that we won't chase Ferrari until the end of the season, or that we don't want to, I'm just putting things back into context. People should remember where we're coming from. Pushing too hard or reviewing our objectives in the middle of the season could only have a negative effect. This is not a lack of ambition, it is down to experience: rushing things in F1 will - more often than not - mean collapsing. We'll keep pushing; we're doing our best and the 2012 season has been good for us so far. We'll then see where this takes us.
How are you looking forward to Japan?
EB: I know that both Romain and Kimi enjoy the Suzuka circuit so we're all looking forward to the race weekend. Kimi still holds the lap record from back when he won there in 2005, so he should feel confident and we are of course looking to provide him with a car to achieve the best that he can. I could tell you that the target is the podium, which it is somehow, but the relative level of performance between the teams is constantly evolving. We're bringing a few promising updates including our "device", we think that the track will suit our car, and we're hoping for a gentle build up to the race, with no technical drama or dodgy weather.
Kimi is still 3rd in the Drivers' Championship. How did he manage to do that after 13 races?
EB: Kimi is a special animal. His racecraft is always fantastic; he manages to extract 100% from the car on Sunday and to make the most of every opportunity. Who would remember, today, that he's been out of this sport for the last two years? Now, the priority is to score points regularly with two cars because the Constructors' Championship is really important to us. Romain has shown in Singapore that his raw speed is still there. He did not make any mistakes and will be able to build on this experience in Suzuka. Something tells me that the end of the season will give us quite a few nice surprises.
A whole lot of learning from Singapore, but plenty of opportunity to catch up with the leaders... Technical Director James Allison explains the performance challenges from the previous races and why he's feeling optimistic about the future.
Talk us through the Singapore race weekend.
James Allison: If the race was in isolation then I think we could say 'it was just a bad race, let's put it behind us', however it was the third in a sequence of uninspiring performances and therefore something that we need to arrest to ensure that we make the most of the six remaining races this season and give ourselves a little more of the bounce that we had earlier in the year.
Have we identified why Singapore failed to live up to expectations?
JA: There wasn't a sole reason as to why we were sub-par in Singapore. The first explanation is that we didn't do a particularly good job on Friday with our starting set up on the car, so it took us until Saturday morning to be somewhere close to the mark and this leaves you a bit behind in the game. Secondly, some of the upgrades we had applied for Singapore did not perform, causing us to revert to an earlier configuration of the car. In the meantime the lion's share of our competitors had moved forwards. Finally, in the all-important qualifying session neither driver had a good lap when it counted. Kimi had a mistake at T1 on his Q2 lap and Romain had a rather dramatic Q3 lap meaning he wasn't able to repeat his earlier performances. From that point onwards, if you're back down the grid in Qualifying then that's usually where you'll stay on a tight street course.
How difficult is it introducing and validating upgrades with no testing and weather causing reduced running on a Friday.
JA: The simulation methods in the factory are good, allowing around 70% - 80% of the upgrades that we put on the car to work straight away with no problem. Of those that suffer birth pangs, a fair proportion are eventually found to perform as expected when given a second hearing. When you're not running dedicated track testing there's a whole raft of variables you're not in control of. The drivers might not get clear laps and with the track constantly evolving plus tyres not always being a new set for each run you do not have a stable baseline to compare against. These factors can cloud the assessment of a new part â€" so if you are struggling then you very often remove them from the car out of an abundance of caution and look for a suitable opportunity in the future to have a second go with them.
Looking to Suzuka now, how do you feel it will suit the E20?
JA: It's a track with a wide range of cornering speeds, but there are several very fast turns in the Silverstone mould; in particular Turn 1, the 'S' bends and130R. These are features that have suited us so far but it's a tight season and, as we've shown, you really need to hit the ground running in order to have a good weekend.
How do you think our chances in the championship are going both for Drivers' and Constructors'?
JA: Fourteen races in and we've had a handful of results that have allowed Ferrari to open up a small gap on us in the championship. We fight each weekend with strong and dedicated opposition who will leave us for dead if we take our eye off the ball for one moment, but the great thing about this sport is that the opportunity to do the same is always there for your team as well. Every weekend you have a chance at redemption and we're fortunate to have a number of items that we believe will improve our car over the remaining races. The gap to Ferrari is small in terms of the points available, so our goal over the next six races is to overtake them in the championship and to put Kimi back on a path that will allow him to close the gap to the front.