Team Representatives - Bob Bell (Mercedes), Cyril Abiteboul (Caterham), Robert Fearnley (Force India), Sam Michael (McLaren), James Allison (Lotus), Pat Fry (Ferrari).
 |
| Cyril Abiteboul - Team boss Caterham |
Cyril Abiteboul - Caterham
Q: Cyril, Caterham one of I guess three teams that were perhaps a little disappointed with performance in Melbourne - perhaps along with Williams and McLaren - what’s going on behind the scenes at Leafield that gives you confidence going forward?
Cyril Abiteboul: Clearly, I think that we have chosen to go for a strategy that is a little bit different from other teams, in the sense that we do not operate our new car for now. We have strategies that will make the car evolve according to different packages, the first of which will come in Bahrain. So we are running right now on hybrid car, so we are pretty much where we expected it to be. It doesn’t mean it is where we wanted it to be. Having said that, we have been analysing clearly the difference, the gap between Marussia and our car. First we want to diminish a little bit the fight between Marussia and ourselves. We are just competitors and we would like to make our way up through the grid, not backwards but up towards the front. Clearly we see most of the developments that we did over the last year, the last 12 months, we think they made two-thirds of the difference over the last 12 months and only one-third over the winter. And of that one-third only half is coming from KERS. So I think that we have a real chance to be optimistic. Some good stuff is happening in the wind tunnel. Obviously we want to make sure this is translating into reality in Bahrain.
Q: Obviously it’s a home race for your Malaysian shareholders. How’s it looking for this weekend?
CA: It’s looking pretty much similar to the last weekend in the sense that it’s going to be on the edge with Marussia. I think the utilisation of tyres and driver familiarisation, driver mistakes also can make a difference so this is what we are getting ready for. We are going to have our shareholders present, so we want to make sure we have a good show at that moment.
Q: Cyril, Caterham one of I guess three teams that were perhaps a little disappointed with performance in Melbourne - perhaps along with Williams and McLaren - what’s going on behind the scenes at Leafield that gives you confidence going forward?
Cyril Abiteboul: Clearly, I think that we have chosen to go for a strategy that is a little bit different from other teams, in the sense that we do not operate our new car for now. We have strategies that will make the car evolve according to different packages, the first of which will come in Bahrain. So we are running right now on hybrid car, so we are pretty much where we expected it to be. It doesn’t mean it is where we wanted it to be. Having said that, we have been analysing clearly the difference, the gap between Marussia and our car. First we want to diminish a little bit the fight between Marussia and ourselves. We are just competitors and we would like to make our way up through the grid, not backwards but up towards the front. Clearly we see most of the developments that we did over the last year, the last 12 months, we think they made two-thirds of the difference over the last 12 months and only one-third over the winter. And of that one-third only half is coming from KERS. So I think that we have a real chance to be optimistic. Some good stuff is happening in the wind tunnel. Obviously we want to make sure this is translating into reality in Bahrain.
Q: Obviously it’s a home race for your Malaysian shareholders. How’s it looking for this weekend?
CA: It’s looking pretty much similar to the last weekend in the sense that it’s going to be on the edge with Marussia. I think the utilisation of tyres and driver familiarisation, driver mistakes also can make a difference so this is what we are getting ready for. We are going to have our shareholders present, so we want to make sure we have a good show at that moment.
Read the whole press conference here.
FIA Pressconference / Formula1.com
Circuito Permanente de Jerez – February 5 - Giedo: 1:21.915 - 64 laps
