Geoff Willis speaks up at FIA press conference

By Phil Huff (02/05/2003)
May 2 2003

The FIA's Thursday press conference took place at Barcelona yesterday, and Lucky Strike BAR Honda design guru Geoff Willis was in attendance. Here's what he had to say...

Q: Geoffrey, considering last year, are you much happier with the situation at BAR this year?

Geoff Willis: Yes, a lot happier with the situation at BAR now. We've had a year to rebuild the team, sort out the engineering, sort out the management of the team. There's been quite a big change also with our engine partner in the engineers working on both the engine and some of the chassis projects, and the whole thing seems to be coming together much better, so, there's still a lot of work to do but we've now established a good base point.

Q: Jacques says there's still a certain amount of reliability problems; are you getting on top of that?

GW: We certainly did have a number of problems at the last test although we did cover a huge mileage. Jacques has had, coincidentally, more problems than Jenson has and I'm sure that's something that he's not happy with and I've assured him that it's not focused around his car, his crew or anything like that. It's clearly the case now that all the serious teams are very reliable and that's a competitive advantage and we just have to keep working to make sure we are as a reliable as the top runners.

Q: Is it just attention to detail, working through things, or is there more to it than that?

GW: It's both attention to detail in the operation of the car but it also reflects how the car was designed in the first place, whether enough attention to detail was spent eight, nine months ago. I don't think there are any fundamental reasons why we should regard ourselves as being unreliable. We've had a number of small issues, some operational. It's not something I'm concerned about at the moment.

Q: The last test you were at Mugello, what did you learn there that perhaps you didn't learn elsewhere, say, going to Silverstone?

GW: Well, Mugello is quite a tough circuit on car handling: constant change of direction. We were running a later engine step there, we had some aerodynamic modifications we were trying there. I think at this time of the year it's probably still more secure in the weather at Mugello, although I'm sure Ross will correct me on that. It is a place that we have been to last year and the year before.

Q. General strategy question, it seems that you can win from maybe mid-pack forward. What do you think will happen when we get to Monaco?

GW: Strategy is not going to compensate if you haven't got a quick enough car. There are significant changes between last year and this year, before you tended to race the person who was in front or behind you and you used strategy in a short-range. In the first stint you do tend to be thinking about cars that are further away from you, and you have to take into account the penalty of grid position as part of your modelling for your race strategy. It is probably more interesting and I would agree that Monaco is the one that jumps out at you and the one that you have to be most careful. I suspect the same solution will be found by all of us and it will go back to being the people with the quickest car are the ones who have got the best chance of making more than one strategy work.

Q. Can you tell me the advantage and disadvantage of working with a big manufacturer?

GW: I think the big advantage is the sheer amount of resource both financially and in expertise. There is a difference in culture between the Formula One teams, the chassis designers and the big car manufacturers just in how they manufacturer, how they run their project, how they plan, how they respond in their timescale and that difference is the probable disadvantage, but I think the advantages outweigh. There is one thing that is overlooked, the technology in Formula One is more aerospace than automotive and sometimes that causes some difficulties with some of the material and techniques we use.