Japan: David Richards discusses the weather

By Phil Huff (08/10/2004)
October 8 2004

Lucky Strike BAR Honda team principal David Richards faced the press in the traditional Friday Five press conference today, spending some time discussing the weather. Money, Jenson, sponsors, Silverstone and spending time in jail were also covered. Here's what he had to say.

Just a general question, it is a topic at the moment. The typhoon has been up rated to a super typhoon. What preparations are you making for tomorrow and possibly for Sunday? How it will affect qualifying? How you would like to see qualifying re-scheduled if tomorrow is cancelled and how prepared you are to deal with an extreme weather situation as we are facing at the moment?

I think the first thing is, I notice everyone is stocking up with sandwiches and Alpen bars and booking the Log Cabin for lunch tomorrow! Clearly it is an unfortunate situation, more thinking of the fans actually out there, the poor people that have actually sat in the grandstands today and didn't see much action, and of course I suspect that if things carry on the way they are, probably tomorrow will be completely cancelled so it's a bit concerning. It leads on to qualifying of course and what we do for qualifying is the next issue. It's all very well coming up with random ideas but it's got to be fair for everybody and it is a fairly decisive point in the championship for many teams, so we can't have anything that is unfairly biased towards anyone. I suspect there are three solutions. I think the first solution is to cram both qualifying sessions into Sunday morning, which hopefully the organisers can accommodate. If they can't then clearly one qualifying session would have to be based on perhaps the last result but in reverse order, as if it were the second session, so you would start with the race result and the winner of the last race would go last. Alternatively a grid position based on the finishing position of the last race might be the final solution to that, but I would suspect one of those would be fairest.

This is an important race for you and for Honda, you have a major step here on the engine, you've got an improved gearbox here, it seems like you are going very aggressively towards the end of the season, to maintain the second place in the championship. Is that right?

I think that's a good observation. We haven't let up, we've been testing quite a lot recently and we were testing back in Jerez last week again and we will test again next week. We have further modifications as you so rightly said. Honda always come up with another step in their engine development here for their home event. They have not let us down on this occasion. Geoff has come up with some further design tweaks on the car so we will carry on hopefully the progress for here and for Brazil.

A question about finance. Earlier this year you said that sponsors were almost falling over themselves to get involved with the team...

I don't think I quite used those terms, Steve, but I wish I had though.

But to paraphrase it, there doesn't seem much evidence that that's actually happening. I do wonder if it's the uncertainty over the future of Jenson with the team that's maybe making people lose confidence. If Jenson does move to Williams next year, do you have a financial back-up plan to replace the sponsors that may be lost by his absence?

On the sponsorship side, what I would have said is that interest in the team has grown substantially over this year as obviously performance comes in. It is no rocket science to suggest that sponsors follow performance and natural budget cycles go in 12 month cycles, so I wasn't anticipating any significant increase or coverage until next year, despite the fact that we have, as you can see on the car, we have Epson here now, we introduced Ray-Ban not so long ago, there's another one that may possibly appear before the season's end as well, so we're actually looking for next year in the main and so the situation is very much as I described it earlier in the year.

Are any of those major deals contingent on Jenson being in the team for next year?

No, I wouldn't do a contract based on an individual driver at all. That's not the way we do things.

David, I want to ask you about tobacco sponsorship. There are obviously people talking about the July 31st deadline for next year. Could you explain what will happen after that, will you run without Lucky Strike branding for the rest of the season, will you run with it, who will become culpable because it's against the law in Britain, will someone be going to prison because of this, I mean, what will actually happen, it sounds naive but...

Let me explain this just very simply again. The law in England, well, basically the European Union put forward proposals on the tobacco legislation, tobacco advertising law, a couple of years ago. Each member state then has to put its own legislation in place. Great Britain, being very careful about these things and fairly pedantic, has rather gold plated some of the regulations and has, as a result, created a certain ambiguity in the legislation because the basic legislation was only intended to cover what went on in EU states, i.e. what we did within the European Union. It was never intended, and the government has recognised this, it was never intended to cover what we did outside the EU, for instance here in Japan or China or Brazil for that matter. And yet the way it is drafted at the moment could be interpreted to have that effect. So at the moment we are seeking clarification on that. I hope that clarification will come shortly and that will mean we can run outside Europe with our sponsors and advertising legitimately to the end of 2006, when the tobacco industry themselves have volunteered to remove their advertising. If that legislation doesn't get clarified then potentially we do have to remove the advertising after July next year at all races worldwide and the consequences of not doing that, for UK-based companies, registered in the UK, both the sponsor and the team, are a potential criminal offence.

You cannot avoid hearing talk about the British Grand Prix and its future and the ongoing political games. What is your take on what is happening to the race at Silverstone, with Bernie, with everything that is happening, like, with Nigel Mansell? What do you think is happening to the British Grand Prix? Will there be a race at Silverstone next year?

I am very confident there will be a solution found and we will be racing at Silverstone next year.

To take that on a bit, are you expecting to be paid for the extra Grand Prix?

I think you should firstly understand the finances and how little we actually see, as teams, of the money that goes towards staging Grands Prix. I think, in round terms, Paul is probably better at the numbers than I am on this particular point, but if I remember correctly we get 30 million dollars shared between all the teams for 16 events, am I right Paul?

Paul Stoddart: It's a little bit more than that, but it's probably simpler to put it in terms that we, the teams, share 23 percent of the Formula One cake and we then divide that disproportionately amongst ourselves, so when people talk about an 18th or 19th race there is a cost to the teams. It does vary enormously, but very few of us can go to a race for less than two million dollars, and in fact that is probably on the lower side. We do need to be compensated. But please don’t anyone think of the teams being greedy. I think with 23 percent of the overall cake the teams are anything but greedy.

Do you think it is a fair price that is being asked to hold a race at Silverstone, given the fact that the price goes up 10 percent every year?

Well, number one, I am not party to the actual negotiations or know the precise price, but clearly the price has got to be what is affordable, or what is the market rate, if you like. And to that extent, these events elsewhere in the world can afford whatever they pay, and logic dictates that there are a finite number of races that can be run then that is the market forces that determine the situation.

Do you think that tradition is important in the sport or is market forces all that matter these days?

I think tradition is a very important aspect of Formula One but it is a balance at the end of the day. Everything moves on, everything evolves in life, whether it is a sporting event like Formula One or anything else, so it’s finding that balance and I don't think anyone here would argue that the addition of Shanghai and that wonderful circuit there has benefited Formula One, but so does keeping some of the older circuits and keeping them going.

You said earlier with a large degree of certainty that the British Grand Prix will be held next year. Is that based on more information you have had over the last 24 hours or just a gut feeling?

No, just my own personal feeling and my personal wish that it should happen next year. I think it's, you know, going back to the point before about traditional events and, you know, for us as a team and I am sure for many of the other British-based teams, the commercial impact of not having the event and the affect on all our staff as well is, to me, not acceptable. We need to find a solution.

Have you had any contact with Kim Cockburn and the Nigel Mansell consortium?

No, not a clue. Never heard of them.