Bahrain: Gil de Ferran happy with preperations

By Honda Racing F1
March 9 2006

Honda Racing F1's Sporting Director, Gil de Ferran, took time out of his preparations for this weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix to answer a few questions about winter changes and the race ahead.

You said the team wanted to be challenging for wins in 2006, are you on target to meet this objective?

"All I can say is that we've had an encouraging start to date. Running the Concept car before Christmas was a good exercise for us as it proved the reliability of the new engine and gearbox, so when we launched the new car in late January we were able to put in a lot of miles straightaway without reliability issues. Despite our obvious positive state of mind, we are also somewhat cautious with our approach to the first race. As ever in F1, you really don't know what the opposition is doing. Clearly the engine rule change has been a significant one so everybody is on a very steep learning curve, but the harsh reality is that we really won’t know where everyone is until we arrive in Bahrain. The biggest mistake one can make is to underestimate the opposition. We are keeping on our toes by treating all our rivals very seriously."

The new Honda RA106 has clocked up more miles than any other V8 car during pre-season testing; you must be impressed with the car and engine's reliability?

"The engineering groups within the team and Honda in Japan have clearly done a fantastic job. The reliability shown is not only encouraging in terms of results but also has lots of benefits in terms of development. If you're not stopping all the time to fix problems, you can concentrate all of your efforts on improvement rather than repairs."

Has Rubens Barrichello lived up to your expectations?

"As we expected, Rubens has integrated into the team very well. He's done a good job in the tests both in terms of speed and his contribution to the team's overall efforts. As you'd expect from such an experienced guy, things are going very well on that front. It's always beneficial to have a guy with a good feeling for the car - and we're lucky as that’s also true of Jenson and Anthony. You can clearly see from discussions between all three of them that they are always enthusiastic about the development direction of the car. And exactly the same can be said regarding their conversations with our engineers."

How has Jenson Button reacted to having a proven winner alongside him as a team-mate?

"Jenson and Rubens are getting on fine. Jenson is already an extremely focused driver and one with a very competitive spirit. It's clear to me that both he and Rubens are very competitive people and neither needs much encouragement from the other. To me Jenson looks fitter than ever and he's already performing at a very high level."

Will the recent test in Bahrain give Honda a head start when we come to the opening race of the season?

"We would hope that our recent test there would give us a little advantage over those who didn't go. It wasn't easy logistically but we always felt it was going to be a beneficial exercise. It has helped us with our choice of tyres, chassis set-up and with our understanding of the engine performance around that particular circuit, as well as uncovering any unforeseen issues. Apart from all of that, it was good for the drivers to experience the V8 engine and new car in a realistic race environment. Everybody at the factory pulled out all the stops to ensure we had enough parts to go to Bahrain for the test and their contribution continues to be an impressive and integral part of our pre-season preparations. Of course, we hope that our decision to go to Bahrain will pay us dividends come the opening race but, as ever, we will have to wait and see."

Honda is allowed to run a third car for Anthony Davidson in Friday's two free practice sessions; how much of an advantage is this?

"It's going to be invaluable for us. It will help us enormously in determining chassis set-up and tyre choices - especially as we have a driver like Anthony Davidson in the car. I think all teams will have mileage restrictions on their race cars, so Anthony's presence will help on that front too."

How well prepared is Honda to meet the new challenge of a revised qualifying format and the re-introduction of mid-race tyre changes?

"It's something that we've spent a lot of time thinking about. The density of PhDs per square metre here at Honda is very high and these guys are giving these issues a lot of thought right now! We are trying to evaluate every single avenue; there have been hundreds of different computer simulations done. It's very, very hard to win if you don't have enough speed but if you do have the speed to win, you can certainly make mistakes on the strategy and end up not winning. In a nutshell, it's something we're paying a lot of attention to."