Canada: Nick Fry reveals all

By Phil Huff
June 24 2006

Nick Fry, Honda Racing F1's team boss, sat down in the Friday Five press conference to chat about tyres, the USA and the World Cup today. Oh yes, there were also just one or two questions about Geoffrey Willis and the changes at Brackley...

What are your thoughts on the engine homologation? Is it going the way you want it to? What do you personally want out of the engine homologation rules?

At the moment, assuming it carries on with good dialogue over the next week or so, I think there's light at the end of the tunnel. In answer to your question 'what do we want?' we want something which is good for the future of Formula One and a good compromise obviously between technology: a level playing field for all the competitors and obviously a level of cost reduction, so it really is a combination of things and ideally we want that from next year, providing we can reach something which meets all those criteria. But time is tight. There were discussions about having this tidied up by the end of June, which means that we’ve got to move fairly quickly between now and the end of next week.

Next year there will be a single tyre supplier. Are the Michelin teams thinking of requesting a change in the tyre structure just to try to level things out?

I think we share the same view. What we hear is that the current Bridgestone tyres are quite complex to make and so the actual processes may change next year anyway, which would presumably change the design of the tyre and give us a more level playing field. We would clearly anticipate that whichever tyre manufacturer it is, they would treat the teams to the same level. We don't have any particular concerns.

Bernie Ecclestone is quoted in The Times as saying F1 doesn't need America. What do you guys all think of having an American Grand Prix?

I'd say we think it’s very important to have a race in America and would like more than one, so I don't think we'd agree with that.

How does the World Cup affect the routines of your teams. Yesterday we saw Rubens Barrichello and Felipe Massa try to find a cable TV to try to watch the Brazil match. How does that affect the teams? Is it good or bad?

We think it's going to be fairly fundamental because we're expecting England and Brazil to be in the final, so with an English driver and a Brazilian driver, I think we'll expect a major fight.

A dramatic week for you, can you tell us how its all evolved, how its all happened? Give us the chronology of how it all happened?

The chronology is quite simple. Clearly, this year's been disappointing, especially the last few races, especially after such a promising start pre-season and quite good performance in the first few races. The thing we're really trying to get is a very high level of integration between the people who work on the car in Japan and those in England. In some areas it's very good at the moment; in others less so, and that resulted in the appointment of Nakamoto-san, who I think is fairly well-known in Formula One circles. He's worked for our team in England for the last six years, obviously got a good knowledge of the English operation and has 17 years working on the racing side in Japan, so he's been nominated as the person to really put all this together and he will report to me.

At the same time, we're making various other changes. The operational side was under Geoff (Willis). We're splitting that out. It will report separately to me and there are various changes on the Japanese management side as well. I think people have very much concentrated on Geoff and what will happen to him, but it really is part of a total restructure, a really much more flat structure than we've had up until this point in time, with the aim of involving, as far as practicable, as many people as possible, both here (in England) and in Japan. And so, hopefully, it's not a short term plan. It's one that obviously needs time to bed down but it's hopefully aimed at improving our performance in the longer run.

The Geoff question, which I've been asked numerous times: he's on gardening leave at the moment and discussions will continue over the next couple of weeks on what the future holds and that will be a mutual decision between ourselves, specifically myself and Geoff. But, as we're here in America at the moment and he's in England, that's something that probably won't be resolved until the week after we get back.

Just going back to the chronology of it, Geoff had decided that he was going to leave before that appointment; is that true?

Before that appointment? No, it's all really happened at the same time. Geoff's role with the team has been a discussion between myself and him. We said, a month ago or so, that he would attend fewer races so we've been working on restructuring the whole thing. Obviously, this week we made some firmer decisions.

And his gardening leave is self-imposed? You haven't actually got rid of him.

No, no, no. Geoff remains a fully contracted employee of the team and I think it's mountain-biking leave actually. He's riding up and down hills and thinking about what he wants to do and it's something that we agreed mutually and the final outcome we will agree between us. So relations are good. I've worked with Geoffrey for the last four years and he's a personal friend as well as a work colleague and so I'm sure we can work something out which will suit him and us.

How much of a handicap, if any, will it be for Nakamoto-san in a technical director or engineering director role, to have a background in engines rather than chassis or race engineering?

I think, obviously, Nakamoto-san has got a different skill set from Geoff and I think there are pluses and minuses. I think the major plus is, as I said earlier, his knowledge of the operations in Japan and how to best utilise the huge engineering skill there to the benefit of the team and he's probably better placed than anyone to facilitate that process and I think that's a huge plus. On the other side, clearly his Formula One knowledge is not as strong as Geoffrey's was but on the other hand, like most of the teams, it's never a one man job. Formula One teams, these days, are fairly broad-based and we've got a good line-up of chief engineers who are not only well-placed but it's a big opportunity for them to step up to the mark. Obviously these changes do cause a level of disruption but as I said earlier, we are making this change for the long term good because we intend to be in Formula One for a long time. So as with most things, there are pluses and minuses, but on balance, this was decided to be the best way forward.

You spoke about this re-structuring about the team having time to bed in. Given that results could get worse, how long will it realistically be before you can start winning races and is there a pressure from Japan to win sooner rather than later?

The pressure is clearly huge, and that's internally driven as well as from Japan. I think we're all in the same boat. The plans we've got for this year is like most of the teams, fairly well bedded in now and I think most of the product planning is quite advanced, so I would expect most of what we're currently planning to do to move without a hitch, but I think we are prepared for the disruption that these things tend to cause, just in terms of a change of structure and a change of direction. Our aim is to minimise that but, you know, it would be silly not to anticipate that. But the team has risen to the challenge and we're all very determined to work hard and carry on under the present structure. When we come into a race then that's a different thing, but we've just got to keep our heads down and work as hard as possible. We'll see.

Do Honda in Japan appreciate that this season is now a write-off in terms of development and results?

I don't think any of us consider it a write-off. We've got a lot of races to go, we're not halfway through yet and we have to continue working as hard as we can and we'll see what that brings, but there’s no-one writing off this year. We're gonna have to work jolly hard and see what we can make of it.

Can you explain why on Sunday evening at Silverstone, your sporting director Gil de Ferran said there are no plans to make any changes. Was he not telling the truth or does he not know what's going on at the team?

I have no idea whether he said that or not, but if he did then he did. You know, Gil is responsible for the sporting side, that part, and his area is continuing as his. Jacky Eeckelaert is more involved, but that was pre-planned. I don't have any particular reason one way or the other as to why he would say that.

Should you and Geoff decide to part company, do you have a contingency lined up? Who's gonna run the wind tunnel?

Wind tunnel? Probably no. We appointed Mariano Alperin to run the wind tunnel. Mariano is someone that's been with us for a long time so that will just continue. Because we;ve recently finally commissioned a full-size wind tunnel about three weeks ago, Between then and the beginning of the year we've hired in excess of 30 people to run it, including aerodynamicists from other teams. We feel fairly well equipped and I have full faith in Mariano to continue to do that. It's just a continuation of what we were doing.

You described the season as disappointing so far. Bearing that in mind, how is morale in the team, and by that I mean the race team including drivers and also back at Brackley?

Good actually. People have never let their heads drop. Our team has obviously not been around a lot – less time than some of the others around me, and in that time, we've had ups and downs and changes. They could let their heads drop, but one of the things I've found remarkable is the way they continue to bash on. When I started at the team, four years ago, we made it clear things were going to get harder, not easier. The higher we got up the grid, the tougher it would get, so there's been a realisation right from the start that this was gonna be tough and to beat a team that's been in the sport for 40 years in the case of McLaren or 55 years in the case of Ferrari, was gonna be tough. We're the new boys and we're gonna have to work very hard to catch up. Obviously events like the British Grand Prix at the start of this week was a surprise and in some cases a shock, people tend to get down to business after 24 hours. Obviously after the chitchat of the wives and the workforce goes down, I think people are very effective of getting their heads down, not looking back and just getting on with it. It's good and lets hope the same goes for both the drivers.