Is this a crucial year
for the team? It's the sixth season of Toro Rosso in
Formula 1 and the past five years have shown a good
history for the team, as we had to build everything up
almost from zero. We are quite confident that we have a
good future and can have a good year in 2011. We are
still building up our infrastructure. In a Formula 1
team, there is always movement, so you have to keep an
eye on every department trying to improve performance.
We brought in new people for example in the aerodynamic
department in Bicester, where we are currently running
two shifts in our wind tunnel. Here in Faenza,
especially on the production side we have increased the
number of employees which makes me quite confident that
in 2011 we will have a successful season.
A lot of rule changes,
some of them aimed at improving overtaking. What sort of
season do you expect in general terms for the sport?
The major rule changes aimed at overtaking are, the
adjustable rear wing and KERS, the kinetic energy
recovery system. Concerning the rear wing adjustment,
the rules state that if a driver is within one second of
the car in front, he is allowed to adjust the rear wing,
which means that, at the end of a long straight, he will
be 10 to 15 kilometres per hour faster than his
competitor, which should enable him to overtake. Whether
during the races it will go like this, we don't know
yet. Regarding the KERS system, for sure it will improve
performance during qualifying, by three to four tenths
of a second and it will also improve the performance
during the start procedure, as well as being a help to
the driver when accelerating out of slow speed corners.
I think that with these two systems, we will see more
overtaking manoeuvres, although I must say that, already
in 2010 we saw some very good overtaking moves and a
very exciting season. I am looking forward to 2011 and
we will see if these changes will increase the number of
overtaking manoeuvres or not.
The longest season
ever. How is the team planning to tackle it? We have
increased the number of mechanics and also of some other
people such as those in the electronics department. I do
not see any major problems at the start of the season,
but towards the end, with the final race coming at the
end of November, it will mean that the whole
organisational job for 2012 has to start much earlier,
possibly in September, October, because you lose the
complete month of November, when you would normally be
tackling restructuring processes and other tasks you
have to deal with at the end of the season. Personally,
I look forward to every Formula 1 season, because I like
going to races and I don't have any problem with going
to 20 races. It could even be more!
How do you expect
our two drivers to perform? I expect a good
performance from both of them: Sebastien Buemi is in his
third season with us, which means he should have the
measure of the job and be experienced enough to race
well, but it also depends on how good our car will be.
Jaime Alguersuari is in his second full season and I
also expect a performance increase from his side. If he
continues like last year where he improved race by race,
showing a really good performance towards the end of the
season and if our car runs well, then I expect a good
season closing the gap to the teams currently in front
of us.
Scuderia Toro Rosso
is Red Bull's junior team, aimed at bringing on young
drivers, so what are your thoughts on Daniel Ricciardo
joining us as a Friday morning driver? I am happy
that from the young Red Bull Driver pool, we are seeing
another highly skilled young driver coming to us, as
Ricciardo has shown a good performance level in recent
seasons and I don't see it as an extra work load running
him in the first free practice session on Friday
mornings at the races. He will learn all the race tracks
and get used to Formula 1 and apart from this, it
provides us with a good possibility to see where our
other two drivers are. I think Toro Rosso is good at
this sort of job, as we showed with Vettel.
Sum up your hopes
and fears for the coming season? Generally I have no
fears, that is in my nature. The first hope is that we
perform well, with a good, fast competitive car. Apart
from that, we need the drivers and the team to do a good
job and if all these components come together then I am
convinced we can have a good season and close the gap to
our direct competitors.
Are you excited at
the thought of another season starting again? Yes, I
am looking forward to it because not racing during the
winter time is a stupid loss of time!
