PEDRO DE LA ROSA A FORCE INDIA? Votos Opciones

[jens_]

Que os parece?
Este año si que creo que Pedro va ha volver a competir. Despues de la jugada de Jaguar creo que Pedro va a volver. este es el as que tenía guardado.
Espero verte en la pista Pedro.

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Translated Q&A with Mallya:

Q: How come the 2008 season has been dissapointing to the extent of you even deciding to team up with a new technical partner ?
Mallya: ''When I took over the team I very quickly figured that it lacked the financial possibilities and the necessary technical progress. That already struck me in October last year, but the new season started in March 2008 already. Therefore I knew that it would be impossible to pull a rabbit out of a hat coming up with some miracle-alike improvements. In our talks I immediately made it clear to the engineers that I wouldn't tolerate this team suffering from a lack of money - in return though I wanted to know exactly what we had to do. On that basis we've developed a plan that envisaged to clearly increase the budget. And that's what I did. I gave the engineers every possibility they'd asked for. I also deem our assesment of five experienced drivers as a success. In the end we decided to pick Fisichella, solely for his experience and the assistance he could offer us developing the 2008 car. Fisichella has helped the engineers a great deal doing that. In Australia we saw that compared to the old Spyker car we had improved drastically. We took a lot of motivation from that. Things went on that way till Barcelona. Till then we collected good results: we finished 12th, 11th and 10th. An encouraging improvement for a team that otherwise would have only been 22nd and 21st. But during the European season our performance curve became more shallow. Perhaps we had already achieved the maximum of what we could achieve this year. However, this year should be regarded from November 2007 to now. In 2007 I didn't have six months to prepare for this season. In August this year, directly before the Hungarian GP, I decided to cease the 2008 development, concentrating on 2009 instead. Our long runs are always fast but we shouldn't forget we're driving with a two year old car. The Ferrari engine was good, the drivers are better than they have been in the past and we pushed forward with some aerodynamic developments. But what we basically had was an old car.''

Q: Why exactly did you lose performance from Barcelona onwards ?
Mallya: ''Our times didn't become slower. The others simply becamse quicker all the time. The best example is Toro Rosso. We were still able to beat them in the first half of the season, now they've even won a GP.''

Q: Albeit in exceptional circumstances...
Mallya: ''Toro Rosso have improved dramatically as measured by where they were at the beginning of the season. And we're fighting Honda and Williams. It's not as if we're not competitive at all.''

Q: But you can sense the dissapointment in your team that (despite the efforts) you didn't achieve more.
Mallya: ''Of course there's this dissapointment. But we wear our team kit with a lot of pride and hope. There were only two possibilities to react to this season with zero points: we could have had our chins down crying over spilt milk or we could have been thinking ahead, pondering how we can improve. Generally I prefer looking forward.''

Q: And the contract with McLaren is the biggest solution that can bring you forward ?
Mallya: ''I had an excellent contract with Ferrari. We're good friends. But Ferrari simply couldn't assure us a gearbox. We needed a complete drivetrain. So far we've had a Ferrari engine, but we used our own, self-developed gearbox. This gearbox is okay, but not a 100% reliable. Therefore we were looking for an entire package. Due to manufacturing problems Ferrari wasn't able to supply us with that any earlier than the 10th race next year. That would have been too late. So we had to look for alternatives. Especially because we wanted to have the engine, gearbox and KERS together. KERS was also very important for us. And even with KERS Ferrari was only able to tell us that they were still in the development phase of it and that they may have had a hard time supplying the system to us.''

Q: But Ferrari is said to be building their own system that should be ready at the start of the season. That can't be the problem, right ?
Mallya: ''We've sent Ferrari a sort of wishlist of all the things we would like to have from them. What they develop for themselves is their system. When they're satisfied with it then that's all good and well. But whether they would give it to us ? On that question the answer was: we don't think we're already in such an advanced state that we can supply you with our KERS.''

Q: The agreement with McLaren doesn't just foresee the supply of the drive train but also the utilisation of the same external suppliers and industrial partners and even a new manager coming from Woking to Silverstone.
Mallya: ''We have a contract with McLaren Applied Technologies Ltd. This company is part of the McLaren Group. It's the same company that supplies all the technique to the Mercedes-Benz racing cars, but also to the F1 team. We have a technical partnership with this company.''

Q: Why did it take longer than expected for the agreement to be signed ? Was it down to the transfer fee Ferrari demanded ? First there were talks about 11 million, then about 6 million which is probably still a lot for you...
Mallya: ''Within the Formula 1 'constitution' there are certain things you're allowed to do. We first had to carefully find out which possibilities we had. That took time and things had to be defined exactly. It wasn't about getting out of Ferrari's contract. It was about finding an elegant solution. We wanted to handle things amically. Only god knows what the future may bring. Perhaps one day we'll be technical partners again.''

Q: For months your technical chief Mike Gascoyne has been criticised internally: more precisely, since Malaysia. Why were you not satisfied with him ?
Mallya: ''Gascoyne very strongly advances his own view. I wanted to go a certain way. He either agreed with that or he didn't. If he would have wanted to guide the team through a different technical route, then a problem would have come to life.''

Q: Is Gascoyne also responsable for the lack of development for you ?
Mallya: ''If there's someone to be blamed for the performance of the team, then it's me. But the development was lead by Gascoyne. So he had to take responsability for that. That doesn't mean bad people are working in that department. On the contrary, brilliant people work there. An example: at first Gascoyne was not in favour of a seamless gearbox. When we were in Asia he suddenly said: 'We need a seamless gearbox'. So within four months we've deloped one. That was working absolutely pulling out all the stops. Then if the gearbox isn't a 100% reliable, I understand that, it's simply been pushed through too much. When there are fundamental differences (between him and me - AFCA) then we have to solve them, or simply agree on not agreeing. But I've taken my decision: I wanted to work together with McLaren Mercedes in the area of the engine, gearbox and KERS. Then if Gascoyne, or anyone else in the team, would say: 'Sorry, we can't accept that, we have our own development and want to build our own gearbox', then these people would have to decide whether they're willing to do things my way, or not at all.''

Q: It's not just about the drive train and new people at a managerial level but also about common parts, right ?
Mallya: ''Exactly. There's nothing wrong with me buying the same parts directly from the same supplier, is there ? The Concorde Agreement is adhered to anyway. But McLaren simply has exclusive contracts with some suppliers. When they allow us to also buy from these suppliers then that's only good for us.''

Q: So at some stage we'll be seeing a copy of the McLaren in Force India colours ?
Mallya: ''It's not allowed to be a copy. In that case it would be a normal customer car and I obviously would have had an easier life. But quite honestly a customer car isn't allowed. And I bought this team because it's a private constructor. If you look at the current Concorde Agreement then Toro Rosso have a big problem, they can only still have Red Bull's car in 2009. What will happen in 2010 is yet unknown. Recently Berger told me has problems because he would have to build a whole new factory with everything that belongs to it. On the one hand we're talking about cutting costs and on the other hand we force the teams to invest more. We have to solve that problem together with all the teams in the FOTA. The way the Concorde Agreement is written now means we have to protect our status as a privateer. We have a technical partnership and get help but we still have to build our own car.''