Q: (Dieter Rencken - RacingLines) Gentlemen, there has been a lot of talk about Formula One possibly adopting customer cars. Now this concept could put some of you out of a job for obvious reasons and turn others into super salesmen. Where do you stand on this particular issue from an engineering or technical perspective?
Jonathan Neale: It's a contentious subject which of course is why you asked the question. I think that on the one hand Formula One still has to be the pinnacle of motor sport and there is a certain sense of technical endeavour in that, providing that we moderate that from a financial point of view. Customer cars is a game-changer, certainly for the independent teams; it fundamentally changes that business model and I think before Formula One goes about that, I think it needs to look at the economic sustainability of the various business models that exist. Whether you're premium brand, whether you're independent or whether you're an entrant into it, then in any market sense, you make sure that you've got something that works holistically. Technically, for us, it's not as big a deal. I think commercially it's a much bigger issue but I don't think the technical guys will say it's too much of a challenge. But it would fundamentally change for me what Formula One is and I think Formula One is about the pinnacle of motor sport and that technical element is very important to it, and I believe that the independent teams would say the same thing.
Pat Fry: Well, I suppose in reality it's more a question for the team principals than engineers really. From an engineering point of view, I'm sure it would be relatively easy to put something in place but it's more, as Jonathan was saying, about which way do we want to see the sport going.
Paul Monaghan: From a purely technical point of view, Formula One is the Constructors' championship - there's a Drivers' championship and a Constructors' championship and therefore, solely from that point of view, then we ought to compete against one another. However, we currently sell parts to other teams as we're permitted to do so, so an amount of part-sharing, to ease the burden on other teams that wish to buy certain components from us, then I think it's absolutely the right thing to do. If that expands a little bit and all the teams agree, then it's probably a helpful thing for the sport.
Dave Greenwood: Personally, I think we've got the balance about right at the minute. What you can and can't buy from someone else is probably about the right place and still gives us the ability to be engineers and go off and design things and not just take wholesale someone else's parts. I think in effect it allows us to buy the really complicated bits - gearboxes, hydraulics etc - and then lets us go off and concentrate on the other parts.
Tom McCullough: Yeah, I really can't add too much more. For us, as performance-base engineers running a spec car or a customer car wouldn't be as much fun. Like Dave was just saying, some of the more complicated expensive parts with a lot of tooling research and development, I think the balance is pretty good at the moment. Then we, as trackside engineers, can push hard on the performance side of the car and that's a fantastic opportunity for people like myself working with great wind tunnels, great bunch of people, just developing performance.
Q: James, Toro Rosso have just invested quite a lot in their technical assets recently.
James Key: Absolutely. It's often maybe misunderstood but Toro Rosso's very much a team in its own right. We work well with Red Bull where we can, for example the same engine for next year and so on but yes, we have invested. I think, certainly, there's a commercial side which is not within the remit of technical directors to comment on but technically it's not difficult but there's a big emotional thing there because we are all competitive people who want to go and beat the other guy and a big part of that is making your own car so it's quite a big topic on a number of levels, I think.
Q: Anything further to add, Jonathan, having heard from the technical directors?
JN: Only that I would echo that the balance of being able to trade parts to a team that maybe has a smaller budget or is a new entrant I think is a really important part of attracting investors in, because as in any business you want to invest what resource you have in what makes a difference and it takes time to put the capital footprint down and to put the competence in place. If you're trying to do all that from day one, your chance of survival and then running properly into the series... I think the risk is induced and you make it less attractive as an investment proposition.
Personally, I think that if it results in the teams droppings lots of clever people then this is a bad thing. It dumbs down the sport. For me, the drivers are secondary to the whole event anyway and I love the clever stuff they come up with despite the small areas of flexibility the rules give them. Losing these from half the teams would be quite sad.
