FIA Team Principals press conference – 2024 Singapore Grand Prix

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Fred Ferret – l’Equipe) Are you concerned by the statement the FIA made about the rear wing of the McLaren?

FV: Worried, I’m not sure that is the right word. I think there is a kind of confusion between what’s happened with the front wing and the rear wing. The front wing… We all agree that it could be a grey area because in the TD, the first paragraph of the TD is saying that you can’t design part of the car with the intention of the deformation. Intention is difficult to manage. The rear wing story is completely different because on the article you have also a maximum deflection. And this is black or white. It’s no grey, no dark grey, no light grey. It’s black and black (sic). And for me, it’s clear.

Q: James, can we bring you in on this as well?

JV: You can do. I have bigger worries than McLaren’s rear wing, if I’m honest. But I think Fred summarised it well, which is, first and foremost, the front wing, there is an element of understanding up and down the pit lane. On the rear wing, I’ve seen various images. I can’t personally assess what it is or is not doing at that point. All we have to do is rely on the FIA doing their checks in the correct way. But there’s an intention behind how we’re working the cars aerodynamically.

Q: (Edd Straw – The Race) One for Fred. What dialogue have you had with the FIA about the McLaren wing? It’s understood that they have been told to modify the wing so it doesn’t flex as much. Are you satisfied with this outcome? Because even if they modify it now, they’ve had three quite good tracks for that kind of characteristic, it’s fair to say.

FV: This is true. And so far, we had a look on the previous event, and it was only on the low-downforce track. I’m not sure that they could, or they want to use the same trick in Singapore or in Zandvoort, for example. But again, we have to give the responsibility to the scrutineering, to the FIA. It’s not my job to do it. It’s not James’ job or whatever. They have to do it and we have to trust them, honestly. I’m not complaining about this. I think it’s more than borderline. We all saw the video and the picture of this. And it’s a bit frustrating when, if you remember perfectly the situation in Monza, we had five cars in 200th of a second. And you move from P1, P2 to P5, P6 for 200th of a second. In Baku, we arrive 10 laps in a row, side by side, Turn 1. But you can imagine that we have a bit of frustration.

Q: (Norman Fischer – Motorsport-total.com) Question is to the two team principals. In the last 12 races, we only had three times a full grid of 20 cars because people were taking engine penalties and started from the pit lane. We only have this small grid of 20 cars and we keep removing cars from it. Is this something that should be looked at to give fans more of a spectacle of a full grid?

JV: When I look at it, you’re correct. The last one, I think, was Lewis with an engine penalty. But before that, I think one of the Alpines was a different problem. I actually think there’s an interesting side to it, which is when you’re in a battle that’s that tight at the back and you’re at the back end of it, you’re effectively throwing the dice to try a completely different set-up, which is why they’re doing it. They’re not doing it because they want to add technical components. I know Lewis did, but that’s an outlier, and it creates a very different dynamic in the race and more learning. So from that perspective it sort of shuffles the race up a little bit more than it would do if they just lined up on the grid. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad item. I think on PU penalties we’re not in a bad place now. Lewis obviously had some issues before, which is why it’s there. But with the four PUs on the grid you’re seeing cars near enough always wanting to hold on to position. I think all you’re seeing is a natural element of such a tight midfield now that if you’re the back of it you’ve got to try something different.

FV: I think each case is different, but if you have a look now, we are at race 17 and I’m not sure that a lot of drivers took penalty just for the comfort or for performance interest for the future. We are all on our path to do the season with four engines. Perhaps we won’t achieve it, but it’s the right limit. Now you have some, I think it’s more your question, that you have some decision to start from the pit lane for comfort or performance and so. But I think it’s marginal. Over the season, we don’t have so much. Perhaps it was more the coincidence of the track, crashes. And so in each case, it’s very different. I think that some incidents were due to crashes, some were for engines. But we are at the limit. And no, it’s not a drama for me.

Q: (Luke Smith – The Athletic) Question for the two team principals about the other big topic of the weekend, which is swearing, it seems like. Could I get your thoughts on what Mohammed Ben Sulayem was saying about clamping down a little bit? Do you think too much is expected of drivers maybe in the heat at the moment? And Fred, you were warned last year after your language in a press conference. Max Verstappen’s been asked to do some work of public interest as a result. Could I get your thoughts on that?

FV: First, I’m not sure that I’m the best reference to speak about it. And I think we have to make a difference on the language during the race. Because I think this is, we are one of the only sports where… You don’t have a microphone on the football player or whatever. I don’t want to say the football player as a reference, but we have to understand also that they are driving the car at 350 kph and I’m not sure that the language is the first priority for them when they are driving the car and this I can perfectly understand that. We can discuss about the other approach and again I won’t do it for obvious reasons but I think when they are into the car it’s a bit harsh.

JV: I think Fred’s right. I mean, when you’re actually out there in the moment and even at a point where you think someone has challenged your life, which is often some of the manouevres there end up being, all of you, everyone in this room would have an emotional reaction to that. There are two differences to it. Clearly, I understand we’re a world sport and there’s elements that we have to remain under control. And there are other situations where perhaps language has been used on a slowdown lap or stationary in the pit lane, that can absolutely be avoided. But we have to also try and keep in mind that we have some of the most elite athletes in the world putting their life on the line as gladiators, and that will cause an emotional reaction. And as much words as I can use with them here in the calm of the moment, you’ve still got adrenaline flowing through the body, and it’d be very difficult to change that. I mean, Franco swore today, if I’m completely transparent, but we’ll have a chat with him later about that. That wasn’t for any other reason that he forgot something. That we can clean up. But I think in the heat of the moment, we’re asking a lot of athletes.

Q: (Norman Fischer – Motorsporttotal.com) Following up from my question earlier, we’ve got the budget cap on the engines now as well. Could this be a good point to get rid of engine penalties?

JV: They’re two sort of different things, in my opinion. So, you’re right, the budget cap on the engine is a good thing. It makes them more into businesses than they were previously. Just to be clear, their income stream is very minor, but it controls the expenditure in that regard. But I think in ‘26… You want engine manufacturers still to be targeting a reliable engine. You do not want just throwing engines at the grid because the teams that have that will still suffer in terms of other expenditure on it. They’re targeting it anyway. So in my opinion, still having penalties in place with a sensible number of units for the year is actually what they want to achieve anyway. And it’s a natural possession. I’m not sure they’re the same thing in my mind anyway.
FV: I’m not sure to understand the question because the financial regulation is for the engine supplier and the penalty is for the team. On Mercedes, for example, or for us, it would be financial regulation for Ferrari and the penalty for us. I’m not sure that we can make the confusion.

Q: (Adam Cooper – Adam Cooper F1) Question for James. Pat Fry told us earlier that after this weekend, that’s pretty much it in terms of upgrades for you. Obviously, a lot of people or everybody else is bringing stuff for Austin and beyond, especially Alpine, Haas, Sauber, around that area. Are you a little bit nervous about being able to hang on to 8th and also are you giving up an opportunity to maybe grab another place? And how hard is it to make that decision to focus on ‘25?

JV: The main thing is I have no concerns about the programme that we have in place at the moment. There’s a really good step in performance on the car this weekend, and we haven’t fully optimised the error package that we put on previously. Everything that we’re trying to do, all teams are trying to do, is get the performance of the car as quickly as possible. So the way I more see it is that we’ve stepped up in advance, and we have a few more races to use it than others when they turn up. The second bit is all you can focus on is yourself. You’ve seen enough times this year that teams have tried to add performance and it hasn’t translated. In our case. we look positive in that regard and what I can focus on is delivering the most that we can out of the car and the drivers for all remaining events.

Q: (Edd Straw – The Race) Another one for Fred on the wing topic. Do you regret Ferrari not being a little bit more aggressive maybe in terms of what it did with both front and rear wing flexing? Because in the case of the rear wing, if you can let’s say run a wing in a certain way for a few races and you deploy it strategically, that can be quite a big advantage. So are you kind of pushed into doing that in future?

FV: Honestly, we are pushing at the limit of what we are considering legal, that I can’t ask the team to overshoot this limit. But now we are reacting. As soon as we have a clarification from the FIA, we will act as the FIA, as long as they are OK.

Q: (Luke Smith – The Athletic) James, following up on the questions about Franco earlier, there’s one seat that could be possible for him in F1 next year at Sauber. How open are you to that possibility? And if you were to help him into that seat, would he need to stay part of the Williams programme? Or would it be kind of a heavy-heart decision if you had to cut ties to allow that to happen?

JV: So, what I’ve already said is he is a racing driver, and I think he’s already demonstrated in just a few races that he belongs on the grid. What we’ve already said is we’re very open-minded. We’re waiting, in that circumstance, for Audi or Sauber to come to us and say, what do you want, what are you interested in? And from there, we can then discuss what it actually means as an implication. But the first stage is more an open discussion.

Q: (Adam Cooper – Adam Cooper F1) For James and Fred. These cars are clearly not easy to drive. They’re big, heavy, high downforce cars. And yet you’ve both got guys that have jumped in and made it look easy. Is there any explanation for that? Is it just the preparation that you were talking about earlier, James, in terms of the same running and all the stuff they do back at the factory, being embedded in the team?

JV: I mean, I sort of counter slightly the ‘big, heavy’. There are actually incredible feats of engineering, these cars, with good amounts of downforce, just in a tricky region to operate it. I think what you’re seeing in both cases, you said it, is actually the drivers were exceptional. I can guarantee you if I jumped into it, it’d look like a mess. It’s a lot of preparation in the background. It’s a lot of simulator work. It’s a lot of psychological training. It’s a lot of what a young driver or academy programme should bring to a driver in that circumstance. But it’s also down to their natural talent that’s coming through. And I think in both cases, there’s a huge amount of it which is carrying them.

FV: Yeah, it’s probably also coming from the fact that F2 is a good preparation. Now in F2, they are doing 14 events. At one stage, they were doing nine or 10, with a car that is not that far away from the F1. And it’s the best preparation. On top of this a lot of them are doing tons of simulator and so on, and they are at the level. Now I’m not sure, and as James said at the beginning, the main issue for me is not the speed, because the speed, you can find a couple of drivers with a good speed. I’m not speaking of mega speed, but with a good speed and a decent one. It’s more to manage the weekend and to not do mistakes. And at the end of the day, if you remember that Jeddah, for example, with Ollie, that I was mega impressed by the job done by Ollie, but even more with the fact that he didn’t do any mistakes on the start, pit stop, all the procedures that you have into the car to drive the car quick. I was relaxed. But to not do any single mistake during the weekend and when the weekend is two days, it was a mega impressive and I think it’s the same for James that now we have a kind of a new generation of drivers. They are very lucid also into the car. They are not doing so many mistakes. Speed, it’s another story. But they are impressive for this year.

Q: Fred, you’ve just reminded us what Ollie did for you in Jeddah. How impressed were you by what he did in Baku last weekend?

FV: I think it’s almost the same weekend as Jeddah, that he scored points. I read somewhere that he was the first one to score two points in two different teams for the first two races. But it was a very good one for him. It’s not an easy track, and when you have to start in Jeddah and Baku, it’s not Barcelona and another one. And honestly, he did mega all the weekend. Perhaps a bit too optimistic at the beginning of FP3, but overall, it was a very strong weekend, very strong performance. A good start of the collaboration with us.

Q: (Edd Straw – The Race) One more for you, Fred, on the same topic. Was any consideration given to a protest? As you said, the McLaren wing, you felt, was more than borderline, so a protest could have been possible in Baku?

FV: It could have been possible, but it’s not so easy to have evidence. Now, honestly, I want to turn this page because I want to be focused on the future. Baku and Monza are behind us. We have still seven races to go. We have to win this weekend and it will be the best reply that we can give.