Today's press conference with James Key (Toro Rosso), Ayao Komatsu (Haas), Paul Hembery (Pirelli), John McQuilliam (Manor), Otmar Szafnauer (Force India) and Beat Zehnder (Sauber).

James, if I can start with you. Toro Rosso have made a good step forward over the winter but perhaps you haven't maximized potential over these first few races. Is that why John Booth has been brought in? What can you expect from him? What do you hope for him to deliver to the team?
James Key: Well, to answer that question in two halves. We have underperformed this year in terms of the points we've got. This has been for various reasons I think. There's no one area that you could say has been a weakness. In Australia we had various issues we probably don't need to go through again. In Bahrain unfortunately we lost Carlos early because of getting hit by another car. In China it was OK but we got fairly badly affected by the Safety Car, as did some of our competitors, so we had to fight our way back. So all of those circumstances are different but we believe we should have got more points certainly and, you know, we need to recover from that. But that's not the reason John is here. John is with the team as a consultant, to visit the races over the coming months and help out where he can. It's a big operation; we have grown very quickly. We've got a lot of people doing a huge amount of detailed work and John is there to help us step back a little bit and look at the wider picture and see if we can draw things together a little bit more in the coming races. So it's purely there to help us. And I think with his good experience and his very clear enthusiasm about joining STR, which is very welcome, I think it can only help and strengthen the team.

One of the areas in which he has a reputation for succeeding is in bringing through driver s. Your drivers are heading into their second season. Is this a season in which you now expect them deliver rather than hope that they will?
JK: Yes it is, year two for sure. It was a great story last year with Carlos and Max and we warned them and I think they acknowledge that year two is difficult, not only because the expectation is there but it's not a repeat performance, it's a step up, and we worked hard in winter testing on trying to ensure that that step up was understood and recognised, so the consistency of tyre management, thinking smartly, using your capacity to think about what's going on in a race rather than just to drive, as most rookies do in their first year and so on. That's the benchmark we set and I think since Bahrain they've done a pretty reasonable job of that to be honest with you. But certainly the expectation is there; the pressure hasn't gone for sure.

Thank you for that. Ayao, if we can come to you. It's obviously been quite a transition for you over the winter, coming to a new team, following Romain. I wondered how complicated a process that is for an engineer and in your time at Haas have you been able to implement the systems and procedures you wanted to?
Ayao Komatsu: It's not complicated as such, but it's certainly a new challenge, a completely different challenge. The team is set up in a different way, much smaller, less people but also the parts situation is quite different as well. But it's a very good challenge. It's really good to be part of the building up of a new team, so really enjoying it. In terms of implementing and process, of course we are not their yet, we're miles from that, but we have so many different areas, we can improve every single area. Every event, ever day we are finding some new problems, new areas we need to improve. So it's just a matter of prioritising them because we haven't got many people, so we need to be realistic, but whatever is the highest priority, the highest sensitivity we are just tackling it. So really step-by-step, again, our target is still trying to finish the races with both cars. We achieved that for the time in China. We'll try to repeat that here and hopefully with a slightly better performance. So yeah a good challenge.

After the results of the opening two races of the season, China was a more difficult exercise, even though you got both cars home. In the past couple of days Romain has been full of praise for the response back at the factory. What has that response been and what did you learn from that race?
AK: Quite a lot. Obviously I feel there were more questions than answers, so obviously we couldn't get the tyre to work really well in China and we were really struggling with the balance and consistency and some of the direction we took during that weekend, when we reviewed it, which we weren't convinced that was the right decision. But again all of us are learning and the good things is that everybody is working on the same vector, facing the same direction, working as a team. So, OK, we only got a few number of people but everybody is working hard with the right attitude, so that sort of analysis… we haven't finished our analysis and I don't claim that we understand exactly how to solve it but at least we have started to identify the problem and we are putting in place the way to improve. But we've still got miles to go.

Thank you. Paul, coming to you, Jenson here yesterday was suggesting that because of the change in time of year that we are racing here and a possible increase in temperature we might see some difference in strategy, we might go to a two-stop. Is that what you are expecting, what are you hoping for?
Paul Hembery: I think in reality, having looked at today's results, unlikely. It's likely to be a one-stop race still. Unless something dramatically changes before Sunday, that's what we see so far.

You obviously have an increase in test days for the 2017 regulations coming up, that's been acceded to. What's the plan for that and for the teams involved? What coming up in the future?
PH: Well you can imagine, a lot of hard work. Very big changes, not only in the physical size of the tyres, but also in the characteristics of the tyres; what we are being asked to deliver. The first phase is working with some V8 cars, up until probably the end of July, where we'll be working on the current tyre size and developing new concepts in terms of materials, the actual physical shape of the tyres and also the compounding in particular. That's the first phase, then we move on to a hybrid, we believe, based on the availability of the vehicles, from the end of July. So, yeah, it's an intensive programme.

Is that it for this year's programme on those tyres? What happens over the winter?
PH: Well, there isn't going to be and end-of-season test this year. We were originally planning for it to be available in November, to give the product to the teams. It looks likely now that the first time we'll run with all the cars will be next year when they define the winter test plan and I know there is a lot of discussion underway at the moment for that, to decide where we go, when it's going to happen.

Otmar, if I could come to you, six points from the three races so far. Compared to last year, you had 11 at this point, so the deficit isn't massive, but like James, there's maybe a sense of missed opportunity. What's the key to overcoming those missed opportunities from the drivers' side and from the pitwall.
Otmar Szafnauer: It's difficult to predict red flags, for example. That's hard to do. From the drivers' perspective, I think in our second race they both had lap one incidents. There is a higher probability when you qualify where we have been qualifying for that to happen. If you qualify up front it's a little bit easier to get away. So they just have to do what they are good at doing - getting through the first lap or two cleanly, and then after having good strong races and having goo strategy. Over time… there is no such thing as luck. You make your own luck, so if you work hard it should come. I think we've got a decent pace in the car and if we just continue working hard we should score some points.

Last year you also had the positive impact of the B-spec car coming in mid-season. What's the development plan for this car across the course of the season and are the resources in place to give you a chance of surviving in what's a really tight midfield battle?
OS: Yeah, it really is a tight, fierce competition in the midfield. We do have a development plan that also has to be rationalised with what are doing for 2017, so last year we had the fortune of whatever we developed in that year carried over to this year, but next year that won't be the case. So we'll have to address that when we come to it. But we have some significant upgrades coming at the next race and some more planned thereafter.

Great, thank you. John, you've been with the team quite a while now. You've been through a lot of the upheavals that have come and gone there. How would you characterise the situation at Manor at the moment? Last year it was always about the team rebuilding, has that process been completed?
John McQuilliam: Not fully completed. The team is a lot stronger this year than it was last year. So we're a lot bigger, we've had some recent starters who are very experienced and who are adding to our capabilities. So we are still expanding and the atmosphere is very optimistic. We've got two good rookie drivers who are really pushing the car and if we keep a nice steady progression of the car's performance we think we can challenge the cars immediately around us and start moving up, so there is a great sense of optimism.

What's the plan for the near future? Otmar was talking about development; can you give us an insight into what's happening with your team?
JM: Yes, we've got some developments, actually very similar to Otmar, so we've got a fairly big upgrade coming for Barcelona and there are more upgrades planned for throughout the season, so we're pushing hard throughout this year.

Thank you. Beat, coming to you; last but not least. I just wanted to get an idea from you about Felipe today, whether he ran that new chassis and what the feeling was? Was he more comfortable?
Beat Zehnder: We did run a new chassis, as you all know. He's still struggling with brake performance, he's not too happy. Compared to Marcus he was quicker, but Marcus underperformed today, he was not happy with the car set-up at all. It's very slippery out there and he struggled a lot.

For both of them, and for the team in general, it hasn't been the easiest start to the season and the rumours of financial difficulties at the team continue. Can you give us an idea of what's happening behind the scenes and how things are at Hinwil?
BZ: We've been in a more comfortable situation already. We have financial difficulties, it's not a secret, but I think the good thing is we are still around. We're working hard to solve all the problems but it's not easy. An annual budget this year is just a massive one and to just cover it by sponsors and the income from Bernie is just not sufficient at the moment.

Questions From The Floor

(Alan Baldwin - Reuters) A question for Otmar. We've seen Vijay Mallya in the press a lot in the last week or two. He's had his diplomatic passport revoked and now India have asked for him to be extradited back from Britain. I was just wondering, how does that affect the team, having a principal who seemingly can't attend any races unless they are held at Silverstone?
OS: Well, we're all used to seeing Vijay at the circuits, but he has many business interests and at the factory he used to come at Christmas time and also around Silverstone, so from that regard, from an operational standpoint I don't think it has a big impact on the team. I know he's working hard with the Indian government to resolve his issues and hopefully soon we'll see back at the races.

(Dieter Rencken - Racing Lines) A question for Otmar, James, John and possible Paul as well, if you'd like to comment? Although the 2017 regulations have been finalised they had actually been talking about them for some time. But do you have sufficient time going forward to develop the cars given the change in the regulations, things like wind tunnel tyres etc? Is there enough time to do the regulations justice by next year?
JK: Well, you never have enough time. I think you always value more time, particularly with new regulations. But it is in time for 2017. As you say, we have been discussing them for a long time now and the basic principles have been kind of kept, even though they have been refined and changed etc, the way forward effectively was agreed technically earlier this year and that's what the teams I believe have based their activity on. Some activity, in fact, was going on before then, certainly a lot of simulation activity to try to understand what these tyres and the wider track would do. So I think that there is enough time. It's going to be busy and as Otmar said you've got to compromise this year versus next year a little bit to get it right, especially if you are a smaller team, but I think there is time to do a reasonable job of it.

John, what does that mean to a team like Manor, which basically has just got itself back on it's feet and everything changes?
JM: It's going to be a challenge for us of course. I guess we would have preferred the regulation change to come a year later. The thing it does mean is that there is no carryover of parts, so it means that there has to be a brand new car with enough spares ready at the first race. Almost every single part will be new for next year and for a small team it's a big task to redesign effectively every single component on the car and being a small team we have to very much do that in series rather than in parallel. But going back to answer your first question, yes, there is enough time. As James says we have known what the regulations were. There has been a little bit of uncertainty as to whether what agreed early in the year will be carried forward. I believe it will be and we've been working on that in CFD and in the wind tunnel, so we have a small development programme running for 2017 and again it's a balancing act between how much time we spend on '16 and '17, but there is enough time to do it.

Otmar, when does that shift take place?
OS: It's a million dollar question. It depends on many factors, including what compromises you have to make on this season's performances versus next. That all depends on how many points you've scored by a certain time. But like James has said, we started looking at what these regulations would do already, mainly through simulations. We will soon start our wind tunnel programme with physical parts and the tyres so it's happening already. The big question is when do you completely switch from one to the other and we haven't quite made that decision yet. We're still pushing for developments this year; as you said, we've only scored six points so we have to ensure that we hit our performance targets this year before we completely switch to 2017.

BZ: As John said, the financial impact is a massive one and for a small team like Sauber it's really difficult. It's not only the cars and not being able to carry over parts from one year to the other, it's the list of investments you have to make starting with tyre heating blankets and... and... and... We're talking about millions and millions here, so for a smaller team it's really a difficult time.

(Boris Gubkin - Rambler News Service) Paul Hembery, I wonder how much the cheapest tyre costs?
PH: The cheapest tyre? We only make expensive ones! There's no such thing as a free lunch. Quality costs. Well, I'm not really sure how to answer that. A Formula One tyre - we don't really determine a cost because you could have the material cost of the tyre but if you add in the overall costs of research and development and the overall project cost then they run to thousands and thousands. I'm not really sure how else to answer that.

(Dieter Rencken - Racing Lines) Otmar, James, John, one of the prices you will pay for the increased performance is obviously the fact that the engines are going to consume more fuel. How do you view that from an engineering perspective, will that have any impact on your designs, on your philosophies?
JM: It does have an impact. At the moment, I believe that the fuel capacity's going to stay as it is or maybe go up by five kilos so it's not going to have too big an impact as far as the chassis design. If we get the expectation, the cars will be draggier, they will have the ability to run with wide open throttle more often so we might have to see a little bit more fuel saving in the races which is sporting and tactical. Technically, I don't believe there's going to be a big change to the layouts of the cars.

OS: I think these hybrid power trains were introduced with goal of - or an intent - of reducing the amount of fuel that we use over time and yes, although the cars will be a bit draggier, if the fuel limit stays the same, then effectively it is like reducing it over time, but I still think we should look at doing just that and over time reducing the amount of fuel we use just to complement the philosophy that we had when all this was introduced.

JK: I agree with Otmar. In the longer term it's always a good thing to target ever more efficiency. I think these power units are incredibly efficient now anyway, they are really extraordinary things. For me, really, it's a case of regulation compatibility. These engines were designed around a given chassis and a given aerodynamic set-up - in fact for that matter, a given tyre design and we've now changed that and you've got to make sure that your power unit and the way you use it is compatible with your chassis design. So I think if we do need to squeeze a little bit more just to ensure that races don't become fuel-saving events, then that's probably the right thing for the sport but certainly in a longer term we need to look for continued efficiencies as we go down the line.

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