JT – You had some thoughts toward the recent Bahrain Grand Prix, specifically media coverage of the political turmoil in the country and the controversy regarding whether F1 should race given the situation. What was your view of the reporting?
SJ – Having spent over 10 years in the F1 paddock and having seen close up how the press operates it did not surprise me that there seemed to be a feeding frenzy both before and during the course of the weekend. There is a small core group of journalists that really care about racing and make the effort to understand what’s really going on, maybe less than 10% of the total media crowd that travel to each GP. The rest of them are basically bored most of the time just waiting for a good story to come along. Of course, the situation in Bahrain was like manna from heaven for most of them. We used to play jokes on them and tell one of them a story in “strictest confidence” and then see how long it would take for someone else to tell you the same story in “strictest confidence” of course. Typically you would hear back by the end of the day…
I’m certainly not stating an opinion either way on what’s happening in the country because frankly I don’t know enough about it. But with the press, most of the time, things tend to get blown completely out of proportion.
JT – The Bahrain Grand Prix itself was an interesting race, not without its own measure of controversy. Certainly the actions Nico Rosberg took when Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton tried to overtake him raised some eyebrows. What are your thoughts?
SJ – There used to be an unwritten code amongst drivers – basically how far you could take things, occasionally someone would step over the line and we would have words, and rarely if ever would it happen again. As great as he was, Ayrton [Senna] kind of moved the goal post on that and since then has almost become the norm. It’s been getting progressively worse since then in terms of some drivers’ actions. A lot of this I believe has also got to do with the fact that the cars and most of all the tracks are a lot safer today which may encourage a driver to do something they would never contemplate otherwise.
I’m a great believer in Karma, everyone always get what they deserve, one way or another. It may not be today or tomorrow, but the way life works out, things tend to balance themselves out somehow, and I would say there’s a good chance they will all meet again…The moves Nico made clearly weren’t fair in my opinion. Yes, it’s racing and you always make it difficult for a guy to overtake but you can’t just stop a guy who’s already got the momentum by effectively driving them of the track in that way. It’s a good thing there wasn’t a wall along the following straight or they both would have ended in the fence.
In the past, you didn’t really need rules to judge something like that. It took care of itself. The problem now is, like with so many things in life, there’s a rule for everything. How those rules are interpreted is completely subjective. That’s a problem the sport (F1) has now. That’s why I’d never ever want to do the job of being an F1 steward. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
I was a big advocate last year for not handing out penalties when it was unnecessary. Now you’re at the other end of the spectrum where I think a penalty would have been justified in this case. When they were contemplating penalizing Hamilton for being off-track when Nico moved him over – that was outrageous.
As I said though, in the end, there’s a reasonable chance that this will come back to Rosberg. Obviously, he’s not going to get any favors from Alonso or Hamilton.
JT – What are your thoughts on Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull Racing’s performance in winning at the Bahrain GP?
SJ – Well Vettel’s certainly back on form again. More importantly, the car’s back on form. But I can’t remember another year where from one race to another, a car seems not only to be on the pace but dominating – and yet at the next race they’re nowhere.
The funny thing is, as bad as Ferrari’s car has been so far, things are almost falling in their lap. Alonso is still pretty much in the hunt with a car that shouldn’t really have scored a point yet this year. But he’s there because all of the other teams are so up and down and no one has taken a big points haul consistently. If Ferrari gets it act together with the new cars they’ll have for the upcoming European races they could still win the bloody championship. Alonso is the best driver in the field right now in my opinion, he’s squeezing every drop of performance out of that car and is still keeping himself and the team in the hunt by not making any mistakes doing the absolute best he can.
And look at Lotus [F1 Team]. They’ve been strong every race and in pre-season testing so the car is obviously good. But I think the way the tire situation is at the moment there’s really a fine line from being nowhere to being in contention to win. In China Kimi [Räikkönen] was second with five laps to go and he ended up 14th.
The whole key right now is understanding the tires. Figuring out how to make them work and last as long as possible is crucial.
I said before the season started that Kimi would do a good job provided the car is underneath him, he’s proving just that, and I think the difference between him and Michael for example is that Kimi has a very fluid and effortless driving style which clearly suits this type of tyre much better than Michael’s who likes a much more aggressive and fast turn in.
JT – On the other hand, McLaren’s performance was poor with a lack of pace, pit-stop issues and the technical failure of one of the cars costing Hamilton and Button good finishes.
SJ – Yes, it all comes down to perfect execution on Sunday afternoon. McLaren has certainly let a lot of very valuable points slip away. Lewis should have at least one race in the bag now.
There’s one thing that struck me while McLaren had all their drama in the pits which effectively cost Lewis another good race even if he was not in a position to win this time. With all the money being spent in F1, everything is taken to the absolute ultimate limit, yet every team as far as I am aware are basically using the race mechanics to do the pit stops as well. Most of the time they have worked their ass of all weekend with late night and most likely also before getting to the race. Why not have a specially trained pitstop crew, that do nothing but the pitstops, strong athletic guys that specialize in nothing else but just changing the tires, it seems like a very small expense in return for the potential gain. NASCAR have done this for years to great effect and maybe this is the reason the F1 guys won’t look at it, god forbid that they would copy something they do in NASCAR…haha!!
JT – What do you expect for the start of the European portion of the F1 schedule with the next race on the calendar, the Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona? Most of the teams will be running updated cars. Do you anticipate that the competition will settle down or continue to be unpredictable?
SJ – I’m sure things will settle down and there will be a more consistent group at the front. Whatever car you have, when the bones of the car are good you’re generally in good shape. The cars that were fast straight out of the box – McLaren, Mercedes, Lotus – should be competitive. And now it looks like Red Bull has also caught up.
But the way the racing’s been this year, I don’t know if the crystal ball is that clear. Typically, you have two or three teams capable of being up front pretty consistently. This year, I’d say there are five that are theoretically in the hunt – Red Bull, McLaren, Mercedes, Lotus - even Ferrari is a dark horse. I hear through the grapevine that they’ve got two brand new designs for their cars that they’re working on simultaneously.
In my opinion that’s going to be very tough for them. To have to come up with new designs at the last minute is a pure gamble. Again, it blows my mind that they took such a gamble on the current car to begin with. With all the resources they have at their disposal they should have had a very clear idea of what their targets were for their cars at the beginning of the season. The new designs will either work well or they won’t. It’s more likely that they won’t gain much if anything at all as the other teams are bringing out new updates to their current and already very quick cars, it’s a tough battle.
In the end though, it’s not only the speed but ultimately whomever can get the most out of the tires in the race, we have already seen how in some races a quick car can go backwards very fast once the tires are gone, so it’s not only a matter of ultimate speed but also strategy and getting the most out of the package on race day.
JT – Looking back at the IndyCar Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, it was impressive that the teams with the Chevrolet-powered DW12s were able to finish so well despite the grid penalties they all suffered due to precautionary engine changes prior to the race. What do you make of the race and the relative performance of the Chevrolet and Honda-powered cars?
SJ - I think the whole situation is a bit worrying for the Honda guys. Up until Long Beach it’s been pretty clear that Chevy has an advantage on the engine front both in horsepower and fuel consumption.
The decision to allow the Honda engines to have a new turbo design could make a difference but I think they have some work ahead of them to stay with the Chevys for sure.
JT – What are your thoughts on IndyCar’s upcoming first oval race of the season? This year it happens to be the Indianapolis 500.
SJ – Yeah, it’s definitely strange to have your first oval of the season be Indy. You’d have to say it’s going to be an interesting couple of weeks leading up to the race, no question. I’m sure there will be some issues in all camps – Chevrolets, Hondas and Lotuses.
Lotus is down to two teams now (Team Barracuda-BHA and Dreyer & Rheinbold split with Lotus following the Long Beach GP) so that should help the situation with the car-count at least. I think that Chevrolet or Honda will step up with engines for those teams. The series really needs all the cars it can get so I think they’ll make it happen.
JT – Switching topics to sports car racing, the second round of the FIA World Endurance Championship, the Six Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, is upon us. You’re going to be racing again with the Gulf Racing Middle East Team in one of their Nissan-powered Lola B12/80 LMP2 Coupes. Are you looking forward to the race?
SJ – I’m excited. It’s a great track and the team has made a lot of improvements to the car since Sebring so we should be in a lot better shape than we were at the 12 Hours. You couldn’t have had a worse baptism than they had at Sebring. You had a brand new car, a brand new team and a fly-away race. That was a lot to take in at once.
They tested a couple weeks ago and the car picked up a huge amount of time from just working on set-up. I think we’ll be much closer on pace than we were. I’ll be racing with the same guys I raced with at Sebring (Fabien Giroix, Maxine Jousse).
(Stefan last raced a prototype at Spa in the 2007 1000 km of Spa, driving the Arena Motorsports LMP1 07S Zytek. Paired with Hayanari Shimoda, the duo ran at the front until Shimoda had an accident)
JT – There have been recent suggestions from some in the press and others that the American Le Mans Series should open its GTC class up to GT3 sports cars and effectively bring the world-standard GT3 cars to America. What’s your opinion?
SJ – That could be interesting but you still have the same basic problem in American sports car racing. When you have two championships in the same region, you’re fighting an uphill battle. It would be so great if we could use the same cars in all the different championships around the world. Look at the GT3 grid at Monza, over 50 cars, which is fantastic!
JT – You’re about to announce that SJ Watches has two new designs debuting this year in the form of the MK IX and MK X models. These are completely new timepieces with new cases, dial designs and movements. This is exciting for your brand.
SJ – It’s terrific to finally have the new designs ready! It took quite a while to get these completed but I think that has made them even better. We have a completely new crown and pusher arrangement for the cases that is being patented. We have 8 different patents pending at the moment, so there’s been a lot of activity lately and I am very excited to be able to show the pieces very soon. We’ll also have several new dial designs, colors and case materials to choose from. The MK VIIIs are still available as well but now we’ve got two more lines and I’m excited to bring them out!
Look for an article on Stefan’s new models in the June issue of iW Magazine in print and online at www.iwmagazine.com.
