Interview With James Allison

James, the tyres – what have we seen so far here in Melbourne regarding both the hard and the soft tyres?

JA: Both sets of tyres, hard and soft, were really quite consistent and durable, which is very much against the trend we saw during winter testing. Although the degradation here is much improved compared to pre-season, there is still a really big performance step between the hard and the soft.

What do you think we've learnt as a team since the winter tests, what has come out of the time that the team had in Barcelona?

JA: Like all the teams, our winter test programme was about establishing the reliability of the car and learning the characteristics of the Pirelli tyres (best tyre pressures, tyre cambers etc). There is so much of this basic housekeeping work to be done that there is only limited opportunity to explore the setup of the car.

The Drag Reduction System (DRS) – how do you think that has performed over the course of one lap?

JA: Well, actually at this circuit it's actually worth quite a lot of lap time because there's lots of little straights and they all add up to being a good chunk of performance – over 0.8 of a second. Obviously the purpose of the DRS isn't to give performance in qualifying; it's to make overtaking easier in the actual race.

So, how much of an advantage do you think it will be during a race?

JA: This is actually one of the most challenging circuits to overtake on because the longest straight is only around 700 metres. As a consequence, even with the DRS, you'll need to be quite a lot quicker than the guy in front to have a chance of passing.

What are your general thoughts on the reintroduction of KERS to the sport?

JA: We, like most teams on the grid, see that KERS is an advantage. It's worth several tenths in qualifying and around ten metres of advantage at the start. We're pretty pleased with the way our package is working out for us.

Regarding the car, are you pleased with how it's developed and how it compares to what you've seen of the other teams' cars?

JA: I guess I'm satisfied with the start we've made. We're in P6 here with Vitaly and we were P9 with Robert last year so it's a case of so far so good. However, the gap to Red Bull is chastening and we still have a lot of work ahead before we can regard ourselves as competitive.

The exhaust has been quite a talking point throughout pre-season. What do you make of the reported interest from the other teams in this type of exhaust?

JA: Well, I would be surprised if many of the other teams hadn't considered it long before they saw our car running because it is a concept that I'm sure would have occurred to other people. The difficulty of the exhaust is actually doing it – it's a lot of work putting the exhaust out of the front of the car and there's lots of engineering to do to make it possible.

Can you elaborate on the most challenging or difficult issues you've faced with developing this type of exhaust?

JA: The exhaust gets seriously hot during running and our configuration passes it close to lots of parts of the car which don't normally get hot. Managing the heat flow around these parts of the car is a real challenge.

The reliability of the car – do you think the car has spent too long in the garage, or are you comfortable with its dependability?

JA: No, I'm certainly not comfortable – there are a thousand things that can catch you out, so you never feel comfortable. We spent more time in the garage than we would have liked during the pre-season, but most to of the items that kept us from the track would not have given rise to a DNF. I'm hopeful that we should have a relatively untroubled run to the flag in the race.