Ahead of the upcoming Japanese Grand Prix, it is common for Formula One drivers to attend press conferences. Recently, Takuma Sato of Super Aguri, Ralf Schumacher of Toyota, and Rubens Barrichello of Honda Formula One sat in front of journalists to talk about the upcoming race and other issues. These three drivers well, drive for Japanese teams and so, they are somehow under immense pressure to perform well.
Barrichello who is having a bad year was asked what he think was the reason for his sub par performance. The Brazilian veteran said: "It’s very difficult to know what the real reason is. The car is not worse (than last year’s car) – basically everyone else improved, and we didn’t. The car last year was fine, and they took a different route for this year to improve something that was OK already and they didn’t pay attention to the aerodynamics and fine-tuning of the car. To go right to the bottom and understand why that happened, I didn’t bother because right now I’m focused on trying to help the new guys understand and make it better. I never thought that the 2006 car was a great, great car – it was doing OK on the Michelin tyres and we had a good package at some of the races, but it wasn’t there to win every race. I had problems to adapt to it, especially to the traction control. This year everything is much better on that side – the car is miles away – so it’s about putting everything together with the new guys there to make it work. It seems already that next year’s car is coming along better."
Takuma Sato was asked what he thinks about the plan to increase the number of races from 17 this year to 20 or more in the future. The Japanese driving ace answered: "From a pure drivers’ point of view I think many races are great. More races are very good. But in terms of logistics – mechanics, engineers, all of the families back at home – it’s probably a bit more difficult with more races, but as long as we keep the spring to autumn season, extra races are more than welcome."
Ralf talked about the race and the track saying: "For us it’s obviously something special because it’s a home track for Toyota. The track itself has a very long straight, so that’s very exciting; you could end up overtaking twice on the straight, which is very interesting. I think the corners we have except for Turn 4 as mentioned by Rubens are not so special, but it’s a nice layout."