Good morning and welcome to Fuji, Japan for the team principal’s Thursday press conference ahead of this weekend’s Japanese V-Prix – round two of the 2019 Formula Virtual World Championship. Joining us today, from left to right, are; Ahmed Cheema of Cheema FV Racing, Hector Seibel of Andromeda Automobilismo Brasileiro, Jamie Franklin from Franklin, William Ingram of Ingram V-Prix, and Rai Miyamoto from Ocelot Japan Racing. Welcome to you all. Reporter: We’ll start today off with you Jamie. Congratulations on the result in Melbourne with Ruiz picking up the win – albeit in slightly fortunate circumstances – and Tumo fighting back from a tough qualifying to finish fifth. How would you say the result stacked up to the team’s expectations? Jamie Franklin: Call it fortunate if you want, but we're back where we should be. The age-old adage, to finish first, first you must finish comes to mind, and we managed our race the best to come out on top. In truth, it's slightly below expectation. Unfortunately, Tumo was caught out in quali, but his recovery was good enough. Reporter: After the race, rumours were circulating about the possibility of some major sponsors backing out. Is there any truth to the news and how important are sponsors to the most successful team on the grid? JF: I don't really care to discuss it much at this time. All I can really say is that if people are unhappy with how I run things, then they know where the door is. If their corporate image is more important than being successful, then who needs them. Reporter: We’ll have to see how things pan out on that one. Okay coming to you Rai; it was an excellent start to the season for you, especially after a lot of people throughout the paddock had written you off before the season started. Of course, it was a slightly fortunate result due to other teams struggling, but it must’ve been brilliant for the team? And can you share what happened to Ryan, as he dropped down the order significantly then seemed to struggle? Rai Miyamoto: Yes it was quite an amazing result for us, we were very impressed with what Puccio managed to do with the car especially as this year is our transitional period after what was an amazing 2018 season. Hopefully we can build on this result. Ryan had issues making the tyres work but he's a talented kid he'll come round. Reporter: We’re back here in Ocelot’s home country this weekend, and the support for the team has clearly received a huge boost after 2018, but there’s a notable absentee this season – Yoshida. What happened with Ryota and have you received much negativity from the Japanese fans? RM: It's pretty amazing the massive amount of support we have throughout the country, it's fantastic seeing everyone wearing our mechanise, people opening themed restaurants! The passion here is incredible and we hope we can reward the country and our fans with a world title one day. Dare to dream right? But in regards to Yoshida, we didn't get too much negativity as everyone here knows no one is bigger than the team and we had to make every race count. As for Yoshida he's still connected to us even if he's not signed with us we'll have more news on this, keep your eyes peeled. Reporter: Intriguing, I can’t say I’ve seen or heard anything from Ryota since he was replaced! Will, Mattson seemed to spend most of the race in Melbourne stuck in traffic, do you think your car struggles in dirty air? And how would you assess your opening weekend of the season? William Ingram: I wouldn't say that no, Melbourne showed how difficult it is to overtake unless your car is far superior. I was ultimately disappointed. James did a brilliant job in qualifying and was seriously unlucky in the race. Our car is not as good as last year and every point will count so I hope we get opportunities in the future to get a couple. Reporter: It certainly does look like being tough for some of the teams outside the top few to score points - do you feel that you can become regular points contenders this season – in what could be one of the toughest seasons yet to challenge the top five or six teams? WI: I think it will be difficult to score points regularly, Australia was a great opportunity but other teams took the chance and we missed it, we will do our best to ensure that we don't miss another chance. Hopefully we can score some points soon! Reporter: Great stuff, thanks Will! Now we’ll come to two of the three brand new teams to join the grid for 2019 – Andromeda and Cheema – coming to you first Hector; Melbourne must’ve been disappointing for the team with the double retirement, but you seem to have excellent pace in the car. Did you expect to be able to come into Formula Virtual and be so competitive immediately? Hector Seibel: Well we never thought we would have such a good pace on our first year, when pre-season testing started, we didn't know where we were and honestly, we still aren't really sure where we can be placed at realistically. The engineering department and everyone else has been doing a terrific job putting their hearts out behind the scenes and it really shows especially when you compare to the other teams in their first season. Reporter: It certainly seems like you’re in with a shout of being the quickest new team straight from the get-go, but the reliability seems to be a slight issue, are the team, and Honda, worried about reliability following the issues in qualifying and the race? HS: Yes, that's something we are looking into, there is no point to have a good pace if we can't finish races consistently, we will make sure everything is order until Japan so we can see our drivers pushing the engine as much as they can without risks of malfunction. Reporter: Hopefully this weekend is much smoother. Ahmed, Melbourne was the first ever race weekend for Cheema FV Racing, despite not qualifying for the race, what was the experience like in general? Was everything how you expected? Ahmed Cheema: Overall it was an interesting experience, quite different to any other series. Nearly always there was something to do, whether it was an on-track session, making adjustments to the cars or looking over data. I wasn't expecting the weather to be that bad on Saturday, but it was good that we got experience in working in the dry on Friday and working in the damp conditions on Saturday. We learned a lot from those two days and a bit in Sunday from being in the paddock, and it should help us move forward over the course of the year. Reporter: Do you expect this weekend to be more representative, compared to the weather and circuit at Albert Park throwing up unusual results? And have you identified any teams in particular that you expect to battle with throughout the season? AC: Well, I think there's a possibility of rain on Sunday, but if Saturday is dry, we will hopefully see where our car is compared to others. Fuji is a bit of a mix of a track, with the very long pit straight, but plenty of corners afterwards, so that'll help build a clearer picture. That said, we were happily surprised with how Australia went, just a hundredth off Q2, so I expect that we might be further back if all things remain calm. We seem to be close to Excelsior though, both two weeks ago and in testing so hopefully we can continue to stay close to them. Reporter: Excellent, we’ll move onto the fan questions now then. We’ll stick with you for the first one Ahmed; “You didn’t qualify for the race in Australia in a tricky session due to the weather. What was the reaction from the team and how are you gonna get out of Q1 this weekend?” AC: We were a bit disappointed straight after Q1, because we had looked good in practice and during the session Carson looked good on track and was setting a good lap, which along with Hoskins slightly tagging the barrier gave us a lot of hope. But when we had the debrief and looked over it, we were pretty happy - we had expected to be the slowest team and yet we managed to nearly qualify for the race. It'll be tough to qualify this weekend, but we'll give it our best shot. Maybe if luck goes our way, and both Nikolai and Carson do their best we might sneak through. Reporter: Next one here is for Rai; “Has your stance on Q1 changed after the first race?” RM: No it hasn't I still believe we had too many teams in the sport and that the original number was quite good but it's not something that's going to change so we'll just move forward and focus on ourselves and what we can do. Reporter: I think that’s the best way to go about it. Hector, next one says “What did you learn from your maiden FV weekend?” HS: There is certainly much to do on our side researching strategies and weather, as we could see from our first race there was a lot of underdogs rising through the ranks during qualifying because they were able to take advantage of the weather in the track, for a small team like us this is a big deal because we can't really afford too many mistakes, you know there is always Q1 to get by. Reporter: Absolutely. Okay Jamie; “Another of your fellow top teams, Downton, seem to be embroiled in what has become the largest bidding war the sport has ever seen over the services of Nathaniel Powers, which could for 2020 ultimately leave them taking a massive financial hit or losing the services of one of the best talents on the grid. Do you think this situation is giving you a better chance of beating them in future seasons? JF: I don't really care to be honest. If Downton are as good as they think they are, it won't affect them, either way I don't concern myself with what happens with other teams. Reporter: I expected that sort of answer! Okay then Will, last one here for you – it’s a good one; “You have a choice – either change your car livery and keep your current engine, or keep your livery and change your engine supplier. Which one would you choose?” WI: Oooh that's a toughie. The businessman in me has to keep the Honda engine as it's a great engine. But, I think I'd keep the green Ingram car! I'm sure Jamie understands... JF: I understand, I know how important identity is. Reporter: Phew! On the subject of engines; with us here today we have the full complement of teams in the engine partnerships at Honda and Alfa Romeo, so a question to all of you; how have your respective engines performed so far in comparison with expectations prior to testing? And a question to Hector and Ahmed; how has it been entering into these partnerships with such established teams? AC: The Alfa has been pretty good and matched pre-season expectations so far. We didn't have any problems in testing, neither did Ocelot I think and we both got good mileage. Neither of us had any problems in Australia as well which was a positive sign. Since it's a V12 we are lagging a bit in acceleration but the top speeds were looking good and we were happy with the performance in both practice and qualifying. Obviously being a new team, it was very helpful to be partnering up with Alfa and Ocelot. Both have helped us a lot over the winter to prepare the car and get the engine in which is useful when you're new to the sport. HS: Honda has been a great partnership on our side and I believe Franklin are the team to beat this season, we are very happy to be working alongside them and Ingram to give our drivers the best performance they can to score some points. RM: We are around where we expected to be, of course we wanted to give Cheema a more powerful engine for their debut but having moved to a new factory, they know this is all transition and that we will be back with a vengeance, after all we've tasted winning now. WI: We've always been happy with the Honda engine and this year is no different. I know Jamie has a great relationship with Honda and they always let us know the direction they're planning on going with the engine so we can design our car accordingly. JF: I think we've proven that the Honda engine is the superior engine this season. You saw how well it performed in testing, and how it performed in Australia. The results don't lie. Reporter: Excellent stuff guys, thank you. We’ll have to see how the Honda engines perform at their home race here this weekend. Final question, as usual to everyone, what are your expectations for this weekend, and which team do you think are the ones to beat? AC: Our main objective is to get one of our drivers into the top ten in Q1, maybe top nine or top eight if practice goes well and be ahead of Excelsior to consolidate our position in the championship ahead of them. If we get any higher it'll be great and if we qualify that would be brilliant. I think Mathershaw will stay towards the top, but Franklin should be up there also, and we haven't seen the best of Downton or FIRST. It should be a good race anyway; Fuji always pulls up a cracker. RM: If we can get our drivers to be around the middle, I think that'll be a success, it's a shame the home fans won't see much from us this year. As for who's title it's to lose, I'll say Franklin, they've lingered in their sleep but I think the beast has woken. HS: I would be lying to you if I said we are not expecting both of our cars to go straight to Q2 with ease. We have made some big changes since Australia and we can't wait to show you guys when practice comes the difference it will all make. The teams to beat at the front are definitely Downton and Franklin, but we are really expecting to score some points this weekend, it is definitely achievable with such a wonderful team. WI: I think we'll be somewhere in the middle, relying on luck to hopefully nick a point. We need to ensure there's no danger of slipping into pre qualifying. I expect us to be between fourteenth and eighteenth. DS looked to have a great car in Australia, but we haven't seen the true pace of most teams due to the difficulties encountered in overtaking. JF: Like every weekend, we will look to capitalise on our strong start and secure another win. I want to remind everyone why we are always the team to beat. Reporter: Brilliant, thank you very much to you all, some excellent answers today. Thank you to everyone for tuning in and be sure to check in tomorrow for Friday practice.
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