Hola everybody, and welcome to the press conference for the 2020 Mexican V-Prix. Joining us today from left to right we have Arthur Lapierre of Coca Cola Porsche Team Mathershaw, Bradley Downton of Downton FV Team, Adam Blocker of FIRST Motorsport, Dylan Lopez of Lopez FV Team, and Ahmed Cheema of Cheema FV Racing. Thanks everyone for coming! Reporter: Let's start with you Arthur. Given your driver line up and your slightly distant third place last year, many were expecting you to dominate but that hasn't been the case. Looking back on this year, do you feel there's anything particular you would have done differently if you had the chance?
Arthur Lapierre: To be honest, I don’t think the outcome of this season has been particularly representative of reality. Our drivers have performed brilliantly, our car started the season as the undisputed fastest, and the combination has proven to be quick. However, we have had extraordinarily bad luck with things outside of our control which meant we didn’t take advantage of that as we should have. For sure, we don’t have the quickest car now, but we simply should have been too far ahead for that to matter. As for what we’d have done differently? We didn’t do anything wrong as far as we are concerned. R: That's a fair enough observation. On a seperate note, Porsche's first season in FV has seemed quite successful from an outsider's point of view. Having had a year's experience with them, how has the relationship with them been and how confident are you moving forward with the German manufacturer? AL: We are the Porsche works team in Formula Virtual - it’s quite simple in that way. We are performing to a very high level, and we have undoubted potential. I think after such a strong year one it would be foolish to suggest it gets easier from here, but I know that both Dr Wallinger and ourselves are entirely committed to winning Porsche the championship in Formula Virtual. We are contracted for two more years to be the Porsche works team, and I don’t see that being the end of it at all. R: And Dylan, as one of two Porsche customers, what would you say for the same question? Dylan Lopez: We've got a pretty good deal with the boys at Porsche. Having a German driver in Elroy Wagner has been great on the PR side, and continuing on Mr Lapierre's comment before, everybody affiliated with the Porsche brand have long term ambitions for success. We've already notched up our maiden victory as I touched on before, hopefully with this incredible partnership we have, it's the first of many. R: Sticking with you Dylan, your points tally has been pretty bare recently, especially since USA. On the other hands, you are still on course for your best constructor's position and you got that first win back in Japan. Based on that, would you still class this season as a success? DL: It's pretty hard not to call a season a success when you've had your best season to date. First win, highest finish in the constructor's championship. We've had a great time this year, for a smaller team lacking the budget of some of the big boys. R: It's great to hear that, thanks Dylan. Moving to our current champions, Bradley, you arrive here on the verge of a 3rd drivers and constructors title - while the former is far from certain the latter is extremely likely, which will equal the all time record currently held by Franklin. How much would that mean to you? Bradley Downton: It would be remiss of me to sit here and say we don't think we're going to win the Constructors' now given the situation, however it's far from an insurmountable gap, so we need to keep focused and not think about things like this. There is still a job to be done, and I will only be happy when it is mathematically secure. To tie the record for most Constructors titles would be an almighty achievement, however lets talk about that if - and when - it happens. We've already seen Mathershaw have two pointless races so far this season, while we've had none - but if they come now for us in the next two races, the title is gone, and that question goes to them. So let's revisit that, hopefully in just a couple of weeks! R: You're probably use to this question every year by now, but with Powers and van Snelheid fighting for the title again, will they be allowed to fight each other freely, or will you prioritise Powers since Ruiz is also a threat? BD: They will continue to be allowed to fight each other freely as is our team policy and as they have done all season. However the case remains that until the Constructors' is secure, the team comes first - and they know that. Depending on what happens here and how we arrive in Brazil, it may or may not be the case that one driver is prioritised over the other, but we would only do it in the event one is mathematically out of contention. R: I imagine most fans will be happy to hear that. Coming to Adam now, big news from FIRST recently, you announced that the Palmetto Racing Group would become co-owners of the team. It was mentioned that they would bring a new perspective to the team, do you think some fresh blood is necessary for FIRST to become title challengers in the future? Adam Blocker: I don’t necessarily think that new perspectives are necessary for a title challenge but the ownership team will only strengthen our team. The system we have now has been working so overall we’re just looking to refine it. R: It flew under the radar last race but unfortunately Perez and Hoskins had that collision in Monza. These things happen in motorsport but how do you deal with a teammate collision like that? What do you say to both drivers? AB: Yeah it was unfortunate, but these things happen. Fortunately it didn’t really impact much in terms of points standings or anything, but that kind of thing affects team morale and also the cost of some additional crash damage. In the case of Monza I just told them that we all work too hard for stuff like that to happen and reiterated how selfish it is to race your teammate that hard. R: Thank you Adam, hopefully we don't see that again. Finally, moving on to you Ahmed, you're back into Q1 for the first time since USA. Was this something you were expecting, and how confident are you in the performance of the car that you'll still make the final two races of the season? Ahmed Cheema: It was definitely not something we were expecting after USA, and at that time it would have extremely annoying to drop back in, but given how slow we have been since Canada this was inevitable. We still seem to be on par with Arrow who have an advantage over Meteor and AMR, so we should make the last two races, but we can't afford any slip ups otherwise we might only have one driver in the race. R: Given that you'll soon be heading into your third season, under a new name as well, are you happy with what you have achieved so far? And how happy with the relationship you have with Alfa given their lack of form in comparison to rivals in the past two years? AC: I was over the moon with our first season honestly, we scored 6 points, which is 6 more than I expected, and ended the season with a car that was probably 10th or 9th fastest. On the other hand, this year has been a complete failure in all honesty, there's only been 3 races after which we genuinely felt happy, otherwise it has been pretty rubbish. But that's life, sometimes it goes well, otherwise it's just naff, we just have to try and make up for it next year. As for Alfa, I'm not going to say they're the fastest engine on the planet and that they decimate the opposition but they have been very good partners, they supplied us with a good engine this year and their plans for the future look very exiting so we're more than happy with them. R: It'll be exciting to see how Alfa Romeo do next year. We've got a question for everyone but just before that, another one for Dylan. This is set to be the first year since 2016 that Wagner has failed to beat his teammate. Some of his deficit to Kangur has been to poor luck early on but ultimately the gap has been significant. Does this worry you about whether he's hit his peak and is now declining? DL: Well, you are aware that Wagner has beaten Kangur in 5 of the past 6 races, and leads the team qualifying battle 9 - 5, right? We know he's still got what it takes, and if we still had a car capable of scoring consistent points every weekend then we probably wouldn't be having this conversation. R: That's fair enough, Wagner was unlucky earlier on. Now, question for everyone, just the other day the FVA announced next year's calendar, along with the possibility of rotating races every year. Is there any tracks in particular you would like to see swapped regularly with any current tracks? We'll start with you Arthur. AL: For us, we like the idea of rotating the calendar a bit - as long as we race in France, America, the UK and Germany as it covers our home races and our biggest market, I think we will be happy. For me, one of the other highlights is Kyalami - it is so important to race on the African continent, and South Africa represents another large market for Porsche. Also needless to say it is a wonderful circuit! BD: I think the idea of rotating the calendar is a great one. It gives us variety and makes it a challenge for both us as teams and the drivers as we won't have regular recent data, and a lot can change in one year in this series - nevermind two! Like Arthur, I think some races should be guaranteed a slot on the calendar every year - the UK, USA, Italy and Belgium for somewhat historical reasons, and then the likes of Brazil, Australia and/or Japan, as they work fantastically to close and open the season respectively. It's great to race on the African continent and make this a proper 'World' Championship as well as we can, but I don't think I'm alone when I say I'm sure we can find a better home than Kyalami. We've had two races there now - both of which have been mediocre at best - but for now it's great to have just so we get that opportunity to race in Africa. In terms of tracks to be swapped in, I think the Red Bull Ring should return - perhaps that and Salzburgring could rotate depending how our debut there goes next season, as that was always decent to watch - and I'd like to see Shanghai return. We're also very keen to get a Dutch V-Prix - as is Klaas - and visiting new countries is always fun, I'd love to see a race in Argentina for example. There are so many tracks in the States we could visit too that would likely be brilliant, however that would mean needing a second race in America because there's no way we can lose Indianapolis from the calendar, it's just too good. DL: Mate, if you can jump onto the FVA board and find a more suitable race track in Africa to replace Kyalami with, I'd be surprised. Kyalami's a classic little circuit with a grand history, and I'm sure Mr. Max Meyer cannot wait to compete in front of an home crowd, friends and family when we return there next year with a slightly revised layout which hopefully creates a better spectacle in the future. As for the rotating calendar, we love visiting new places, so we love the idea of potentially experiencing something different each year going forward. Personally, I'd have loved to visit Finland next season, and I'd love to see another race in the Americas now that Mexico City has been dropped. I think somewhere like Río Hondo in Argentina would be a cool place to visit. AB: I think the majority of the calendar should stay as it is, we have a good group of core tracks that have tradition now and a history of good racing that I wouldn’t want to mess with. Personally if it were completely up to me I’d like to see the Australian race move to somewhere like Phillip Island or even Bathurst, I just don’t think of Albert park as a good race. Kyalami’s slot would be a good track to axe in my opinion in favor of a rotating race that visits a different country for a second time every year. There are lots of tracks in places like the US, UK, France, Germany, and Japan that would put on a great show and be challenging tracks, but they currently can’t host races because their country already has a race. AC: I can understand Arthur and Dylan's point of view on Kyalami being a nice circuit but so far the racing there has been non-existant and I don't see much point in keeping it bar then having a race in Africa for the sake of it. There are other tracks in South Africa and there's a couple more in the northern side of the continent so I think the alternatives are definitely worth looking at. Apart from that I would love to see the Nurburgring host the German V-Prix alongside Hockenheim on alternative years, and I personally liked the Red Bull Ring so like Bradley it would be nice to see it alternate with Salzburgring. Bathurst would also be quite cool as long as the cars aren't crashing into the walls every lap. I would be elated if we got an Irish V-Prix, perhaps alternating with a Finnish race since that would be another nice location, but that would need a race to drop off with is unlikely. I still remain hopeful though that one day we will have a home race. R: Seems like there's some conflicting opinions on Kayalami, we'll see how the race is there next year. We finished with you Ahmed so we'll ask another question. With all of the knowledge you possess now, how differently would you approach coming into the sport if you had to do it all again? Are you content with the choices you've made or would you have done anything differently? AC: I would have done an awful lot differently to be honest, loads of strategy calls especially, perhaps a few driver signings and a couple of other things. But that's always going to be the case unless everything goes perfectly, which is impossible so *shrugs* kind of like what I said before, it is what it is. R: We're starting to run out of time now, but we should have enough for two questions. Firstly for Arthur, Bradley and Adam, you three have been the top 3 teams by far this year, but between you all it's been very close. Do you think this has been the closest the top three teams have been since the start of FV and why do you think that is? We'll start with Arthur again. AL: There’s certainly been a shift between ourselves and Downton as the year has gone on, and FIRST started the year strongly and continued to build, but I think that is like many years. I don’t want to sound like a broken record, particularly when we are on the wrong side of history, but if we had maximised the potential of our car with better luck, this season wouldn’t have been very close in terms of the championship I don’t think. BD: I think it's close, but I think last year was just a bit closer. I think Mathershaw were more consistently closer to us and Franklin than FIRST have been to us and Mathershaw. To some extent, I have to agree with Arthur in that luck has played a huge part as to why we're all so close. Were it not for the bad luck and some dubious strategy calls Mathershaw have suffered, and some of the bad luck we ourselves have suffered, I think FIRST would be a long way further back, but then we ourselves would almost certainly be behind Mathershaw too, and I think we'd be looking at them wrapping the title up comfortably this weekend if they hadn't already - as we all expected at the start of the season. However I don't want to take anything away from the work the boys and girls in the team have put in. They've done a tremendous job to turn this car around to being the pace setter, and that's definitely gained us more than any bad luck for other teams. AB: Definitely the closest top two since 2013, they’ve been locked together all season: Mathershaw and Downton that is. If you look at 10 races in it was probably the closest top 3 at that point in the season. Unfortunately we’ve dropped off a bit now. In terms of why it happened, I think you have to credit the current rules package more than anything else. Other than that it’s hard to say really, but 2019 was also a tight season at the top with the two Downtons vs Ruiz. R: Interesting answers from you all! I've been given the hurry up, so last question for everyone. What are you expectations and predictions for this weekend? And for the three teams not in the title battle, do you think Downton will wrap up either title, or both, this weekend? AL: We’ll do what we always do - race hard and see what we can achieve. It won’t be easy, but we will do everything we can to take this title down to the wire, even if Downton are by far the favourites due to the circumstances. BD: Our ultimate goal is to put both Championships beyond the reach of Mathershaw and Ruiz this weekend, however that's an almighty ask. Realistically, if we can secure the Constructors' here, that would be a job well done. As Arthur says though, they will fight us right to the end, so we can't rest on our laurels, it'll be a tough weekend for sure, though we expect the long straight to favour our car. AB: Expectation: double finish in good points. I think Downton will wrap up the constructors’, but the drivers’ title will go down to the last race and will be tight to the end as usual at this point. DL: We can only control the controllable, and hopefully we can get some luck to go our way to keep in the fight for 5th place against Ingram. We'll need a double points finish, but I'm confident both Wagner and Kangur, former race winners here will get everything they can out the car here at 2300m altitude. As for the titles, I can see the Constructor's title getting wrapped up this weekend by Downton, mainly since Simon hasn't quite been able to keep up with the Top 3 as the season's panned out. I do expect however that the driver's title will go all the way to the wire like it did last season in Brazil. I'm not sure who will get the choccies, but I think you'd be silly to count out van Snelheid. He'll have the fire in the belly after last season's finale, and he'll be ready to pounce if something happens to his rivals. AC: We're expecting to take pole by over a second and win the race with about 3 laps in hand. But seriously, not last would be nice, Arrow is the only team we can compete with at the moment. I expect Downton to wrap up the constructors but the drivers to go down to the wire - still backing KVS for that. R: Brilliant, thanks again to everyone for attending today! That's all for now but practice will be on shortly before qualifying tomorrow. Until then, see you and goodbye!
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