Alan Permane: “We are here to fight for the title”

We are entering the second half of the season. How do you judge the team?s performance during the first ten races?
Overall, I would say it's a very good start to the year. Sometimes it's frustrating to come out of a weekend knowing that we didn't get the most out of the car, but in the last few races we made changes that worked very well. Out of ten rounds we had eight podiums, including a victory in the first race, so it's certainly not too bad. Of course we want to win more races, we are here to fight for the title, but second place in the drivers' standings and fourth in the constructors' standings? very close to second and with a big margin over our pursuers? it?s a good position. We're fighting against teams that undoubtedly have much greater resources than us, so I think we're doing a very good job with the resources we have at our disposal. enstone.

Hungary was the first race with the revised Pirelli tires. What lessons did you learn from it?
It seems that the new tires fit our car relatively well. We only have the competition around us as an element of comparison and I would say that we have not done too badly in this regard. For example, Mercedes seems to adapt very well to it, but Ferrari maybe not too much. Even though we were slightly faster than them in Germany and Hungary, Red Bull and we ourselves seem to be equal. I don't think they changed our situation much.

Belgium offers other difficulties?
Yes, it is a complete contrast to Budapest in almost every way. Similar to Canada, Spa is a track that requires much less downforce than most other circuits, with notably lower temperatures. Usually, it's between fifteen and twenty degrees. Furthermore, the designated rubbers are hard and medium and, associated with the ambient freshness, this is not our strong point, I think we must admit. However, we have put a lot of effort into making the hard tires work better in low temperatures. So I'm pretty confident we're going to remain just as competitive for this race.

Spa should suit your ?system?. Is he on the radar for this weekend?
Absolutely. The final decision hasn't been made yet, but we've run a lot of simulations with the concept to support this decision and there's a good chance we'll see it make an appearance.

Have you had time to prepare new developments for this race?
Although there were four weeks between the two races, two of them do not count since the factories were necessarily closed. This still leaves two weeks, in other words enough to bring new things as we normally do in this time frame. Being close to Spa gives us the advantage of being able to work on the cars at Enstone until the Tuesday evening before the race, whilst still having enough time to have them at the circuit and ready on Thursday morning. Several new features are planned, both mechanically and aerodynamically, so we are confident in being able to take yet another step forward.

2014 and its profound changes are approaching. Do you plan to shift the main development to this new objective?
I expect most, if not all, teams to devote the majority of their design and aero resources to next year's car at this point in the season. The changes are so important that, without unlimited resources, you have no other alternative than to change your development if you want to be competitive in 2014. You may see some small new features appear over the course of the races, but I guess we've seen the last major changes. If this applies everywhere in the paddock – I think it will be the case for most teams? so I really hope that we will continue to fight at the front until the end of the season.