Q&a: Geoff Willis

[Senna 0]

Q&A: Geoff Willis

planetf1

Honda Racing's technical director Geoff Willis talks about the teams end of year testing sessions and shares his thoughts on the upcoming season...

Q: How has the pre-Christmas test programme with the V8-powered Concept car been progressing?

Geoff Willis: It

[Jem of the Shire 0]

All sounds very positive, which is great for Button fans like me! Glad to hear that smooth drivers have an advantage too!

[Jenson_Rules 0]

i had a nightmare last night, it wa sthe first race of the new season and the BAR was incredibly quick, but alonso was still ahead, then he crashed, and barrichello won and button was second! it was quite shocking and upsetting! lets hope this wasnt a preminition!

[Jem of the Shire 0]

Don't worry I have f1 dreams all the time!! The other day I dreamt that the first race was in Brazil and Webber won! And only a couple of days before that I dreamt that JPM won the ch'ship!!

[Jenson_Rules 0]

lol! well the race wasnt actually at bahrain, it was at some random place that was a cross of imola and oz! it was quite odd! Usually i just have nightmares of faling off a cliff, god knows why!

[Jem of the Shire 0]

My re-occurring dream is being in a supercar, putting my foot down and the car not moving. Weird!

[Jenson_Rules 0]

is that right, i thought i saw a post from you saying how you dream of being in bed with westlife

sorry

[Jem of the Shire 0]

is that right, i thought i saw a post from you saying how you dream of being in bed with westlife

sorry

hey thats my secret dream how did u know!!

[Jenson_Rules 0]

just a wild guess!

[Jem of the Shire 0]

In my dream we watch f1 naked together

[monza gorilla 1]

[Jenson_Rules 0]

ok that is far to much information and pretty damn disturbing!

[monza gorilla 1]

[Jenson_Rules 0]

can we please go back to the origional topic now please!

[monza gorilla 1]

You started it!!

Q: What lessons have you learnt from 2005 and, engine aside, what will be the big differences between the RA106 and last year's car?

GW: We've got virtually unchanged aerodynamic regulations in 2006, so it does mean that we can- apply everything we've learnt this year - and we've learned a lot following our slow start to the season. We think we understand the way the cars work under these regulations very much better now and the new car is a lot more developed aerodynamically; we've made really huge improvements on that front. As we've lost quite a lot of power, aerodynamic efficiency is becoming even more critical. We've worked on improving downforce but also achieving a substantial reduction in drag. So the new car will look very clearly different to the 2005 car.

They had to make big strides, because the car just didn't work aerodynamically in 2005.

[Jenson_Rules 0]

quite! hence why they were running the 04 chassis to find out what went so terribly wrong. Hopefully the new car will look great and be great!

[monza gorilla 1]

I'm still not sure they've got what it takes; that final piece of inspired design that lifts a car above it's rivals. Hopefully the RA106 will be a very good car, but I'm not convinced yet.

[Jenson_Rules 0]

i agree unforrtunantly! however lets hope we are wrong!

[monza gorilla 1]

We'll see. They still have plenty of time.

[Jenson_Rules 0]

indeed!

[Jem of the Shire 0]

Any of Ferrari, Toyota, Mclaren, Renault or Honda could be the dominant team in 06. We won't know who's got it right for a while yet, my guess is that Ferrari and Mclaren will be fighting it out, with the other 3 scrapping for any spare race wins

[Jenson_Rules 0]

so far from testing evidence its gonna be toyota v honda v ferrari next year! However we dont know at all until they are all out in their 2006 cars testing! and even then we can only guesstimate who will be the dominant force of 2006, we wont know till prob malaysia or australia how its gonna pan out!

[Jem of the Shire 0]

we can only guesstimate who will be the dominant force of 2006, we wont know till prob malaysia or australia how its gonna pan out!

Thats why we love f1 so much

[Jenson_Rules 0]

YOURE GAAAAAAAAAY! uNlucky!!

[ykickamoocow 0]

For all we know Red Bull could come out with a dominent car. Imagine DC beating everyone in 2006 like MS beat everyone in 2004. Stranger things have happened.