European Grand Prix: Bar's New Face Keeps Calm

On the face of it, Gil de Ferran's appointment at BAR as team manager was simply a fresh face on the pit wall to help oil the wheels of the most competitive emerging team.

Yet when De Ferran strolled into the paddock at Imola's Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari at the start of the San Marino grand prix four weeks ago he could hardly have imagined just how the weekend would unfold.

After Jenson Button stormed past the chequered flag to take third place behind Fernando Alonso's Renault and Michael Schumacher's Ferrari, De Ferran suddenly found himself in the eye of a storm which threatened to jeopardise the future of the team.

Within 10 days BAR had been branded cheats, thrown out of the San Marino race by an FIA court of appeal and suspended from the next two events in Spain and Monaco, accused of concealing illegal ballast in special secondary fuel tanks.

By any standards this was a bruising debut for the 37-year-old Brazilian, a former Indy 500 winner and IRL champion who started his racing career determined to scale the formula one heights as a driver rather than as an administrator. Yet De Ferran believes that his experiences of racing in North America have left him sufficiently seasoned in the vagaries of the sport to handle BAR's problems in a diplomatic manner.

"I have been able to use my racing experience to help cope with situations like these which have faced BAR over the past few weeks," he said. "I was leading the Indianapolis 500 some years back when a wheel came off just after a pit stop. The disappointment was huge, but you learn to put that sort of thing behind you. If you think about it too much, you burn up inside. It has been the same with this situation at BAR-Honda. It's happened, we've learned from it, now we should put it behind us and press on."

Having served their penalty, BAR are back in business this weekend for the seventh round of the world championship. De Ferran is cautiously optimistic, mindful that the Honda V10 engines to be used by Button and Sato have been locked away for the past five weeks after being used for the first time in the San Marino grand prix.

The new rules for 2005 require engines to last for two races and this race at Nürburgring is the second of BAR's current engine cycle. If they wanted to instal new engines in their cars they would both have to take a 10-place penalty on the grid. For such a crucial comeback race this is not a handicap which the team wants to accept.

"We have spent the last few weeks waiting somewhat impatiently for this weekend and, although we would rather have been racing, all efforts went into turning this hiatus into an opportunity for the team to improve its performance," said De Ferran.

"We continued testing and are confident of a good showing at the Nürburgring, just as we were heading into Barcelona. Since we last raced in Imola there have been several enhancements to our aerodynamic performance, which bode well for the coming races. As we haven't had the opportunity to measure up against the competition, we look forward to doing so at the Nürburgring."

If Button should score his maiden grand-prix victory this season, De Ferran will probably permit himself a smile from his place on the pit wall. He may not be in the cockpit, but for Gil de Ferran being part of a winning team is now all that matters.

The 37-year-old Brazilian, who retired from racing at the end of the 2003 IRL season, was recruited to his new role at the behest of Honda, who felt that the team needed more pit-lane direction from an experienced racing hand than they had previously.

De Ferran started racing in the Brazilian formula Ford series 20 years ago and became a team-mate to David Coulthard during the 1989 Opel Euroseries when they drove for Paul Stewart Racing.

He later won the 1992 British formula three championship driving a Reynard for the Stewart team but two years later, frustrated at the lack of opportunities in formula one, decided to switch to the US Indycar series.

First he drove for the Jim Hall-owned Pennzoil team and then gained promotion to the Penske squad where he spent three seasons as team-mate to his fellow Brazilian Helio Castroneves.

So did De Ferran feel slightly disappointed that his graduation to international motor racing's first division was in a management role rather than behind the wheel? "No, it's not the case, it's not bittersweet. When I finished my driving career I was happy. I didn't feel I should have done this, or should have done that."

After enjoying a successful driving career, and living through good times and bad, De Ferran hopes he will be able to offer something unique to Button and Takuma Sato. "I think part of the success of this new role is being able to understand a lot of the key personalities well, including the drivers."