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Adam Cooper
RACER Magazine http://www.racer.com/speedtv
RACER Magazine http://www.racer.com/speedtv
04/24/2007 - 07:00 PM
Baelen, Belgium
Berger is finding hands-on team management to his liking. (LAT photo) » More Photos
Gerhard Berger has been at the center of the Scuderia Toro Rosso customer car row this year, and has had to spend much of his time fending off allegations that the STR02 is not legal. That has been an unfortunate distraction for the Austrian, who at the same time has had the not very easy job of trying to build up a team that as Minardi languished at the rear for so many years. The addition of former McLaren and Ferrari man Giorgio Ascanelli as technical director before the Malaysian GP was the latest step. I talked with Gerhard about recent progress – and how tough life is in the back half of the grid.
Q: Are you enjoying being back in F1?
"Driving, I started with ATS, I was in the s**t completely, and I had to go through it and I ended up with Ferrari or McLaren or whatever. A long way, a tough way, hard way, this is nothing different than that. We start at the back, and somehow we have to find a way through. But it's very challenging. It's not every moment I enjoy, but in general I like it. There are moments where I ask myself, you know it's a tough one, but there are some other moments… One and a half years ago, you saw a Minardi in front, then if you go to the front of the box [garage] and see how it looks, if you see how the people work, if you see who is working, and hopefully if you soon some better qualifying [performances]. It's a big pleasure."
Berger is finding hands-on team management to his liking. (LAT photo) » More Photos
Q: Do you feel that you are getting your hands dirty more than you did in the BMW job?
"No. You know what, after BMW a lot of people asked me also to do a consulting work or something. I don't like that. What I really like is to get the hands dirty. If you put the hands on, and if it's wrong,
Q: Do you think this team fundamentally works as it is, or do you want to recruit more people to make it bigger and more powerful?
"We want to look very carefully at which direction we go, let's say on the production side. We are working very much with suppliers, a lot of suppliers. It's a different way to do it. We are not planning to increase the number of people in a big way, but we are planning to increase the quality, and concentrate more on quality."
Catch up on the latest in Formula 1 each month in RACER. Scott Speed relates the story behind his turbulent off-season with the Toro Rosso team in our May issue, on sale now!
Q: Will Giorgio Ascanelli be more involved in the engineering of the cars, or will he have a more technical role developing the cars?
"He's technical director, and every idea is welcome. I mean, the structure of the team, the people lineup, is quite complete on the top level. We have Franz [Tost] running the whole team, who is doing a great job, I really appreciate a lot the way how he works. He's working very hard, he has a lot of knowledge. Then you have Giorgio, responsible for the whole technical side. We have a good purchasing department, we have Jim Wright looking on the commercial side. So we have a good lineup, but obviously it just came together in the last couple of months, so we have to give them time to develop themselves."
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