Gerry Hughes joined A1 Team Ireland as Technical Director after nine seasons in Formula One™ with Jordan Grand Prix, Jaguar Racing, Red Bull Racing and Super Aguri. Here he is quized about his impressions of A1GP and what he thinks it will take to win the title at Brands Hatch this weekend.

Q: You joined the team in the summer after nine consecutive seasons in F1, what were your first impressions of A1 Team Ireland?

GH: I knew a lot of the guys already from my time at Jordan, Dave O’Neill (Team Manager), Simon Cayzer, who provides engineering support to Team Netherlands, and one or two of the mechanics, so it wasn’t a completely ‘blank canvass’ introduction to the team as such. I knew very little about A1GP itself and that proved to be quite an eye opener, in terms of the organisation of the series and how late in the day we were able to get the car and go testing. As a small independent race team it’s got a good core of experienced people, and it wasn’t a difficult transition for me having worked for the smallest F1 team (Super Aguri) to come here and pick up the ropes.

Q: Whilst Super Aguri was a small team by F1 standards there were still over 100 employees, how different is it working for an A1GP team with only around 15 people?

GH: I suppose I’ve always enjoyed the smaller environment as it allows me to get involved in lots of things, I also like to see things through from a clean sheet of paper, from concept to finished article. Over the last 10 years or so I’ve been used to working in smaller groups so it’s been good here, and we’ve been delivering the kind of results that you’ve seen over the last three race weekends.

Q: What is your approach to each race weekend?

GH: That in itself has been quite different to working in F1; you tend to spend a week to ten days on car build from the last event to the next. You’ve got every piece of computer software, whether designed in house or commissioned, at your disposal to optimise the performance of the car before it even hits the circuit. As a small team with a brand new car from A1 this year we don’t have all the simulation software, so for me that’s the biggest difference. The build up for each race weekend is no less intense, it’s just a different approach based more on experience of the car at the last event than simulation technology. Having a wealth of experience in various different formulas before coming to A1 has undoubtedly helped, it’s an old cliché but there’s no substitute for experience and it’s helped me, and the team, pick up a very new car which had very little mileage put on it before the start of the season.

Q: A lot of the individuals, and teams, in A1GP have the old Lola Zytek car as their base of experience, whereas you’ve been working with F1 levels of technology in the past. What do you think of the new A1GP Powered by Ferrari car?

GH: I only saw the old car once at Brands Hatch when I was a guest of the team. As a very young student, doing my Master of Science degree at Cranfield University, I actually did some design work on the front suspension that ultimately ended up on the old A1 car. I think the new car is a very good package, it’s been designed by an old Lola colleague of mine; John Travis, who now works full time for A1GP. Within the confines of a specific budget and set of parameters he’s produced a very good car. Knowing how difficult it is to design a car I think they’ve achieved a car with a good level of adjustability, but not so much that people get lost. I did a bit of work in GP2 between Super Aguri and A1 Team Ireland and found the (GP2) car quite similar in a lot of respects, but it does have a lot more freedom in terms of front and rear suspension geometries and I don’t think that brings anything to the show. I’m glad (A1) didn’t go down the route of giving ten different options on the front and ten on the rear. The A1 car has good levels of aero adjustability, cambers, toes, ride-heights and spring rates. It’s clean and simple and I think it’s the right car for the series; I’ve certainly enjoyed working with it so far.

Q: Zandvoort was a disappointing weekend in terms of coming away with no points, but were there any positives you took away from your first event with the team.

GH: I hadn’t been there since the early ninety’s and it does make a difference in terms of how things have changed; have they re-laid any of the circuit and so on. My recollections of Zandvoort were certainly a lot more sunny than it was when we got there! It’s easy to look back and say the weekend was a disaster but we’d only had one test day at Snetterton and were quickest there, the Zandvoort weekend was condensed from three days to two but we were in the top five in all the practice sessions and lined up P3 on the grid, but unfortunately Adam went off in both races. It was disappointing but if you look as his ultimate pace before the races we didn’t have too much to grumble about and anyway, it’s now a distant memory.

Q: I’m sure you were much more positive after China, Malaysia and New Zealand. Did your F1 experience come to the fore, particularly at Sepang?

GH: I think everybody was looking forward to going to Sepang, it’s a proper Formula One circuit and I think it was my tenth or eleventh visit there. Whenever it rains in motor racing it’s a bit of a lottery, so it was good to have a dry weekend where we were on an equal footing with everyone else and were able to show our pace both in qualifying and the race, which Adam dominated. We scored 22 points in Taupo which was clearly a successful weekend, but Adam and I, and the whole team, were disappointed not to win the feature race. We also only narrowly missed out on the fastest laps in both races and I think that the perfect weekend is possible; two poles, two wins and two fastest laps. I was particularly pleased with qualifying in Taupo as it’s a tight, twisty circuit so being at the front of the grid is key to having a good weekend.

Q: Speaking of qualifying, how were your strategic decisions be affected by the fact that you could use Power Boost in one of the four qualifying segments in Sepang?

GH: I discussed this with Adam before the race and I had a very clearly defined set of objectives for the rest of the season and a plan to achieve those objectives. Before qualifying in Sepang I made my mind up as to how we’d play it, there might have been one or two instances in the year when we considered changing things due to impending weather conditions or other factors, but I think if you look at the points structure between the sprint and feature race it’s pretty clear where everyone has concentrated their efforts.

Q: Then what happened in New Zealand?

GH: A1 decided not to use Power Boost in qualifying in Taupo and I’m glad about that as I believe if you’re running the quickest car you should be able to get pole in both races. Using Power Boost can throw up some wild cards, some teams will use it in qualifying for the sprint race to try and get pole whilst most will concentrate on the feature as there are more points on offer. The fans and series organisers may like to see the grids mixed up, and I can understand that, but as an engineer I don’t agree with it.

Q: South Africa and Portugal saw some mixed fortunes for the team, what are your thoughts on the collision with Team Malaysia (in South Africa) and the penalties given out by the stewards (in Portugal)?

GH: South Africa was a disappointing weekend; we’d preceded the race with a trip to the A1GP simulator in Modena and had done some good work there so it was a shame to come away from the weekend with only five points. The sprint race went to plan; it was a points collection exercise as we put our emphasis on using our power boost for the feature race qualifying. It was really disappointing to be punted off in the feature race by a car that, by rights, shouldn’t have been there in the qualifying order (due to the red flag in the final qualifying session that prevented Adam setting a time with power boost).

All in all the weekend in Portugal was successful, despite the penalties. In the sprint race we came home second to our sister team, the Netherlands, and that made for a good points haul. Robert Doornbos was quicker in that race and we made some changes to the car for the feature, but then had a problem starting the car on the grid and were then penalised for a jump start. It’s hard to see on the small monitors on the pit wall and I’ve not seen the coverage at home as I’ve been very busy since getting home but we accept the penalty. The second penalty for passing Australia at the re-start (after a safety car period) was a harder one. I think the regulation can be taken from a performance point of view, to prevent anyone gaining an unfair advantage, which I agree with. Adam was in a situation where he could well have crashed into the car in front, or been hit by the car behind if he’d tried to slow down that dramatically. Even so we still had a very competitive weekend and probably achieved the optimal result taking into account the penalties.

Q: You’ve worked with a huge amount of extremely talented drivers in your career so you’ve got a very good basis to assess Adam (Carroll) and Niall (Quinn). What’s you’re view on them in the time you’ve been working together?

GH: I’ve only been working with Niall for a short time and it’s been unfortunate that he’s not had a lot of time in the car during the rookie sessions. Niall is very young and is quite a quiet, unassuming character, but his pace at the Silverstone test and the rookie sessions at Taupo, Sepang and Chengdu show he has great potential. We were asked by A1 to help out with some testing for Ferrari after the race at Taupo, that gave Niall some decent track time and I’m sure it will prove to be beneficial to him.

Adam is probably one of the nicest guys I’ve ever worked with, in some respects I use the analogy of myself and Takuma (Sato) on the basis that you hear a lot about drivers before you work with them. Adam could be termed, in a non derogatory sense, as ‘damaged goods’; he’s had drives here there and everywhere which has been unfortunate for him. The name of the game in motor racing is consistency and making sure you can build a team around the driver. Adam is really a breath of fresh air; he’s young, incredibly talented and the feature race at Sepang showed how mature he can be, he’s really coming of age and if he continues as he has done so far I think he can win the championship and really kick-start his career and help him get into F1.

Q: The winner of the Sepang feature race has gone on to win the title in the first three seasons of A1GP, Ireland took the win and have been right in the thick of the championship battle all season. Who you think will be the biggest threat in the final race?

GH: Portugal and Switzerland are obviously the title rivals and our main competition for the race wins. There’s a lot of talent out there, both on track and in terms of engineering, and we just need to keep pushing hard and make sure we’re better than the rest. New Zealand, France and the Netherlands are also quick on their day but for me it comes back to consistency; if you change your drivers every weekend it’s hard to maintain that.

Q: What is your aim for Brands Hatch?

GH: Win the bloody title! It’s been a long time since I won a championship; I won two British Touring Car titles; one with Williams and one with Prodrive. I’ve been in competitive environments all my life and in essence it doesn’t matter what you’re doing as long as you’re winning. Adam has proved he can deliver pole positions, race wins and fastest laps, and he knows and enjoys driving at Brands Hatch. We’ve just got one more sprint and feature race to go and I’d like to see us doing what’s necessary to take home the championship.