The owner of HRT tells it like it is...

How tough have the past few months been for you?

They've probably been the toughest that we've had, certainly in the last six or seven years. The period at the end of the Gibson Motorsport thing was pretty harsh, given the end of the cigarette legislation and stuff. This has been a three month period where we didn't know what was going to happen and how it was going to pan out.

What about you personally? It must have thrown a few things up for you, especially when you looked back at Gibson thinking, 'can my career disappear in one go here?'.

I wasn't thinking that, I have a five year driving agreement with Holden and they were very quick to commit that it was solid. So whatever was going to happen, that aspect of it was pretty much OK. But I wasn't going to be happy to drive for an unknown, or potentially uncompetitive operator, so it was personally pretty challenging.

Do you think it's had much impact on you in terms of your driving?

I don't know how much it has affected me, it's not a quantifiable thing, but at the same time you'd be foolish to think that there hasn't been some effect. It's a better situation than I thought speed-wise, we've been going OK, but there's no doubt I've made too many mistakes and it's been pretty miserable.

Do you think Holden had to step in and buy the teams when they did earlier this year?

Absolutely they did! If someone other than Holden had bought it from the receiver, who knows what would have happened. So based on Holden doing that, they did nothing wrong, they basically went and secured their premier race team and that was quite a glowing endorsement of what motorsport does for them.

The biggest sticking point has been the six car scenario - do you think the previous people were trying to fudge that a little bit?

Not really, that's a situation where they were in constant negotiation with the category managers to sort out how that was going to be and how that may pan out given that we were running five cars last year. So I think there were mechanisms in place to incorporate Team Brock somehow.

For the past few years, you guys in particular at HRT spent a lot of time telling us that the Ford teams were making too many mistakes and that there was no problem with the car. Do you think that criticism has helped fine-tune Stone Brothers into what they are today?

They're going pretty well, there's no doubt. I would have said that if the Ford teams were just sitting around listening to our criticism, they probably should have been doing other stuff. Stone Brothers were very competitive last year, and this is a team that won Bathurst in 1998 with Bright and Steve... so they've been a competitive Ford outfit for many years. They've had a long history in the sport and at the moment they're at the peak of their game, they're going very well.

There's a bit of talk that there's a potential parity adjustment in favour of the BA Falcon. Do you think that people can turn around now and say that they're still not performing?

Oh, l don't think there's a parity adjustment for the BA Falcon, that's just chat up and down pitlane. It's more to do with the other Ford teams not being anywhere near Stone Brothers. There's one really good Ford, there's another one that's not too far away and there are a heap that are miles away.

What about the VY, do you think you guys under- estimated the impact it was going to have?

Absolutely, it is the biggest single engineering project we've had in terms of the front suspension and aero kit and now a new engine and how that will come into play. It has been very demanding and we've probably never worked so hard.

Is it just bad timing that the whole drama of the ownership came up with the new car - is that one of the reasons we've seen a lot of inconsistencies from HRT this year?

It's not just those two things, I think you've got to take it all into perspective. You wheel a brand new car out and it's been on the front row of the grid at every race meeting other than Winton, so speed wise, it's been very impressive. The second part is that if you just had one item, if it was just Project Blueprint, you could argue that it was always going to affect VY. But then you add the ownership issue, the category compliance stuff with test logs and then with the TWR downstream effect of how that panned out at the start of the year... there's five pretty significant things that have definitely impacted on our performance.

Last year you were saying that people kept snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. How many times do you think you've done that this year?

Andrew, you're being a smart arse. Yeah, and I have... but...

But not just you, the team as a whole really?

Well, yeah...

In past years the cars have been just so reliable, and you're not seeing that this year are you?

I think it's been the benchmark team in terms of reliability and also the benchmark team in terms of pit strategy. A couple of times this year we haven't performed well enough as a total package, but in terms of my personal stuff, for sure. Speed in pitlane at Philip Island cost me a win, and the gear at Darwin probably cost me the win, and in Perth, we were either going to finish first or second when Rodney Forbes backed into us. Instead of finishing third at Winton, we finished sixth after we had a run at the inside of Tander. So there's four reasonable results lost in that phase. However, at Eastern Creek we were cutting wheels in half and then an engine failure at Queensland - a couple of rounds that have knocked our championship around.

Now your ambition obviously is still burning to win that sixth title, do you think that's a near prospect or have we got a couple of years struggling with the VY to come?

No, I think when you look at the car this year as a hybrid VX to VY - it's a two-and-a-half year old car, but it's the only car that's been genuinely fast enough to challenge Ambrose. So when you take all that into context, I think we've got lots of good things to look forward to. Overall we're in a good position to finish this year strongly, but also to make sure we're in a strong position for the start of 2004. In terms of a sixth one, each championship I'd like to win, I'd like to win another one for sure, but given that we're not in the best position this year, you've got to accept that we've got to plan and get organised for 2004.

Is it championships or individual race wins which motivate you personally?

Everyone likes to win races, but championships are the thing that are very hard to win and I think in this modern era to win the championship is far and away harder than winning Bathurst. You know, it's a focus that I've always had and will always be there.

So a situation like this year when we're about the middle of the season and you've got a very slim chance of winning the championship, would you take a lot of satisfaction out of the season if you can put 2 or 3 wins together out of the next 6?

It probably gives us an opportunity to be a bit more flamboyant about the next few races and specifically a couple of big races in town, as in Sandown 500 and Bathurst. And who knows in this crazy game, there's going to be other blokes with non-finishes if you take the three races as Sandown, Bathurst and Indy Car with a chance of drama... who knows what will go on with those events? So you don't know at the end of the day what actually happens in terms of the championship structure and dropping your worst round and stuff. But the way it is right now, I've got to accept that we're certainly not in the best position and we probably need some fairytale luck for the final part to get the Championship.

I had a lot of money on you at the start of the year to finish on the podium seven times, and you've only done it once. Are you going to get there and save me?

[laughter] Oh mate, how much money did you have on it?

$100.

[laughter] Well, I reckon we'll have a bit more riding on it than a couple of hundred dollars. I'm as enthusiastic as you...

Good, well you'd better do that for me because I hate paying out money.