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Ina Broeman: On behalf of Marlboro Team Penske, I would like to welcome you
all. We are all very excited about the 1999 season kicking off with the
Marlboro Grand Prix of Miami.
It is my great pleasure to introduce a gentleman that needs no introduction,
our dear friend and partner, Roger Penske.
Roger Penske:
Thank you. I welcome everybody to Florida. It is nice to
come down here from Detroit and most of you have been up there for the auto
show know that we had three or four feet of snow, so, this is a great
opportunity to be here.
I think that as you are all here you should take a look at what is taking
place here on the track. As you know, we are adding additional seats here at
Homestead Miami and I think it is going to be a world class facility; not only
for the race here in the spring but also as we go into the fall.
Just to bring everyone up-to-date on our plans in 1999, we will be running
one car. I think I read it 100 times in the newspaper so that probably is not
new news. We made the decision in conjunction with Philip Morris at the end
of last season that we would focus on one car in 1999. Andre and I had a long
discussion about his career, what he might do following the 1998 season. He
and I talked about business opportunities in Brazil and I think that he will
be able to fill you in on some of the things we are hoping to do as we go
forward.
It was an easy decision for Team Penske. Certainly we had a long-term
contract with Al and we were not happy with our performance in 1998. You
folks obviously have graded us -- probably our unreliability was the biggest
issue. We had some great testing during the preseason, following at the end
of '98 season also going into 1999. Certainly as we see the reliability of
the car, we have run competitive times with other teams during the preseason.
The racing season will tell a little story.
We will continue with Mercedes-Benz power, we have our own chassis, and we
are going to be with the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. We have long
relationships in business with a number of companies and we felt the loyalty;
we want to stay in that direction. A lot of people have told us what our
problems are, it's your car or your tires or it's your engine. We think it is
execution and that is one thing we are going to try to prove in 1999 that we
do have a good package. We have all the opportunities, all the changes, that
if you see the car and see what we are going to do, we are going to stay
consistent with the people that helped us get to where we are today.
We are looking forward to a great season based on results we achieved during
the testing. As you know the testing rules have changed so it has been
limited testing at least as we go forward into this part of the season. So
we need to be sure that we are precise in the number of tests. We try to have
the equipment ready to test and certainly we are here with two of our cars -
if I go back a year ago and think about where we were with reliability, new
gearbox, new engine, and new car. We made a big step. Obviously the
competition has stepped up and we need to be sure that we can be competitive
throughout the season.
We are excited to be back with Phillip Morris. I know there is a lot of
speculation concerning tobacco legislation. Does that have anything to do
with the change? The answer is no. Philip Morris understands what the
legislation means to the company. They are a first-class, world-class
company, quite honestly, and we will leave it to them to follow the mandate to
make it better for all people in the marketplace. I think the one-car effort
will be good for us. It gives us a chance to refocus our organization and we
are going to go forward in 1999.
Let me turn it over to Al to give you a little idea what he has done in
testing at least during the early part of the season, here from the preseason
test perspective and what his thoughts are to go forward.
Al Unser Jr.:
Thank you, Roger. I want to welcome everybody to Homestead.
It is a beautiful facility. I think every year it gets better and better.
And this year again, with the addition of the new seats and all that, it is a
world-class facility like Roger was saying. This series has been actually
really, really good. We unloaded the car at Seabring, our very first test,
and it came off the trailer very, very fast. We didn't have any problems with
our gearbox; didn't have any problem with our engine. We just kept running
all day and that is the way pretty much my testing has been. We have put over
1200 miles so far on this car and we got it right around Christmastime, so you
can see that we have been putting some miles in. At whatever racetrack I go
to, we have been the guys doing most of the running all day long. So I really
am impressed with the new car. We have helped it quite a bit. John Travis
spent some time in the wind tunnel. The new car definitely has more grip to
it. And what we need to do now is just get the balance in the car correctly
and we will be off and running.
Again, like Roger was saying, we did want to stick with the people that got
us here and that is exactly what we are doing. We are working very hard with
Goodyear. Goodyear is working very hard with us and so far everything is
going the way that we would like it.
Mercedes again is right there with us. We had some issues last year with the
key word being drivability and they have done a great job in addressing that
on all of our work forces. The engine pulls from the bottom up very, very
well. So I am very anxious to get the season underway and get it going. And
I am very proud to still be with Marlboro Team Penske and we have definitely
got the goals in front of us that we are definitely going to try to meet.
Roger Penske:
Andre, you want to talk about what we have discussed from a
business perspective and just your thoughts on motor racing where you are
going. It would be a good idea to talk openly here so there is not a lot of
rumors about what we might have talked about. I think we are going to get in
deeper together.
Andre Ribeiro:
First of all, I think this is a very important moment of my
life. I have been discussing with Roger Penske especially about our future
and we felt that this is a big moment to get deeper into it. After a lot of
discussions and of plans, I have decided to move ahead, move forward on those
business plans and opportunities in Brazil. Of course you can't do those
things at the same time. I felt that this was a special opportunity to move
forward on the business side and, of course, you can race at the same time.
For me it is tough decision, but I have Roger as an example, and at sometime
in his career he had to decide and he made the right decision. I hope I can
be strong and determined enough to do the same.
It is an honor to be part of a family like this. I feel very proud to have
achieved so many results in racing; especially in all those years in U.S..
Starting with Tasman Motorsports and ending with Penske is quite achievement
for a racing driver. All the races that I won especially in Brazil, in the
Marlboro 500 are going to be something that I will never forget. But again I
think it is a new time of my life. It is a unique opportunity and of course
the success will be the same.
Roger Penske:
Let us open it up for some questions for any of us.
Question: Could you just describe the type of business that you are getting
involved in and the name?
Andre Ribeiro:
Yes, we are looking at the retail car market in Brazil. We
have been talking with a lot of original equipment manufacturers based there.
There are lot of opportunities there and we are looking forward in this
direction.
Roger Penske: What really has taken place, as you know, we have built a
factory in Curitiba where we are building automotive diesel engines and we
have determined that the market today would welcome a retail, maybe a North
American retail automotive operation. So we have been talking with most of
the franchisors in Brazil and the plan is to setup a retail auto group where
we will go out and have multiple franchise operations in Brazil.
We think it is the perfect time now for us to go over and make investments as
you see the automotive companies making investments today in Asian Pacific.
The combination of Andre and his visibility to partner with us, knowing the
local customs, having contacts with people there, and our ability and
experience in the retail automotive side, I think it is a perfect combination.
Question: What is your view -- just to be clear you are telling us that you are in
here as a driver and hanging up your helmet, you are going to move onto other
things -- first of all, is that so and if so what race involvement would it
be?
Andre Ribeiro: I am giving myself 100% on this direction, on the business
direction. I can't say about the future, but I am saying now my plan now is
to be involved 100% with all my determination on the business side. Of
course, being involved with Penske, you will have to think motor sports also
on your mind; not only on the competitive way also on the business side, but
also on how much can we expect from the racetrack. So I hope I can continue
being involved, especially helping CART in Brazil, being so popular as it is,
but also as much as I can help the Team Penske, I will be always available.
Question: Roger, last year the talk was about it being very difficult for Penske to
develop its car - the Penske chassis. How can a race team operate efficiently
with one car and talk about development.
Roger Penske: There is no question, with a limited testing schedule, it
makes it even more difficult, but we have a derivative car this year, the
PC27B. I think there is a carryover. We saw our car being competitive on
certain tracks even on the road tracks at Mid-Ohio, we saw it be very
competitive in Motegi, but we continue, if you look at our finishing record,
five or six gearbox problems, really brought us down. I think the issue now
is we have had a lot more time to develop to where we are. If you look at
Reynard's success and swift they have had a derivative strategy. We are going
to have to make a decision obviously as we go forward in our company, can we
compete with one or two cars and be able to have the data available to us that
we need in order to be competitive in the overall season. We looked at all
the options of going in different directions. John is sitting on my left. We
have had long discussions prior to the beginning of the year with what was the
best thing for the team. We evaluated new cars. We were able to go down to
Seabring and look at times that very good teams that run down there and we
have made some big steps. Based on that - and that was testing this was not a
lot of people sitting in a room feeling good. This was based on specific
facts. We saw the competitiveness of the car. So we have decided -- Al did
this -- it was not a decision that I made by myself. It was basically a team
decision. I guess the answer to your question we should wait five or six
races into the season to see if we have been able to meet the expectations
that we need.
Question: I wondered if you could talk a little bit about the process involved in
running one car and the restructuring.
Roger Penske:
Let me first start at Penske cars. We went through a process
where we determined we would not be building 6 or 7 cars, so we had probably
about 90 people there sometime mid-season last year. We reduced that in half,
but obviously we kept the technical side. That was a normal attrition.
People had opportunities to go to other teams. We gave them notice. In fact,
we evaluated everyone, the way you have to do that in Europe, it is a little
different than in this country. We had to evaluate our people over there, it
went quite well, and put our team together and went forward.
As far as the U.S. is concerned, we have other opportunities. Chuck Sprague
has moved over working on a project that we have that we are not going to
discuss today. We have, as you know, lots of different opportunities that we
can utilize these tracks with what I call off-race racing, opportunities, so
Chuck is heading that up. It was natural because he was the guy with most
seniority within the team. He and Clive Howell split up the management work
and that is how we are going to operate during 1999.
Question: Talk about the future of Marlboro.
Roger Penske: We have a contract with Marlboro as we do other contracts with
options going forward. We have been with the company for a long time. I
would say that this year is just as strong as it has ever been. All we need
is one car rather than two.
Question: I haven't seen the car yet, but are there major changes?
Roger Penske: If you want to talk about the things that changed, John Travis
can answer that.
John Travis: Like Roger said, the car is really an evolution of last year's
car. Since we don't have a production car; we have consistently developed the
car over last season. Really we just continued through the winter, some of
the changes that were made during the winter are major arrow changes, pins,
like that, that we had to reshed the bottom of the car aerodynamically. We
have lengthened the car, but that was, as you know, for engine installation.
We have made some fundamental changes as far as the mechanical side is
concerned and really what we are seeing is more of an evolution. So there is
a lot of small changes, but the basic philosophy has just been carried over.
Reliability, that is one of our key areas. We had a lot of trouble last year
with the gearbox. It was a new concept. So we really tried to concentrate on
reliability because reliability now and what we are going to do now is
concentrate on the performance of the car.
Question: Obviously it is a one-car team this year - it may be a bit early to be
talking about the year 2000 - but I mean, talk about going back to the two-car
season in the future.
Roger Penske: There are a number of people who have contacted us, looking at
other series, and we bring someone else on, you know, new driver, in the
series. We have seen some of the other teams do quite well. We have got to
look at that to see if we have got opportunity. I think that is going to
happen maybe as we get into the first quarter. Al and I have talked about it.
But right now we need to execute the first half of the season, but obviously,
we are going to be looking ahead with additional driving capability.
Question: Going to Indy next year you think?
Transcript provided by Team Penske
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