Q&A: Rocky Rocquelin, race engineer for Junqueira.

Behind every successful driver is a successful team. Guillaume 'Rocky' Rocquelin, chief engineer for the #6 Newman Haas Lola driven by Bruno Junqueira, answered questions on the series and the team with just two races left in the 2004 Champ Car World Series season.

Q:
With two races to go in the 2004 Bridgestone Presents the Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford season, what are the plans in order to secure the championship for your driver?

A:
For both drivers, more than finishing well, it is mostly a question of finishing the last two races to try to secure the championship. Bruno can't really win the championship unless Sebastien does not finish a race [Or has enough of a problem in a race to finish badly - outside the top twelve]. Conversely, Bruno's chances would be over as soon as he drops out of the top ten. So unfortunately, the biggest thing we can do is make sure that Bruno is running well at the finish, almost regardless of what Sebastien is doing. Reliability and a conservative race are what we are looking for. Sorry.

Maybe for the PacifiCare team there is the added motivation to try to win one of those two races - even if that is not enough for the championship - just to prove that we finished strong and fought till the end, something that the McDonald's team doesn't have to prove.

Q:
How would you characterise the season to date in terms of your specific team as well as the field in general? What were the biggest surprises?

A:
It is difficult to judge the other teams from the outside. They might have had problems that hurt their performance which aren't obvious to us. I think RuSport have done an extremely good job. There was no doubt that AJ [Allmendinger] was a very good driver from his Atlantic days and that Carl Russo had the drive to do what it takes to bring his team to the top, so eventually we knew the team would be a player. However, I thought that the addition of Michel Jourdain at the last minute would be more a distraction than an asset, at least to start with and logically there would have been teething problems in the team to find their marks. It is a credit to them that they got going so quickly and are now a front row contender at the last few races. How quickly they got there was for me the biggest surprise.

Forsythe, for us, is still the #1 force to reckon with and Rodolfo Lavin has proven that, on occasion, he could be running up front which obviously for us is a problem - one more car we have to be competing against. They seemed to have suffered from reliability problems and incidents more than they did last year, which overall, explains their positions on the table. But they are a threat at every event.

I expected Herdez to be more consistent than they have been so far.

As for NHR, it seems the biggest advantage we have is getting the basics right. The car is usually pretty close when it rolls off the truck, maybe not always fastest, but close, then we don't take unrealistic risks at the race track. We keep a good dialogue with the two drivers to make sure we can progress together. After that, it is up to the drivers, and they certainly know how to get the job done.

We got some criticism at the beginning of the season with the new race rules for being very conservative. Paul Tracy took advantage of this at Long Beach but in the big picture it seems that our general approach has been correct.

I hoped of course that we would be challenging for the championship, but currently running one-two is a surprise. It seems more of a result of our consistency and other team's problems than us making a big step in performance. However (apart from Milwaukee) it seems as though we have very few 'weak' events, as opposed to last year, so clearly we have made some improvements too.

Q:
What do you feel were some of the biggest factors this season? (new points system, Push to Pass button, option tyre, etc.)

A:
The biggest factor this season is the points system. It puts the emphasis on finishing the race rather than finishing in the top three. Dropping out of a race is a catastrophe. It has a big influence on how we approach the race and how aggressive the driver ultimately is.

Q:
What do you feel were some of the strengths the team had this season?

A:
The main strength of the team this season, especially compared with the opposition are: same drivers and crews, no third car [or last minute addition], a good set-up database from the previous year, two competitive drivers who still work together and help bring the car forward, but also the support of Carl and our sponsors, PacifiCare and McDonald's who provide us with the tools necessary to get to the next step. And we keep on pushing. Again, nothing fancy, just having the basics right.

Q:
How could you describe the synergy within your respective crews this season as well as the team in general?

A:
Obviously, we had a bit of tidying up to do after the Elkhart Lake and Denver incidents. The drivers are still pretty touchy about the subject, but at least they do realise that they need each other to do well and ultimately what decides the championship is more consistency than speed, so they are better off working with their teammate to make sure the car always performs pretty well, rather than work on their own.

So they do respect each other's ability and work together when they are out of their cars. Thankfully, the on-track rivalry never got to the crews. The crews help each other and the goal is to have a NHR car win the championship.

Q:
Given the odd happenings during the Australian race in the past (rain, hail, etc.) what type of event do you think it will be? What factors will you be concerned with as the race progresses, if any. Who do you think the main competition will come from and why?

A:
I think that for once we will have a dry race in Australia - and anyway, there is no sun dance that I know of that would make a difference, so we'll see when we get there. The opposition will be the usual suspects, but again, we are our own worst enemy. For the championship, we need to finish quite well, but not necessarily win. So the concerns are reliability and/or a stupid accident that would prevent us from finishing the race. Clearly if it rains, the odds are getting worse against a safe finish.