Q: (Vladimir Rogovets - SB Belarus Today) My question is to everyone. Today we have Renault and a French driver but no French Grand Prix. We have Mercedes and the German drivers but this year we don’t have a German Grand Prix. We have Ferrari, Toro Rosso and Pirelli and maybe in two years we will lose the Italian Grand Prix. What do you think? Should the teams help the organisers to promote their national Grands Prix, maybe with money, maybe with publicity or management or marketing?
FT: First of all the teams support the organisers wherever we can but the main thing is, do the organisers have the money to make a Grand Prix, yes or no? France doesn’t have the money and therefore we don’t have a Grand Prix there. We must go to countries which can afford Formula One, as simple as that. If they can’t afford it, we don’t go there. I don’t care whether we race in Germany or in Italy or wherever. We have to race where the financial situation allows Formula One to go there.
Q: (Fredrik Af Petersens - Honorary) I would like to go back to the question of where we are going racing. On the calendar for next year is Azerbaijan, a new race, a country where there’s no freedom of the press, opposition (members) are arrested, people are disappeared and still we go racing there. Do you think that is correct?
FT: Absolutely correct because Formula One is sport. We go there to entertain. We do not go there for any political reasons. It’s the same issue we had a couple of years ago with Bahrain. We can’t be involved in the political topics which, in those countries or in any country, which are on the list. The main target for Formula One as a sport is to go there, to entertain the people, to bring a good show and to have hopefully a good race. If we will be put into the corner to say, OK, we should not go into a country where maybe the press freedom is not at a certain level or any other issues, then I don’t know where we go racing. Then we have problems with China, then we have problems with Russia, then maybe we have problems with Brazil, then any country, some negatives which you can bring up, we just go there, make our show, present our sport and that’s it and therefore we should go. We should not be involved in any political discussions.
Q: (Fredrik Af Petersens - Honorary) I would just like to follow up that question. What Formula One is doing is supporting a dictatorship. We just had the so-called European games in Baku a couple of weeks ago where European journalists from England and Germany were not given visas to visit the country. How would you react if any of us here was denied a visa?
FT: There must be a reason why the visa was denied. I don’t know the background. To be honest, I don’t care about this. So we go there, we race there and that’s it. It’s your problem how you get the visa.