Persberichten - F1 Team Manager of Williams Petu92 aka Voitto Ritari.

F1 Team Manager of Williams Petu92 aka Voitto Ritari.

Unfortunately, this interview took place earlier in the Season, so some time sensitive questions have lost a little bit of context, so to keep the interview relevant, I have decided to sit down with Petu92 again and discuss some of the results with the beauty of hindsight.

Q) Hi mate, Congratulations on taking on the Team Manager role at Williams in Season 21, it looks like you wasted no time in returning Williams back to their normal position of 4th after the disasters that occurred in Season 20. It looks like the team have made the right choice on their new leader. How did this come about? Was it a simple transition?

A) Hey breNdzz! You start with a hard question. Well I can’t say that I even looked at one race in the season 20, before I stood up to take role in season 21, I was a nobody - quiet small shareowner of Williams. Sure I had passion for the F1 and I tried to ask the former team manager looni how could I do my part for the team. As I never got a proper answer, I became kind of sleeping manager with a goal for F1 with my personal driver. But then after sometime I was 90% sure I would retire the game and never come back. Then I heard team chatting about the team being in danger to end up on non-Finnish hands - it was my wake-up call.

I noticed that during a time I hurt my hand seriously in real life and was more inactive our former manager looni had asked someone to take up his place and shares and no one done that so looni had placed the shares (about 42% or so) in the auctions and French and Russian were rumoured to be interested.

I was so angry to looni, even as there was a lot of time to read those messages he posted, I missed them completely. Otherwise I would have expressed my interest and gotten the place on simple transition as you asked. Now we had the situation we had to find flaws in rules and try to find mistakes in the acts of the Russian to report of and be prepared to answer if they try to report us for any actions made. Then our team manager Botsi said he had enough of this and would step aside and give me the managers place, but we couldn’t do that because we weren’t sure if all Finnish would be active on voting period. It was very hard and painful process to become Williams team manager. Hats off to Somebodystopme and Miller for finding easier solution for both to buy Audi. But was it right choice to name me for Team manager then, it was the only choice anyone had, 1 shareowners vote not for me would have meant Williams would be Russian team now.

Q) At the time of this interview Williams currently holds a 31 point advantage over Jordan for 3rd place in the F1 standings. Which should you hold this position until the end of the season will be Williams highest ever finish. Not only have you raised results, but also the budget is looking healthy and you guys have added over 45 fans in two seasons. What do you attribute to the quick turn around and gain in popularity and how much would this mean to the team and yourself if you can manage to finish in 3rd place?

A) I think we should hold the position easily. The other thing is will we? The season so far has held so much bad luck for both Williams and Jordan, it’s impossible to say which one is better. I would say they have slight edge with their drivers, but our car is very capable. Both teams know how to pull out perfect tactics to boost their result. It won’t be easy but we do all we can to make sure this is our season. Williams was always a small team of Finnish managers - we never cared too much about the fans, image, popularity - until I started, I had a passion to turn this over, make Williams still small and compact, but dynamic fan-base, most active managers as shareholders and improve image, popularity, and all aspects in the team in correct order. Most of the new fans gained is because of my choice to hire BELIA's driver Arnaud Briand - BELIA was my friend before all of this happened and he once told me that he had no plans for F1 (I didn’t have a role in a team then). ...

I decided to ask him anyway as I got the image Mihaylov was looking elsewhere for this season not to renew his contract. BELIA agreed to become our first ever French driver and man he brought some fans and voting points for the team. I am very happy to have my friend driving for us! This was always the season we aimed for - with the next one too - so I had huge expectations we would win a lot more races this season, so far, I am bit disappointed but to hold the 3rd place after the season would mean I had done something really right for the team, along with my friends, without them I am nobody. I will celebrate it with champagne for a day and then focus on getting the team to win championship. Even that will be possible with top speed car.

Q) Since this interview had taken place, Williams have secured the above mentioned 3rd place in the Constructors Title, giving Williams their best finish to a season. Although they had a nice buffer leading into the final couple of races, no one could’ve predicted that going into the final race they would hold only a 1 point advantage over Jordan. Did you risk it for the biscuit or did you take a conservative approach? Talk us through your thoughts and approach to the final race, and also on how it feels to deliver Williams best ever finish in just your second season as Team Manager.

A) Yes, I was no doubt a little nervous before the start of the last race. I think the one point was still a considerable advantage for the final race as neither of the teams were too perfect in this GP before, and my first thoughts exactly in words were that we must go little more conservative way through this race and let other teams make mistakes as there were lot on the line for many teams meaning they would most likely push so much harder. I thought Jordan would also drive with bigger risks and aggression but not sure if they intended to try bit more cautious tactics too, so I don’t speculate about that afterwards too much.

It’s a relief that we finally could step up a level at least briefly this season, but the season left so much to improve in results of the drivers in some races. It was seldom that both drivers delivered because of errors in tactics and as a bigger factor there was lot of bad luck. I don’t take the credit for this achievement, drivers did most job and our former manager botsi was involved a bit building this car as I adopted his strategy to build car and only made some minor changes to that on budgets and time taken per each project. But I look to build for the future and I am so eager to show what kind of car I can build in the future for the team that I supported since day one of my personal managerial career!

Q) Not surprisingly you guys have locked in the same driver line-up for Season 23, looks like you guys have found a gem in A. Briand taking Williams only win so far, this season. Although the team is sitting well in the standings, there has been some disappointment along the way this season with results not going the way they probably should've. Do Williams have higher expectations next season and are we going to see a more balanced Williams car in the future or is the plan to continue with the targeting of high speed circuits?

A) Yes, we decided very early to build for the future, that also meant the driver selections. I consider both still rookies even if Allas had one season more than Briand. They are still rough diamonds, but hey they are diamonds anyway.

What I mean is I expect them both to get out of the amateur mistakes in the first couple of seasons and be perfect then. Briand took the victory same like Allas did last season, by surprise, and that is fantastic. He is a team player so no big celebrations were after that before we moved on for the next race.

For me our "trio" is very dynamic and open and we build strategies with constructive conversation, I give my thoughts to their aid and they decide the strategy freely themselves.

As for my part, I have lot to learn about F1 tactics still. I have perfect advisor however, so I hope I learn very quickly like I did the team leaders part.
It was no point in changing the focus out of top speed car, not yet anyway. There has not ever been perfect top-speed car, Williams too is just "first prototype" of what the potential is.

Sure, no one outside of Williams probably don’t believe me in this but I believe we can make the car work quite well in 80% of circuits and get decent aero -parts even with top-speed focus.
Still it’s not a secret that top speed tracks are our main focus.

Q) You have established yourself as a very capable F1 team manager but lets discuss your personal career. Your current driver Voitto Ritari is currently 25 years old, placed 139th in the world and 9th in Finland. You've had some really good series finishes along the way, 3rd in F3 Arabic in S17 the most notable. You've then spent quite a few seasons in Indy with a best finish of 7th. For this season you've switched over to V8 Supercars and at the time of this interview you sit 6th in the championship. What does the near future hold for Ritari?

A) Well, I never would've taken Arabic F3 series if I had the money to join Indy jr earlier. But I was still glad to end that season in top 3 but it was never too big of a challenge for me as a manager.

My Indy seasons (I had four, two of the first in US series, and two of the last in the International series) were kind of two sided seasons in lot of ways.
First season was difficult challenge for my very young driver but I managed to end top10 which was my goal then. 2nd season Ritari had better results (even few top3 results) but he also had lot of trouble, particularly in oval tracks that the US series mostly has.
3rd season in Indy jr. was the first in the International series so again I had zero setups to use for my advantage, but I managed to have better average results and lot less DNFs so I ended up 7th. The 2nd season was meant to be my breakthrough season to end the season with top3 finish - But boy I was wrong!

In V8 series I did my homework and noticed that the endurance races are very important and would probably determine the difference between top5 drivers and top 10 ones. So, I practised my driver the whole season for them, based on the forecasts for endurances. Those went well for me and Ritari has a high chance still to finish within top5 - ending that certainly wouldn’t be bad for a rookie.

So, I am pretty sure I will be satisfied on Ritaris season now and continue here in the next one too, probably won’t be looking elsewhere anytime soon.
-Also I hope I get more A1 GP chances for Ritari along the way. Ritari's career highlight was top30 ending in A1 GP in season18 without being every week regular in Finnish setup. Ritari made his A1 GP debut in seniors in age of 24 finishing 12th and 9th in his first races against the likes of Grosjean jr, Berger, Zatacka, Kalinin and Villanova, so I am extremely happy to have enough trust to earn more chances from Finnish A1 GP team manager!

Q) You currently sit 25th in the world in the ultra-competitive U25 age bracket, was increasing your rating a major factor in your switch from Indy to V8 Supercars? Or were you simply looking for a new challenge?

A) Well, I was struggling the decision after disaster season in Indy jr International series where I think Ritari made new Indy jr. DNF record. I considered long time to go in lower series (like ETCS & F2) to boost my confidence with easy top3 finish, but I decided to take a bigger risk to leap in to V8 series, of which I didn’t know anything about in advance, but I tried to do my homework on the previous seasons quickly to make immediate impact in the series that I saw had more races than anywhere here so I was eager to take the risk and new challenge. Also, what affected in the decision was the gigantic drop in my rating because of that disastrous season in Indy jr, so yes, I wanted my rating up again.

Q) Being an F1 team manager, do you have ambitions for Ritari and yourself to become an owner/driver outfit in F1? And if not, would you consider racing for another team if you feel the driver is ready?

A) Yes, I am F1 team manager but I try my best to keep Ritaris career separate from that the best I can - I would love to see Ritari drive in F1 someday if he will be worthy. It’s not the biggest secret I plan to place Ritari in the Williams wheel one day but will I necessarily drive my whole F1 personal career in there?

Answer is yes and no, no because I think any team will not offer Ritari a seat because I could potentially ruin their seasons. But If I would be given chance in any team I would be willing to negotiate contract with about anyone if I think it will benefit my personal career - and if I agreed to some team I would drive my best, even against my own team. Would be great to drive my first and/or last F1 season in different team.

Q) If you had to interview yourself, what would be one question you would ask yourself? Is there a story to tell that no-one has touched on yet?

A) Well, most of the readers don’t know my background at all so there would be so many questions. I would probably ask that were I ready to take team managers duty in Williams when the opportunity came without a warning. - And to answer that, I had a belief on myself but not a lot of knowledge about the job. Some could even say I had zero information about TM's duties and routines. I guess I could even said I used little white lies to convince people that I got this, but on my quest to stabilize things and continue development, it was halfway there to have nations trust on my support. Now I think everyone agrees with me when I say the team is going to the right direction, so at least I didn’t end up embarrassing myself. I am so grateful for my team mates of all they done for Williams and me.