Permain: Both cars must be in the qualifying final.

      Alan Permain was appointed head of Racing Bulls just over two months ago, and the team's drivers have scored points at all four rounds held during that time. According to him, to remain at that level they need to operate perfectly on every day of the weekend, avoiding mistakes like those the team from Faenza made during qualifying in Monza.

      Question: At the Italian Grand Prix in Monza your car performed well. How confident are you of a good result at the Baku circuit?

      Alan Permain: The team is quite confident. At the three rounds before Monza we managed to get both cars into the final qualifying session. Of course, the Italian track requires a special approach to setup and choice of downforce level, but there we didn’t do the best job on Saturday. Today we started the weekend normally and are determined to accomplish the task ahead of us: tomorrow both cars should be in the final session.

      Question: You said you didn’t do the best job on Saturday in Italy. Does that mean you plan to make some changes to your approach to qualifying?

      Alan Permain: After every weekend I ask myself: what would I do if I had to return to that circuit? I think, if we were racing at Monza again next weekend, we would run qualifying differently, that’s for sure. We would have structured the program for the first session differently, but I believe it’s somewhat easier to plan qualifying work on the Baku circuit.

      It’s in some ways similar to Monaco, only the level of downforce here is lower, and it’s also very important to make the practice sessions as effective as possible. There’s no doubt that in the first part of qualifying there won’t be two separate single-lap attempts. Here you will need to do several laps and use several sets of tyres. I think the nature of the circuit itself lends itself to building a different qualifying plan.

      Question: The season of rumours is in full swing, and there’s a lot of talk about the possible Red Bull lineup. To start, tell us: what are Isack Hadjar’s strengths?

      Alan Permain: First and foremost, his primary quality is that he’s an incredibly quick driver—if he weren’t, the other strengths would not matter so much. He has speed, and we see that. But what I particularly like about him is that he knows how to listen and is willing to accept advice and help.

      He doesn’t insist on doing everything his own way. Isack is ready to heed others’ advice, use it and learn at the same time. Sometimes we see that he can be overly self-critical, although I think he’s trying to work on himself. But when talking about his strengths, the main thing is that he knows how to learn.

      Question: Do you think he’s ready to move to Red Bull Racing?

      Alan Permain: I think it’s hard to answer that question at this time of year. Fortunately, we don’t need to make that decision right now. I believe we’ve already said that such a decision will be made later, closer to the end of the season.

      I think the race crew must help him achieve the perfect result. He already has a car in which he can perform well, but every weekend he must strive for perfection. And when everything comes together—when he has a fast car, when it suits a particular circuit, and Isack manages to put it all together—we can achieve excellent results.

      Question: And what is required of Liam Lawson to stay with the team next year?

      Alan Permain: I think the same as what’s required of Isack—and the same thing everyone else in the championship is trying to do: work perfectly on race weekends. There won’t be any more technical novelties—I highly doubt anyone intends to continue introducing them. In general, the cars will remain as they are now.

      So the task for Lawson and his engineers—supported by the specialists working at the bases in the UK and in Faenza, Italy—is to prepare the car as well as possible, to try to get as close to ideal setups. And he must deliver strong results.

      Question: There’s a lot of talk that during qualifying teams play games on the pit lane, using certain tricks—does that create any difficulties for you? For example, there are rumours that teams deliberately start and stop their car engines, trying to outwit each other when choosing the moment to go out on track…

      Alan Permain: Probably all of that is somewhat exaggerated. Certainly, our team is fully focused on completing the tasks we have in qualifying, on achieving the best possible result.

      To be fair, one must emphasize that, given the rules that govern teams’ actions on the pit lane, these are by no means simple tasks. Especially if your garages are at the far end of the pit lane—which is our case. You need to get out very quickly, particularly at restarts, and you really do see teams starting the engines of their cars, even though the rules state: you cannot leave the garage onto the pit lane until the moment of the restart.

      This means teams are trying to anticipate that moment, although I don’t think it’s such a big problem…