The news is out! I can finally talk about the Aston Martin programme - and my involvement in it.
In truth, I have had a deal in place for some time, but I was unable to tell anyone what was happening until all the drivers were selected. It is sometimes hard to keep your mouth shut as the excitement is flowing inside of you!
Of course, I am very happy to be part of the Aston Martin/Prodrive Racing team this year. It will be a really exciting challenge to help bring the winning feeling back to Aston Martin. This year will be a development year to help get the cars competitive until the customers take them for 2006, but we will do selected races this year, with full programmes in 2006.
We have just come back from testing at Sebring, where the DBR9's first race will take place in the middle of March. Sebring is the bumpiest track around, so it is the ideal place for us to test the durability and speed of the car. The six drivers announced for the programme all tested the car and, with Darren Turner, Peter Kox, Pedro Lamy, Tomas Enge, Stephane Ortelli and myself involved, I am certain that we have a talented line-up that should really push the programme along.
The test went well, as we did over twelve hours of running - the same number as we will have to cover to get to the end of the opening round of the American Le Mans Series next month. The car was fast after we did made some set-up changes to cater for the bumpy track, and we got it to a good starting point from which to work in the future. We also found some things on the car that needed changing. There was nothing major to worry about but, as this was the first test at this type of track, some things were highlighted.
We didn't spend a lot of time getting the set-up 'just right', as we just wanted a car that was easy to drive for long-distance running. This we achieved and we got some good data for the Michelin guys to work from.
