Some would argue that is a bad thing as they say ‘Well you’ve only won in a
Ferrari, can you win in a Porsche or drive a Lotus’ but I don’t believe that to be true. Continuity to me has been absolutely critical as a huge part of what you are learning is the team and the environment, which includes things like your engineers and other drivers. I think the comfort of knowing those guys for four years and knowing their strengths and weaknesses and vice versa, was better than turning up for a new season with a different team and different car as a lot of people do. I now feel that I could go and get in another car and be on the pace reasonably quickly whereas two years ago I wouldn’t have believed I could do that, so it’s made a huge difference.
Q:
In the grand scheme of things, you don’t have a lot of experience of GT racing and have only been doing it for a couple of years, but come the summer of 2006, there you were at La Sarthe in the Ferrari in the Le Mans 24 Hours. It’s a dream for any driver, how did it feel being there at the biggest sportscar race of them all?
Chris Niarchos:
I think the fact that the whole thing came together about a week and half before the event helped me as otherwise I would have panicked if I’d had months to think about all the issues involved with Le Mans! I got a call on the Tuesday before pre-testing when Nathan [Kinch] had to pull out and I’d said to myself that I’d do the Spa 24 Hours to get some night time experience before doing Le Mans in 2007. It worked out as being the dream from heaven.
The first time I got there I was as nervous as hell. The first lap I did in the dark was at Le Mans, the first lap I did in the dark when it was raining was at Le Mans and it’s a pretty intimidating place to try and work out what you are doing with all the other cars that are there. The irony for me is that I’d never even been as a spectator and people were always telling me I had to see it and it was ten times bigger than I thought it would be, both in terms of driving and even just being there seeing what people were doing. It was an amazing, amazing experience.
Q:
You said it was good not to know you were doing Le Mans so you didn’t panic, but in a way did it make it more difficult to suddenly have to prepare for such a big race in such a short space of time?
Chris Niarchos:
No, I’m convinced it was the opposite. I’m one of these people who, if I think about something for too long, the harder I make it. You think of all the things that could do right and all the things that could go wrong and Andrew [Kirkaldy] and Tim were both great and said ‘this is just a big race at a big circuit. It’s still corners, you still have to use the brakes so just do what you normally do and the other cars will make themselves seen’. I have a good awareness in a race car anyway and that isn’t something that I ever felt was a weakness, so that part was probably the most intimidating, seeing the speed differential between the cars.
