After a few tough seasons with the Vauxhall Monaro, Matt Griffin returns to his spiritual home – a Porsche – for the 2007 British GT Championship season. In his first exclusive Crash.net column, he looks to the season ahead.
I’m looking forward to the coming season so much, more so than I have been looking forward to any season – certainly over the last few years. The change to GT3 has been the right step for the championship and all you have to do is look at the grid of cars that there is out there. I think it is going to be mega exciting year and the lap times are so close – the top ten are split by something like half a second. SRO – the series promoters - have done a really good job turning the series to GT3 and I have definitely made the right decision in coming to RPM to drive a Porsche 997.
The car itself is fantastic and I have a strong affinity with Porsche anyway, having used one to win the Cup title in 2003. The 997 is a brilliant car and I can’t really fault it. It isn’t going to be the fastest car on some of the circuits that we go to, but over the whole season it will be the most consistent. It is great fun to drive with lots of oversteer! I have to say that there is nothing like driving a Porsche and while there were pieces of my life with the Monaro that were enjoyable, there is nothing to compare to driving a Porsche for me. I think they make the best racing cars and it suits my driving style. I guess that probably explains why I like driving them so much!
This season I’ll be driving with Peter Bamford and we have a great relationship. He is very inexperienced from the point of view that he did his first race in July 2006 but his improvement has been astounding. He has come within two seconds of me and I’ve been bang on the pace. In that short time, to get that close to the pace in a championship so tough, is a real credit to him. I think he will keep getting better and better and by the end of the season I think podiums are a distinct possibility and with luck on our side we could even go further.
