Q&A: Rick Kerry – EXCLUSIVE.

Tuesday, 27th February 2007

LPG and bio-ethanol have both been embraced by the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship in recent seasons and now diesel is set to be added to the list of alternative fuels raced in the series after Rick Kerry confirmed that he will use diesel for his BTCC debut.

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Rick Kerry:
I think it will be a bit different. I also have to go from right hand drive to left hand drive as well as going from a pretty much standard M3 that I raced before to this. I’m going to have a wide power band range but it will be down at the bottom rather than at the other end of the scale like it would be with a petrol engine. I think there will be parts of the circuit where I’ll be quicker and there will be parts of the circuit where the petrol engines will be quicker.

Q:
You said last time how excited you were about racing in the BTCC. Does the fact that you have such an interesting programme that will get a lot of attention from the media and from the fans raise the level of excitement that you are feeling going into the season?

Rick Kerry:
I still can’t believe it is going to be true and I guess I’ll believe it when the lights go out for the first time. It is still hard to get my head round as I never set out to be a British Touring Car driver. I think the diesel will create a lot of interest, it is difficult to get established in a series without having huge financial backing and we have to get out there and try and create something different for sponsors and we think that the diesel will help that.

Q:
You said the car is about 70 per cent there in terms of build, so when do you hope to hit the track? Is there a schedule in place?

Rick Kerry:
We are waiting for some parts that should arrive here from Munich on Tuesday [today]. The shocks should arrive soon and because the 120 uses the same suspension as the E90 WTCC car, the set-up should be similar. We’ve gone for the shocks I have bit of history with which is Moton and it’s the same set-up that Andy Priaulx had and the person who helped developed his car is helping with ours. The car will then get towards being complete and we really want to be at the media day at Rockingham and I think we will be there even if the car isn’t 100 per cent complete. It would be nice to have a shakedown first so we can do some testing in the afternoon and see how the car compares.