My programme is now in place for the coming year, and hopefully 2008 is going to be a good season for us.
Last year we didn’t manage to do all of the BTCC season because GR Asia had commitments with the WTCC, which was something we fully understood when we agreed to do it. This year, we will have a SEAT Leon and will do all ten rounds and hopefully with the same team, the resources we have and the personnel around the car, we can do an even better job than last year – which went well considering we had no budget to go testing and do what some of the other teams did. We went to the first race and just got on with it, we did no testing all year and I think we surprised some people with how well we did. It is exciting to know we will have a more competitive car and will do all ten rounds, and we want to try and win something.
We are still waiting on delivery of the car as it is coming from Spain so it’s a little bit touch and go at the moment. It isn’t a brand new car but they tell us we’ll have it before
Brands Hatch but it will be a bit close as it isn’t too far away now. It means I’ll be hanging around at the media day minding my own business but I don’t mind that. For sure, it would be nice to be more of a part of the press day for the 50th anniversary season because while I’m going to be there, we won’t have a car all stickered up to show people. It’ll keep people guessing about what the car will look like so we can have our own media day when we get to Brands!
Running with Paul and GR Asia again will be really key for us this year. We knew last season that he was a good guy who knew what he was doing and the team he has around him had experience of the Toledo before the Leon was manufactured. Hopefully there will be more benefits for us this year knowing the team has two years of knowledge of running the Leon in the WTCC. It will be a new car for me and I’ll have to get my head round that slightly, but from Paul’s point of view, he will want to hit the ground running.
