Q:
Looking down the grid, you keep the Leon, we know RAC has the
BMW, VX Racing switch to the Vectra and Halfords are building the Civic so you have a car you know whereas the others don't. With that in mind, how vital will the first few meetings be, when you can maybe take advantage of that and get points on the board?
Jason Plato:
That for me has always been the key to putting a championship campaign together. You have to score points in the early races – not in terms of building a buffer up, but more because it just takes the pressure off and means that we are in a position to capitalise on new car blues or teething problems that other teams may have. Ok, the BMW is an existing car, but WSR don't have experience of running it and there is only so much testing that you can do pre-season and testing isn't racing. We have to capitalise on any mistakes or any lack of experience that other teams have in the early part of the year and it will be crucial for us to score big points early on.
Certainly for the first few meetings, that is our target – not necessarily to have the mind-set that we are going to win races but that we have reliability on our car, know what it likes and that it is all about bagging points and not getting involved in silly scrapes. We don't need to go out there like it is the final race of the year, we just need to score consistently and then when the season gets underway, we have that buffer.
Q:
How do you see the strength in depth of the series this season?
Jason Plato:
I think that Alan Gow and the people behind the scenes at TOCA have done a great job over the last two years in rejuvenating the series and putting a bit more sparkle back into it. Last year, we really saw where it is going to go and at
Silverstone there were 30,000 people which is football territory, so the championship is in rude health and will only go one way – which is to become stronger. Yes we will have more cars on the grid and arguably will have more quality and more depth to the field. It would be nice if all the drivers were world class drivers but that isn't going to happen for the time being but as times goes on we are going to see more continental style drivers arriving because it is a fantastic championship.
Q:
Your season last year went from one extreme to the other. The car was always quick and when things went right you were winning but when they didn't you were retiring and there didn't seem to an in between.
