On the back of a tremendously encouraging outing at Donington Park, all-new outfit Ultimate Motorsport is fast working its way up the British F3 grid. Bertrand Decoster – chairman of the team’s chassis manufacturer Mygale – talks about the task ahead…
Ultimate Motorsport team owner Barry Walsh offered us a huge opportunity with this F3 project, and we’re working very closely together. For Mygale it’s a big challenge for sure, but we have developed a strategy and a set of targets. Mygale is a worldwide entry-level single-seater car manufacturer, and now we are fighting with two of the best manufacturers in the world in Dallara and Lola.
As the chairman of Mygale, I’m naturally following everything and I’m kept informed about everything, but at the same time I let people get on with their jobs because I trust them all.
The first round of the season at
Oulton Park was in some ways encouraging, but in truth we weren’t quick enough. If we are honest, the performance at Oulton was worse than we had expected, and we need to improve and make some changes. I would have expected to have been closer to the front more quickly than we have been, but that’s only natural from someone with a racing instinct.
Overall we are facing a very complex challenge – that of establishing a new team and developing a new car at the same time. That’s very tough. We need to be using 100 percent of the potential of both the car and team before we start changing things. If not you change, but never know exactly why you are changing. We are going to the wind tunnel to evolve the car, and we are now I think at a stage where it’s a question of trying out different things and trying to improve everything.
We must remember, though, that the competition is huge. It’s incredibly tough, especially in terms of things like the engineering involved. Top teams like Carlin and Fortec have been in existence for ten years. It took them years to reach the level they are at today, so what we are facing is an incredible challenge.
