Super Aguri is a fantastic team. It’s a small, tight knit team, only a bigger version of Carlin ultimately. They’ve got the support of Honda which is fantastic. It’s a really great thing. I just feel sad that Anthony hasn’t been given this chance three or four years ago, possibly when he was at his peak.
Q:
Sebastian Vettel raced for Carlin in World Series by Renault this year, but left the team last month when he was leading the drivers’ championship. How much of a blow is that to the team, and were you surprised that he got the call to join
F1 as early as he did?
Trevor Carlin:
Sebastian is a great driver, very intelligent and methodical. He can remember every single corner of every single lap, and spend five minutes explaining something that only last three tenths of a second inside the car.
From the team’s perspective, it’s a great shame that Sebastian left half way through the season, I think the title was his for the taking. Obviously, it’s very difficult for us now, but we still lead the team championship and still have the chance to win the drivers’ championship with Mikhail Aleshin, although it will be tough.
I’m not surprised that Sebastian has moved into F1 already, he’s a very good driver and has backing from
Red Bull which makes the process much easier.
Q:
Is there a driver you wish had raced for Carlin?
Trevor Carlin:
Obviously it’s an easy thing to say at this moment in time, the obvious choice would be
Lewis Hamilton. We were asked to put a proposal to
McLaren in 2003 for Lewis to join our team but at that point Mercedes were just joining F3 Euroseries, and they didn’t want to supply engines to the British F3 as well. Manor Motorsport were prepared to go and do the Euroseries and Lewis was comfortable with them, so McLaren took Manor and Lewis to Europe. And after that he was lost to us really.
Q:
Is there a driver who through bad luck never quite reached his potential in the team?
Trevor Carlin:
It’s a tricky one. I think the biggest disappointment was not winning the British F3 championship with James Courtney in 2002. He was by far the fastest driver, we had the fastest car, and he claimed 12 out of 13 potential pole positions at the beginning of the year. But due to not always being great off the line and a few other incidents, we only managed to win three of those races. Then he was involved in a huge F1 accident in Monza that season while driving for Jaguar and for about three months after that, due to concussion and brain damage, was never as good as he was before.
