This year's Champ Car World Series has been enlivened by the arrival of several new faces ready to mix it with the established order. Among them, Timo Glock has impressed on his way to the rookie of the year award, while Michael McDowell and Atlantics champion Charles Zwolsman look set to make an impact before long.
MC:
Welcome to a Champ Car media teleconference where we have three of the next generation of Champ Car stars joining us. First of all, we're joined from Germany by the driver of the #8 DHL Global Mail Ford-Cosworth Lola for Rocketsports Racing, and now 2005 Roshfrans rookie of the year
Timo Glock.
Timo, thank you for joining us today.
Timo Glock:
Thanks. Nice to be on.
MC:
We are also joined by his new team-mate, the driver of the #31 Rocketsports Ford-Cosworth/Lola, the 20-year old from Phoenix who made his debut last weekend at Surfers Paradise, Michael McDowell. Michael, thank you for joining us.
Michael McDowell:
No problem, thanks for having us on.
MC:
Finally, we are also joined by a man who will make his Champ Car debut in Mexico City this weekend, the 2005 Toyota Atlantic Championship title winner. He will be driving the #25 Aussie Vineyards Ford-Cosworth Lola for Team Australia down in Mexico City, Charles Zwolsman.
Charles Zwolsman:
Thank you.
MC:
Timo, I understand you are at a large football match in your home of Germany, but tell us a little bit about how it feels reaching one of your pre-season goals in taking that rookie title.
TG:
Yeah, it was pretty important for me to get the rookie championship this year because it was the goal from the beginning, and I think it was pretty competitive. These cars are pretty strong all over the year and everybody had the experience on the racetrack. The team did a good job and we got the right results, especially in Montreal, and we had a couple of bad weekends in the middle of the season with a couple of results where we had the chance of finishing top five and things happened. We got hit by Justin [Wilson] in Edmonton when we were running up front and had another race where we were third and lost a gearbox, but we had a couple of good results, definitely. We're happy that we got everything right and, in Australia, got the rookie championship.
MC:
Timo is ninth in the series points standings, but is only 18 points out of fifth with the one race to go. Timo, tell us about coming from
Formula One, where you ran some races with Jordan last year, and making the transition to Champ Car. I know you have been asked this 100 times, and I am not asking you to compare the two cars, but has a season in Champ Car kind of met up with what you expected when you came here?
