Mondello Park set us back ten points and it took us the rest of the season to claw them back. It was one of those seasons where we had to be aggressive and go out and try and win races but we also knew that no-one on the team could afford to make a mistake and that was very relevant to how hard we all tried.
Q:
With the half point situation that came into play when there were less than six GT2 cars running, how hard did it make it to come back from the problem at Mondello when you failed to score and LNT took a double win?
Chris Niarchos:
It was soul destroying. We had gone into that round with something like three race wins, two poles out of three so we were on a high. We had come from Le Mans where we finished third but it was a hard weekend psychologically for us. We watched the whole weekend go on without us and as a driver that is the worst thing that can happen. If you go out and get beaten on the track fair and square then you accept that the better man won, but to get beaten in pitlane is awful.
The sad part of it was that it was no-ones fault, it was a 25 pence part that failed and had a knock-on effect that led to a blown head gasket. No-one could have prevented that so when we sat down after the race we had two choices, to give up and call it season over or to see if we could claw it back race-by-race. We went to
Snetterton after that and we dominant and then at Rockingham I think you'd call it a 50-50 split between us and the Panoz. Then at Brands we were very dominant again. Overall we were pleased with the way the season panned out.
Q:
The British GT title was the aim at the start of the year, but you were out in
FIA GT as well and it must have been satisfying to get your maiden win in the international arena.
Chris Niarchos:
It's a bit surreal, I must admit. A few years ago I looked at FIA and thought I could never do it as it was all top professional guys and ex-
F1 racers and it where the big boys would hang out. FIA has given us a big boost in confidence. With Tim, I knew his class from a few years ago and that is why I picked him up as a co-driver but as far as myself goes, I wanted to go into FIA and just learn in much the same way as I looked at the British series three years ago, just make sure I didn't get in anyone's way and don't do anything stupid like fire the car off and become a better team-mate. I think the added seat time and the amount of miles we were doing in FIA had a huge impact on my driving in Britain, no question about it.
Q:
When you mention how you used to view your driving, that all seemed to change in 2006 and the gap between you and the more professional drivers has really come down. How do you feel you have improved as a driver over the last twelve months?
Chris Niarchos:
For those who don't know, it's probably a net gain of a couple of seconds a lap, which is like taking 15 strokes of your game in the course of a year if you are playing golf. I feel I made huge progress and winning in Britain, when I got the first win and was able to be competitive with the top guys, changed the way I looked at myself. Over the winter I had worked on my fitness and racecraft and spent a lot of time looking at data and videos but come March I had to get in the car and turn all that information into pace. It just worked and I'm convinced that the continuity I felt so much in the early years of my career of the same team-mate and same car with the same team helped.
