ITALIAN SUPERSTAR GIOVANARDI READY FOR BTCC DEBUT
Fabrizio Giovanardi, regarded as the best touring car driver in the world, will tomorrow (Friday) fly in from Italy for his Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship debut at Brands Hatch on Sunday 9 April.
Giovanardi is Vauxhall's big new weapon, replacing Frenchman Yvan Muller in the Luton marque's VX Racing Astra Sport Hatch. Brands Hatch signals his first stab at BTCC glory and he arrives in the UK with a reputation as arguably the best in the business, as three European Touring Car Championship titles, plus one Spanish and three Italian crowns testify. Last season he was the most prolific winner in the World Touring Car Championship with four victories and almost won that title, too.
As proven a race winner as he is, however, Giovanardi says lots of victories are no guarantee of winning championships.
"Winning the most races isn't the most important thing," said the 39-year-old from Sassuolo. "Last year I won four times in the WTCC and Andy Priaulx won only once but he was still the champion.
"To become champion you must score big points in every race. That is my goal at Brands Hatch this weekend, but of course if I can win it would be extra special."
To the surprise of many, Giovanardi was only ninth fastest in pre-season recent testing at Brands, upstaged by young British team-mate Tom Chilton who was second quickest behind reigning BTCC Champion Matt Neal. But Giovanardi says he is not too concerned.
He added: "After the test I think the BTCC will be a really tough championship. I have seen very quick cars, very quick drivers. But it doesn't matter about the time. I was just there to practice long runs and I didn't try new tyres.
"It's important that the car is fast for the whole race. I have seen some races from last year on DVD and sometimes Yvan was really quick in practice and qualifying but struggled in the race.
"To come away from Brands Hatch with a lot of points will be satisfying. I expect to score many points and with three races it's very important to score points every time. Risking everything just for one win is when you can make a mistake and it can all go wrong, so I will be careful about that."
Coming up against new drivers - even a bright new team-mate in Chilton - does not appear to bother Giovanardi. Instead, the biggest hurdle he faces is getting to grips with the British circuits - he only has distant memories of a couple of the tracks from his Formula 3000 career in the early Nineties.
He said: "I don't care about the other drivers. I only care about me. I still don't know the car too well, but the big thing is the UK circuits... they are strange! They are different to European circuits. European circuits are really wide and have a lot of reference points. The UK circuits... there is the grass on both sides and in the middle a thin strip of asphalt. I need to test a lot but this is restricted, so I have to learn quickly."
