Tom’s 2007 season gets underway this week with the first shakedown test of the new Vauxhall Vectra in Spain
Following its launch at the Autosport International show last week, Vauxhall’s new British Touring Car challenger is set for initial testing at Almeira in Spain.
Tom, Fabrizio Giovanardi and the VX Racing team will be putting the first miles on this season’s car which is a completely new package, designed to the Super 2000 regulations – the same as those for the World Touring Car Championship.
It has been an enormous task to be ready as Tom explained during the team interview on the central stage at the NEC last week;
“ It’s not just a new car, it is a whole new set of regulations as well. The team has worked night and day to get this car done. I went to the factory the other day and watched them putting the final pieces together and now I’m impatient to get behind the wheel and try it.”
The British Touring Car Championship has adopted the new regulations for this season forcing Vauxhall to come up with a new design. The Vectra model has replaced the Astra Sport Hatch as it is better suited to the new regulations. This has meant starting with a completely new approach with hardly any components from the Astra being carried over as VX Racing’s Operations Manager Mike Nicholson explained;
“ Basically what we’ve got here is the result of many, many hours of design engineers sitting at computer screens and designing it all in a virtual world. When they arrive at what they believe is right, it is built into the car. Our first test is very much a shakedown to make sure everything is OK. We will keep our fingers crossed it actually all works. “
Tom is optimistic that the team will provide a car to challenge for the driver’s and manufacturer’s championships this season, but knows there is a lot of testing and development to be done before the first round in April;
“ Our real testing work will start after this initial shakedown. We’ve got to work at finding the best set ups for qualifying and the races. If we can get that right through all the test days that are scheduled then we will be in a good position for the whole year. I’m sure we’ve got a really good year’s racing ahead of us. “
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