Now that the dust has settled after the 30 bruising races in this year’s championship, Tom reflects on his exciting season……..more

2004 will be a year that Tom will never forget. Re-writing the history books by becoming the youngest ever winner in the history of the championship was obviously a fantastic achievement. Two victories, a second place, five times on the podium, all go towards making 2004 a good year. In this interview, Tom recalls those moments as well as the less memorable ones……

So Tom, what are your feelings generally about this season ?

Now I’ve had a chance to relax and think back over it, I feel things went pretty well. My own objective was to win a race and I managed to win twice so I’m happy about that. I had some other good results and got on the podium five times, but there should have been more. You always look back and think ‘what if’, I think that’s only natural.

One of the areas that was always difficult was the fact I was the only one in the team. Vauxhall had three cars; Seat, MG and even Dynamics had two cars. That really affected how much set up time and data we could get at each meeting. Obviously the other teams I’ve mentioned could try more things out on different cars and reach the optimum set-up a lot quicker than we could. At some meetings I only got the car to a set-up I was happy with by the second race. Not an ideal scenario, but that was the way it would be only running one car. There was no point in moaning about it, we just got our heads down and worked things out as best we could. Where it was a big disadvantage was in qualifying. For sure that affected my performance there.

I had a new engineer for this season – Greg Simmons – and he was really good to work with. He was open to trying different, more radical things and he would let me make small changes that I felt could improve the car. We get on really well and although things were good right from the start when we were testing last winter at Albacete in Spain, it built up through the year and by the end we had a fantastic working relationship. Most of the time the car was brilliant in the second half of the season and that was down to how Greg and I worked together.

I think everyone, myself included, is disappointed to have only finished 9th in the championship. If I’m honest, I think I should have been top six. With the way the points are you need to finish and score consistently and although I finished in the points 21 times out of 30 starts, I also had too many non-finishes. Nearly all of those were not my fault, I got taken out by over ambitious and at times, downright blatant bad driving. I guess that has become a feature of Touring Car racing, but it is still very frustrating.Obviously the victories were fantastic, but what other high points do you remember?

Well the wins are up there for sure. I’ll always remember those, but other races were good too. I particularly recall the Knockhill rounds, they were brilliant fun. I can’t think of any other races where I had such a big smile on my face. The racing was spectacular there and I got a lot of comments from spectators on my driving ! Finishing 2nd in the first race was a good result. Getting knocked out of the third by Anthony Reid wasn’t !

I really enjoyed my fight back through the field at the first Brands Hatch meeting as well. Getting past James Thompson at the last corner on the last lap to finish 3rd, that was a good drive. The car was fantastic at Brands and I had something to prove with that meeting coming straight after the disappointment of Thruxton.

But of course the wins were the highlights. At Silverstone, my first ever touring car win and to do it from 10th place on the grid, that gave me and the whole team a tremendous buzz. My second victory at Donington was probably easier, but I still had to hold off Yvan Muller who was desperate to win to help his championship chances. I couldn’t make any mistakes and had to push hard for the whole race so it was very satisfying to beat him and win in those circumstances.

And what about the low points. Anything you would rather forget ?

I can say it all in one word – Thruxton !

I came off twice, both my fault and I don’t do that very often. Ok so we had some problems with the set-up of the car, we didn’t go the right way when the conditions changed from qualifying, but I am not making excuses. I got frustrated and I over-drove the car. It was a mistake and I did learn a lot from that weekend. Having finished 10th and then started from pole, I should have had the opportunity to make amends, but I stalled on the line and that was definitely the lowest low point for sure. Thank goodness that was the first rounds of the championship, things were never that bad again.

There were some other bad moments, at Snetterton for example. I love that track and the team had the car absolutely spot on, it was a fantastic car to drive that day. I finished on the podium in the first race and should have done so again in the third, but Luke Hines had a spot of brain fade and wiped me out when I was passing him at the Esses. That should have been an excellent point scoring weekend, not many drivers got two podiums in one meeting this season, but we deserved to at Snetterton.

The only other times I felt down were the result of being taken out by other drivers. As I’ve said, some were blatant and ended what would have been good results. That was very frustrating.

What did you think of this year’s revised format – three races instead of two and the reversed grid ?

I think having three races was better, for us and for the spectators. Basically it’s more racing and for me that is a good thing as I can learn even more in one weekend than I could in previous seasons. Of course it gave the spectators and TV viewers more action so overall it has to be a good move. Three races might have given me an advantage over some of the older drivers because of my level of fitness too. I work an awful lot on stamina and the three races didn’t present any physical problems for me.

The reversed grid would have been fine, but not with the success ballast being added as well. That prevented any charges up through the field, which is what I thought the intention of reversing grids was all about. Maybe reversing the top ten was too many as well, it creates potential for drivers to try and deliberately finish lower than they could and I think that is wrong in any motor sport. The reversed grid did at times cause carnage but that is another area that maybe played into our hands. The Honda Civic type R is a very strong car. Certainly I could survive the bangs and knocks a lot better than say the SEATs could.

I’ve heard different things about how the format will be for next season. I think the organisers will look back and learn from this season. Hopefully they will modify it slightly, keeping the good bits and making some changes to improve things even more. Touring Cars are popular again and that can only be good for all of us. I don’t think they are far away from coming up with the ultimate race weekend package, but we will have to wait and see.

What are your plans now? For the winter and for next year.

For now its mostly fitness training. I have a great fitness coach in Bernie Shrosbree who keeps me in shape. I’ve spent quite a lot of time since the season ended training with him down in the West Country; cycling, running and gym work. It never stops basically, I’m training all the time. This week I go out to a training camp in Lanzarote with Bernie and some of his other drivers; Tom Kristensen and Clivio Piccione. It will be tough, he’s a real hard b*****d with us, but it works!

We will be doing between three and six hours cycling everyday for endurance training – mostly up mountains!  Added to that rowing and canoeing every day for power training. Then first thing in the mornings and last thing in the evenings, we spend time swimming and doing gym work for strength and core-stability. It’s quite a tough week I can assure you, but it has to be done. I do actually enjoy most of it and because we are all racing drivers, there is always a competitive edge to our training. I simply cannot let Clivio beat me on a rowing exercise – no way ! So it is good fun too a lot of the time.

When I come back from the Lanzarote camp I will keep up a program of training, but that will be hard to do over the Christmas period. All my mates will be out partying and although I’m certainly not a stay in, do nothing else sort of guy, I do have to have limits and although I don’t really drink alcohol for example, I’ll still be relaxing and celebrating with friends and family. I will party with the best of them and I love clubbing, but I just have to be sensible.

Apart from the training I’ve been doing some karting, just for fun really on a Rotax kart. I’m too tall and heavy to be competitive in kart racing, but it is excellent for keeping my reflexes up to speed and also for core-stability as well. Its quite hard work for me in a kart, but I do enjoy it.

I’ve been doing some filming work for BBC’s Top Gear program as well. You will have to wait and watch the program to see what me and some of the other Touring Car boys got up to !  It was great fun though and very funny, that’s all I can say.

I’ve been made a member of the BRDC Rising Star scheme and hopefully will be a full member quite soon. It was very nice to be asked to join. To have that kind of recognition from people within the sport is a great compliment, I will be very proud to represent them.

As for next year, well I can’t confirm anything just at the moment. I have some options to consider and want to make sure that I make the right decision. It would be fantastic to carry on with Honda; I think our car will be hard to beat next season. It does need a few things to be confirmed and in place though. I feel very much more at home in Touring Cars now and would not necessarily want to move away from this championship. Sometimes though you have to look at the bigger picture, think more long-term, so I can’t rule out anything at the moment.

All I hope is that I can carry on racing at a professional level and that I continue to enjoy it, be competitive and improve all the time. That’s what makes me happy.

Whatever Tom competes in next year you can be sure he will bring his speed and charisma with him. Motorsport News named him ‘Mr. Commitment’ in their end of season review, a tag born from his spectacular driving, but with his training regime, non-stop work with his engineer and the team, is also applicable outside the car too.

Perhaps the final word should come from Tom’s boss, Arena International Motorsport team principal – Mike Earle;

“Tom did a fantastic job for Honda and for us this year. We all had faith in his abilities and he proved he can win races at this level. At just 19 years of age his maturity is remarkable and the way in which he developed as a driver and a person this season has exceeded even my high expectations. I don’t have any doubts that he will become the complete article. Always quick, he gives excellent feedback to our engineers and designers and is an asset to our team, both in and out of the car. He can be proud of what he has achieved this year.”