CHEVROLET DRIVER NICOLA LARINI BACK AT TRACK OF HIS BEST F1 RESULT
Aims For Top Twelve In Qualifying
This weekend will see the third and last part of the busy month of May, as the 2005 World Touring Car Championship contenders tackle rounds seven and eight in Imola, Italy, a race which, like the Formula 1 Grand Prix, counts as San Marino’s national event. San Marino will also be the last race in Europe this spring, before team and drivers set off for their first fly-away event in Mexico at the end of June.
“We’ve been quite busy,” Team Manager, Mark Busfield said. “After the Silverstone weekend our guys in the body repair shop had their work cut out again, of course, but all three cars are back as new and being shaken down by the drivers at MIRA this morning (Monday). The reason why each driver shakes down his own car, rather than having one driver shaking down all three, is to give each of them the chance to get as acquainted as possible with their actual race car. When a car has been stripped down and repaired it might “feel” a bit different, so now they have had plenty of time to make any basic changes or comments, allowing us not to lose any time in free practice in Imola. Incidentally, the spare chassis is now rebuilt and like new as well, but hopefully we won’t need it after the Imola races.”
Also today, the team spent some time in the wind tunnel. “We wanted to double check our front end aerodynamics more than anything else. Since our initial aero package we have gone through three or four fine detail changes and we feel we are now where we should be,” Busfield continued. “Apart from that we have again concentrated on detail work and fine-tuning bits and pieces; ticking things off from our infamous 160-item list. Alain Menu and Nicola Larini will both now have fresh updated engines as well, which I’m sure they’ll be happy about. Rob tested that engine in the Silverstone races and was happy with it, as were our engineers. Under the rules an engine has to stay sealed for two races, so if we had changed the engines in all three cars for Silverstone, they would have had to stay in for Imola as well, meaning we would have had to send the updated engines to Mexico without maybe all having done the testing we would have liked. With the cars leaving for Mexico by sea freight straight after Imola, that would have meant sending the engines by plane, which wouldn’t have been economic, doubly so if you know everybody in motorsport is working together to keep costs down, which is exactly where the 2-races-per-engine rule comes from.”
For Nicola Larini, racing at Imola means returning to the track of his career-best Formula 1 result, when he finished second for Ferrari in the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. “Unfortunately, the events that week meant that the track would be changed afterwards, and it now has nothing to do with what it once was,” he said. “It is a track where it is very difficult to overtake. If you don’t want a driver to pass you he just can’t. All you can do if you want to pass a slower driver is to force him into a mistake, or wait until he runs wide at a corner.”
“The track is also very hard on the brakes, with some very dramatic braking points downhill,” Larini continued. “Knowing all that, if is extremely important to qualify well, which in our championship isn’t easy as there is very little between the different cars and drivers. Personally I hope to qualify in the top twelve, but as we have seen at previous races you sometimes just need a few hundredths of a second to move up or down a couple of places on the grid.”
2005 WTCC DRIVERS POINTS STANDINGS (After 6 races)
1. D Müller (BMW), 32 points; 2. G Tarquini (Alfa Romeo), 30; 3. J Müller (BMW), 27; 4. A Priaulx (BMW), 27; 5. A Farfus (Alfa Romeo), 21;…
2005 WTCC MANUFACTURERS POINTS STANDINGS (After 6 races)
1. BMW, 81 points; 2. Alfa Romeo, 75; 3. Seat, 60; 4. Chevrolet, 16, 5. Ford, 2.
IMOLA WTCC SCHEDULE (All times are CET)
Saturday 28th May09.00-09.30 Free Practice 112.30-13.00 Free Practice 215.15-15.45 Qualifying
Sunday 29th May09.20-09.35 Warm Up15.10-15.35 2005 WTCC Race 1 (11 laps = 54.263kms)16.15-16.40 2005 WTCC Race 2 (11 laps = 54.263kms)
Both races and the warm up will be broadcasted live on Eurosport.
