DC´s touring party
Na última corrida da DTM, realizada em Xangai, na China, David Coulthard terminou a prova na 8ª colocação, sua melhor posição de chegada em uma corrida do campeonato, que foi vencido por Paul Di Resta.
Na entrevista abaixo nosso octete escocês fala sobre a experiência de participar da DTM. Confiram!
Na entrevista abaixo nosso octete escocês fala sobre a experiência de participar da DTM. Confiram!
DC'S TOURING PARTY
by Matt Youson on Nov 30, 2010
After an up and down rooky season in which he rediscovered an appetite for racing, David Coulthard wants more from DTM...
“I’m going to use a word which I often frown upon, because it’s used to excite interest and suggest things will be better in the future. Here goes: I think at various times this year I’ve shown… potential.”
The DTM season finished for Coulthard with a point in Shanghai, China. It was the first of his rookie season in the premier tin-top category – and yet despite a lack of success he professes himself very happy with how the year has gone.
“Lots of drivers and ex-drivers in the F1 paddock follow the results and ask me if I’m hating it! Actually I’ve enjoyed it enormously. This isn’t me trying to have another 15 year professional career. I’ve been taking it seriously, of course, but in many ways I’m racing for pleasure and the enjoyment of sharing that with the people I work with at Mercedes.”
Contrary to prevailing opinion, driving the Wings For Life-sponsored 2008-spec AMG Mercedes C-Klasse DTM isn’t DC’s first foray into touring car racing, though it has been some 20 years since his solitary outing in a BTCC Vauxhall Cavalier and things, he accepts, have moved on a bit since then. “I didn’t like the Vauxhall! It was front wheel drive and just not very nice, whereas the DTM is rear-wheel drive, lots of power, lots of torque and proper aerodynamic performance.
“It’s been like driving a big, heavy single-seater with a roof, more than a saloon. We’re doing the same lap times as F3: we’re quicker in a straight line but slower in the corners – which makes DTM much faster than many touring car series – which in turn makes it a very interesting series in which to drive.”
DC’s performances, while generally getting stronger as the season has progressed, have been very much up and down. Oddly, his best qualifying performances have come at the circuits he knows least, though this, David argues, is only to be expected.
“At tracks where I’ve got so much history, like Hockenheim, it’s just so different. You can’t brake in the same places, turn in at the same places, it’s just like another world. It’s like asking Roger Federer to play squash: he’s a great tennis player so he should be great at squash? Well, maybe he isn’t because it’s the same, but not the same…
“At Lausitz I qualified in the top ten – and I’ve had weekends like that where the car’s working for me and everything has gone well; then I’ve had the other sort of weekend where I’m stuck with lots of oversteer, and my combination of a lack of running and a lack of knowledge has meant I’ve not been able to work my way out of it set-up wise.
by Matt Youson on Nov 30, 2010
After an up and down rooky season in which he rediscovered an appetite for racing, David Coulthard wants more from DTM...
“I’m going to use a word which I often frown upon, because it’s used to excite interest and suggest things will be better in the future. Here goes: I think at various times this year I’ve shown… potential.”
The DTM season finished for Coulthard with a point in Shanghai, China. It was the first of his rookie season in the premier tin-top category – and yet despite a lack of success he professes himself very happy with how the year has gone.
“Lots of drivers and ex-drivers in the F1 paddock follow the results and ask me if I’m hating it! Actually I’ve enjoyed it enormously. This isn’t me trying to have another 15 year professional career. I’ve been taking it seriously, of course, but in many ways I’m racing for pleasure and the enjoyment of sharing that with the people I work with at Mercedes.”
Contrary to prevailing opinion, driving the Wings For Life-sponsored 2008-spec AMG Mercedes C-Klasse DTM isn’t DC’s first foray into touring car racing, though it has been some 20 years since his solitary outing in a BTCC Vauxhall Cavalier and things, he accepts, have moved on a bit since then. “I didn’t like the Vauxhall! It was front wheel drive and just not very nice, whereas the DTM is rear-wheel drive, lots of power, lots of torque and proper aerodynamic performance.
“It’s been like driving a big, heavy single-seater with a roof, more than a saloon. We’re doing the same lap times as F3: we’re quicker in a straight line but slower in the corners – which makes DTM much faster than many touring car series – which in turn makes it a very interesting series in which to drive.”
DC’s performances, while generally getting stronger as the season has progressed, have been very much up and down. Oddly, his best qualifying performances have come at the circuits he knows least, though this, David argues, is only to be expected.
“At tracks where I’ve got so much history, like Hockenheim, it’s just so different. You can’t brake in the same places, turn in at the same places, it’s just like another world. It’s like asking Roger Federer to play squash: he’s a great tennis player so he should be great at squash? Well, maybe he isn’t because it’s the same, but not the same…
“At Lausitz I qualified in the top ten – and I’ve had weekends like that where the car’s working for me and everything has gone well; then I’ve had the other sort of weekend where I’m stuck with lots of oversteer, and my combination of a lack of running and a lack of knowledge has meant I’ve not been able to work my way out of it set-up wise.
“I just need to gain more experience of how to get it into the right place. When I’m in that place. I go quickly.”
Whether or not Coulthard will have the opportunity to gain more experience is up in the air, but the Scotsman is sanguine about his job opportunities for 2011. “I’m not stressing it, y’know? I’m talking to Norbert [Haug, Mercedes Motorsport president] and I’ve said I’d like to continue, and if the opportunity presents itself and he’s happy… well, we know each other well enough not to need lots of paperwork. If there’s a natural desire for it to happen then it will.”
DC is, of course, making a name for himself as TV analyst alongside Eddie Jordan in the buddy movie that is the BBC’s F1 coverage. However after concentrating on that without distraction for 12 months, he admits it felt good to end the racing sabbatical and lower the visor once again.
“There’s the old adage about never forgetting how to ride a bike – well this is a bit like that: you just get in and go. Of course there is a drop off in physical condition: even though the touring car has only a fraction of the loads you would experience in an F1 car, you still need to reacclimatise to the sensations. Fortunately I wasn’t completely out of it last year: I was still doing plenty of show car runs for Red Bull, so I never stopped jumping in and out of the car. But as for the racing, well, I’ve loved having the discipline back in my life.
“I went in to it with no preconceived expectation of where I would finish up, though I expected to begin the year towards the back – but I wanted to see if I could adapt to touring cars and make progress. There have been times when I’ve struggled to get to grips, but on average I’ve been somewhere in the middle of the 2008 cars.”
DC acknowledges that he’d like to race one of the newer specification cars in the future, though adds the rat race of motorsports politicking no longer holds much appeal: “I spent a lot of years in the front line of F1, immersed in all that stuff and I don’t want to be immersed in it today! I want to enjoy driving and enjoy racing for what it is.
“I’ve enjoyed being behind the wheel and getting the adrenaline of going out to drive and working with the team and all of those things I thought I was over, which I now realise I’m not – but I don’t need the politics of who is driving what. DTM is a very professional championship. It has the politics like any other professional sport, but it also manages to maintain a very friendly environment as well, which makes it very attractive.”
One person quite keen to relinquish a newer-spec Mercedes is DC’s fellow countryman Paul Di Resta. With ambitions in F1 to fulfil, the newly crowned DTM champion is keen to move on. “He’s a great talent,” says DC, “and it’s been interesting to watch him and the other young, talented racing drivers who are obviously passing through DTM, hoping to go on. I completely understand what Paul wants to achieve – but for me, I’m not looking to use this as a platform to go on elsewhere. I don’t have a fixed plan for the future because this is one of a number of things I’m doing at the moment, so I’m content to enjoy my time in the series.”
Fonte: redbull.com
Beijinhos, Ice-Ludy
Whether or not Coulthard will have the opportunity to gain more experience is up in the air, but the Scotsman is sanguine about his job opportunities for 2011. “I’m not stressing it, y’know? I’m talking to Norbert [Haug, Mercedes Motorsport president] and I’ve said I’d like to continue, and if the opportunity presents itself and he’s happy… well, we know each other well enough not to need lots of paperwork. If there’s a natural desire for it to happen then it will.”
DC is, of course, making a name for himself as TV analyst alongside Eddie Jordan in the buddy movie that is the BBC’s F1 coverage. However after concentrating on that without distraction for 12 months, he admits it felt good to end the racing sabbatical and lower the visor once again.
“There’s the old adage about never forgetting how to ride a bike – well this is a bit like that: you just get in and go. Of course there is a drop off in physical condition: even though the touring car has only a fraction of the loads you would experience in an F1 car, you still need to reacclimatise to the sensations. Fortunately I wasn’t completely out of it last year: I was still doing plenty of show car runs for Red Bull, so I never stopped jumping in and out of the car. But as for the racing, well, I’ve loved having the discipline back in my life.
“I went in to it with no preconceived expectation of where I would finish up, though I expected to begin the year towards the back – but I wanted to see if I could adapt to touring cars and make progress. There have been times when I’ve struggled to get to grips, but on average I’ve been somewhere in the middle of the 2008 cars.”
DC acknowledges that he’d like to race one of the newer specification cars in the future, though adds the rat race of motorsports politicking no longer holds much appeal: “I spent a lot of years in the front line of F1, immersed in all that stuff and I don’t want to be immersed in it today! I want to enjoy driving and enjoy racing for what it is.
“I’ve enjoyed being behind the wheel and getting the adrenaline of going out to drive and working with the team and all of those things I thought I was over, which I now realise I’m not – but I don’t need the politics of who is driving what. DTM is a very professional championship. It has the politics like any other professional sport, but it also manages to maintain a very friendly environment as well, which makes it very attractive.”
One person quite keen to relinquish a newer-spec Mercedes is DC’s fellow countryman Paul Di Resta. With ambitions in F1 to fulfil, the newly crowned DTM champion is keen to move on. “He’s a great talent,” says DC, “and it’s been interesting to watch him and the other young, talented racing drivers who are obviously passing through DTM, hoping to go on. I completely understand what Paul wants to achieve – but for me, I’m not looking to use this as a platform to go on elsewhere. I don’t have a fixed plan for the future because this is one of a number of things I’m doing at the moment, so I’m content to enjoy my time in the series.”
Fonte: redbull.com
Beijinhos, Ice-Ludy
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bjs, Ludy
Ai ai ai... já estou temendo este post!!!! hehehe
Lá vem!!! rs
Bjinhos, Tati