Olivier Tielemans, the newest recruit to the N.Technology Alfa Romeo team for this year's FIA World Touring Car Championship campaign, was a popular visitor to the stand at AutoRAI 2007 this week. The Dutch youngster is driving a factory-supported Alfa 156 in the rapidly-growing global series alongside the experienced English touring car star James Thompson.

Tielemans was a very late announcement as the driver for the second Alfa 156 seat, and his confirmation came as a quite surprise to seasoned touring car observers. "It's going pretty nicely at the moment," the 22-year-old from Weert told Italiaspeed at AutoRAI. "The fact that I got the contract from N.Technology was a big surprise, not only from the outside but also from me. I had just come from Austria and I got the phone call 'you got the seat', it was pretty nice."

Like most other drivers he started his career in Karts, in his case at the tender age of 7, moving up the ladder through Formula Renault, Euro F3000 and Pro Series 3000 before last year switching from single-seaters to tin-tops, and driving an Audi A4 in the ultra-competitive German DTM series. Now he has switched touring car disciplines and is pleased with the progressive choice, believing that all the right ingredients are in place. "I came from DTM, and the WTCC is a very nice championship, some very nice cars and I like it. N.Technology is one of the best teams, they almost became champions last year, so in that way it's very good."

The WTCC is a very different experience from the DTM he explains, "in the DTM you only have two cars so its much closer and its mostly factory teams so you can make more changes, its more free," Olivier says.

The opening round of the 2007 FIA World Touring Car Championship took place in Brazil three weeks ago and Olivier faced a new car, new team, new championship, and new race track. "I hadn't tested the car before and so it was my first outing," recalls Olivier. "I was told by the team just to stay close to James Thompson, who is one of the best drivers in the field, a championship contender, and the team said, try to beat him and stay to stay close to him and then you do a very good job. I was three tenths from James which is pretty close and the team was happy about this and I was happy about this, the only disadvantage was that we were starting at position 18 and position 15, pretty far down the grid."

The N.Technology Alfa Romeo team struggled during practice and qualifying with their Alfa 156s at the Brazilian circuit this year, whereas in 2006 they had been right on the pace with lead driver Augusto Farfus grabbing the pole position and recording a podium finish. This year the two Alfa 156 drivers lined up on the eighth and ninth row on the grid. "That was a disappointment from the team's side, but not so much from my side as it was my first time and I had thought maybe I would be starting from the back of the grid as its a very difficult car and a very difficult championship, but I wasn't and I was close to James so that was a good thing.
 

"The only disadvantage was that this is the WTCC and the first corner was terrible, I got touched by (Luca) Rangoni and my race was over and that's very disappointing."

There is an almost two-month long gap in the calendar before the second FIA WTCC race of the year which will take place on Olivier's home circuit, Zandvoort, on 6th May. In the meantime the N.Technology team will be further developing the Alfa 156, a hugely successful racing car, but one that is now firmly in the final stages of its competitive life. "There is testing planned," says Olivier, "but I'm not sure yet whether they will do private testing in Italy or if the team are going to test with the rest in the Czech Republic and Germany."

There are a number of areas of the car which will be addressed before the team arrive in Holland: "They are trying to change some things as we still had some problems at Curitiba on the car side," he says, "and as I was three tenths off James I can't change so much on the driving side, so we try to change some things on the car; hopefully it will work out."

Will Zandvoort provide Olivier with an advantage? "I know the track pretty well but the last time I raced over there was in 2003 so that was a pretty long time ago," he says, "the track obviously hasn't changed so that's a pretty good point. The home crowd will be great, so I'm feeling pretty confident. I think I can be on the pace as I do know the track and I do know the car now, and I know the team, and I know front wheel drive better so it will probably go much better than Curitiba. But on the other side the other guys don't sit still as well and they develop all the time." He's upbeat though and raring to go, adding that "the team promise me that we will have a very competitive car."

Olivier has slotted straight in with the N.Technology team, one of international touring car racing's most successful outfits with a string of titles under their belt, most of their recent successes coming with the now-venerable Alfa 156. "The team are a very nice team, a very nice family," he says, "I got to know them for the first time in Brazil. The mechanics and everyone try to help you as well, they know you are a young driver and need to develop yourself and they want to help you with that. (Giancarlo) Fisichella and (Felipe) Massa have both driven for N.Technology as young drivers and they've come through, that's why the team is so good, especially for young drivers."

by Edd Ellison