This week the
official FIA World Touring Car Championship website
interviews N.Technology Alfa Romeo driver
James Thompson, who is hoping to improve his
fortunes in Zandvoort after an incident-filled
season-opener at Curitiba.
So James, sum up
Curitiba for us.
James Thompson: "Obviously Curitiba was a
big disappointment. I think we did okay in
qualifying given that we'd only had two dry tests in
Vallelunga before it. I think I should have been
about eighth on the grid, but instead we broke a
gearbox output shaft about ten minutes from the end,
so we were stuck in the garage when the track was at
its fastest at the end and that dropped us down. If
I'd have qualified higher then I probably would have
avoided the big crash that put us out. To be honest,
in qualifying I didn't feel as fast as usual and I
know that's a legacy of not having driven the car
more than twice in the dry since November, but that
will get better."
That crash. How did you see it?
JT: "If I'd seen it I might have avoided
it. To be honest, getting caught up in that first
corner crash was incredibly frustrating; because I
have a great finishing record and I usually get cars
to the end. It was just a case of wrong place at the
wrong time. The irony is that I made a great start -
one of the best for a long time - and I though,
okay, we're gonna make up three or four places here,
and then... BANG."
So it was a real gargantuan effort from the
N.Technology team to fix it for race two then?
JT: "I've got to give so much credit to
my boys in the team. After the crash they only had
an hour or so to fix my car. When we got it back to
the pits it was amazing how much damage we had. The
impact had moved the engine and gearbox out of
position by nine inches! So they got out the
sledgehammer, and drilled holes everywhere and that
was real rally-style. I think a few of the boys have
worked in rallying so that's where it came from
probably. And then they went and did it to
[team-mate] Olivier's [Tielemans] car too, so they
were really brilliant. Then in the second race I
really had to be at 100 per cent. The car felt
really second-hand, but what do you expect after a
crash like that one. It felt so much like a rally
car I thought I'd take a trip through the gravel
just to give it the finishing touch."
That must have been difficult.
JT: "I think it probably is easier for me
than someone like Olivier to drive around a mangled
car like that. I have a rallying background and have
now driven over 300 touring car races. I have a lot
of experience at jumping into new cars having had
not much testing and just adapting them to my
style."
The Alfa Romeo you're driving is five years old.
How can you still be competitive?
JT: "Where
can we improve with a five-year-old car? Well we can
take it in a different direction. There wouldn't be
any point to me racing if I didn't think I could
take the team forward. It will take time. I rate Augusto (Farfus)
very high.
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