Fabrizio Giovanardi targeting victory before season’s end

2007-2008 champion Fabrizio Giovanardi has said he still hopes to be able to stand on the top step of the podium before the end of this season, which has been a challenging return for the driver who last left the field stunned, winning two races at Thruxton during the opening round of 2010 in the independent Vauxhall Vectra, leaving the Championship with the points lead after just one race.

This year, the Italian is racing behind the wheel of the Motorbase Performance Ford Focus, with third at Thruxton as his best result to date, though he was leading the third race at Croft just before the mid-season break, before he was tapped off by reigning champion Andrew Jordan during the race.

The Italian has been involved in several incidents himself, and the accumulation of reprimands and penalties he’s received means he will start at the back of the grid for the BTCC’s next event at Snetterton.

“It has not been an easy season so far”, admitted the driver from Sassuolo to TouringCarTimes.

“I never expected to come back and win all the races, I’m not that kind of guy, but what I found is totally different from the old S2000 cars I used to drive.

“I’m still learning, together with the team, step by step, but this is a very high level championship and it’s no surprise that we’re all very close, and even the slightest of margins can send you down the grid.”

Giovanardi says the team are on the right track, continually improving the Focus, but it still takes some time to extract the most out of the package.

“This is a learning year for me, not so much in terms of tracks of course, but we need to understand the car better and better. We did improve the car here and there, and I feel we are on the right track. The Focus has the potential to be up there, and we’re slowly taking it to where it belongs.”

Giovanardi will have to start from the back of the grid as a result of a penalty imposed after Croft, the 2011 European Touring Car champion tries to see the bright side of the situation.

“It will be a weekend-long test, which we need so much. As I said, we’re still trying to understand the car perfectly, so I will use Saturday as a test to try different solutions. I have nothing to lose, so it’s a good chance to improve the car on Saturday and try to have fun on Sunday.”

With the championship leaders slipping away early in the season, Giovanardi still has ambitious goals for the remainder of the season.

“By the end of the year I want to have a race win in my pocket. This is a learning process and I know that the potential is there to get to a point where I can win. We are working hard to make the car as quick as possible to allow me to do that. I’m in a good team and they have full trust in me, so all the ingredients are there to be successful. The main thing to improve is qualifying, if we manage not to get stuck in the middle of the pack then we can have our say in the top positions.”