Tarquini wants to keep on racing
Reigning World Touring Car Champion Gabriele Tarquini is still in the running to take the 2010 drivers championship with SR-Sport, in the 2009 title winning SEAT León TDI.
TouringCarTimes met up with Gabriele to talk about his chances to defend the title, how he is still able to fight for the top and his plans for the future.
Gabriele Tarquini had a bad weekend Oschersleben, crashed out in qualifying and retired in race 1 on the first lap after a collision. In race 2, he finished 9th and only scored two points, but Gabriele is happy with his season so far.
“The season so far was good. I only had two engine failures, in Brno and Monza, but our performances were strong enough to fight for the win. Our performance is much stronger then expected.”
After four years with SEAT Sport, Gabriele is now driving for the SUNRED Engineering run SR-Sport team this year, with assistance from SEAT.
“Last year we had a big manufacturer behind us. We spend a lot of time for testing. Now we don’t do any testing, we didn’t before and also not during the season so we can’t do any development with the car. We only have a small budget to finish the season.”
“The qualifying performance of our car is very good and very important for our races. The car is still fast and we were competitive on most of the tracks so far. The potential of the car is still very high.”
The 48 year old Italian racing driver still wants to be a professional racing driver in the years to come.
“My motivation is to be focused to win races. My physical condition is still good enough to drive a S2000 car. Physically you should be able to drive a touring car until you are 80 years old. My big advantage is my experience and I am still highly motivated. I am not thinking about my career end. I am thinking year by year. Only if I would lose 1 second per lap next year I would be say goodbye.”
“Last year was one of my best years ever in motorsport. When I was younger I won one title in the Kart Championship but this World Championship title gave me a lot. To win a World title in this age is very special. Now I have less pressure compared to the younger drivers and I have time to enjoy my time in motorsport.”
The 48 years old italian racing driver is still confident to be able to fight for the championship, with three race weekends to go. Gabriele is currently 33 points behind championship leader Yvan Muller.
“Normally we are some tenths slower then BMW in the races. When I have a look on the results we should have a good package for Valencia but it’s also not the best track for our car. Okayama is like Oschersleben, we will have a very hard weekend because the track suits more the BMW.”
“Only at Macau we should have a very strong package but as we all know anything can happen in Macau; sometimes to be able to win the championship or to win races it isn’t a question to have the best speed, often there are happen accidents at the start or during a race or sometimes you have technical problems. It is a combination of luck and speed. The most important thing is to score points at every round of the championship.”
