GORDON KIRBY’S INSIDE TRACK

[neo]

He’s only done two and a half days of testing but Cristiano da Matta is already fired up and excited to be back in the Champ Car World Series after two frustrating years in Formula 1 with Toyota. Da Matta’s return to Champ Car racing as Jimmy Vasser’s teammate at PKV Racing means there are four champions in the field this year, a much stronger title contingent than we’ve seen in a few years, and the jockey-sized Brazilian couldn’t be more delighted with his latest lot in life. He’s particularly pleased to be back with a tightly-organized, efficient Champ Car team in contrast to the bureaucracy of Toyota’s one-thousand-person strong F1 team.
“I’m extremely happy to be back in Champ Cars and back living in the United States,” da Matta says. “It’s not only driving the Champ Car again. It’s everything around it. You can do your work much easier in Champ Car. Everything seems to be more simple. It’s like the car needs this to go fast and you get what you need. It’s not like having to go through thirty people to try to get what you need to try to make your car go fast. One thing I really like about Champ Cars is that everything you need to go quick is inside the truck, and it’s just a matter of getting it all together.

“That doesn’t mean it’s easy because it’s a combination of lots and lots of little things, and some big things too. But knowing that you have the same car and engine as whoever is winning the races is a very good feeling. It’s a very good feeling to know that it’s just a matter of you and your team getting it together. That brings a lot peace to your life as a race car driver. It’s not so stressful, or so frustrating. It’s so much better when you can make a difference with your work and your team work. It really makes it just wonderful.”

Da Matta came away from his recent two-day test on the Homestead road course with a very positive feeling about the upcoming season.

“It was a great first test because it worked almost like I had been driving for the team for a year or so,” da Matta remarked. “It didn’t feel like a first test because already a lot of things were going on. Usually at the first test with a new team you are just taking care of little problems and trying to get comfortable in the car, but it wasn’t like that. The car was comfortable for me right away. We had the seat and pedals right and we just worked. It was very good.”

Cristiano was pleased to finish the two days only one-tenth of a second slower than Paul Tracy who was running his first test session of the winter with the Forsythe team at the same time.

“The only reference we had was Tracy, which is obviously a very good reference, and we saw the areas we have to work on to be as quick as him,” da Matta observed. “But we were only a tenth and a half slower than Tracy the first day and only a tenth slower the second day. So I thought that was a pretty good result for a first test with the team.

“I spent the first morning just readapting to everything but by the end of the morning we were starting to turn competitive lap times. Then we went through a long test list and we were able to go through everything. We got some answers to some questions and some other windows opened for us on some new things we can try to make the car go quicker. We still have a lot of things to do to be real competitive.

“It was very consistent actually. Sometimes that track gets very grippy and the lap time doesn’t represent too much. But with only me and Paul running the track was always very green and kind of slippery. So it was good because it was more a realistic situation, like on a street course for example.”

Da Matta had no problem getting back into the swing of manually shifting gears and driving without the benefit of traction control.

“It takes a few laps but shifting is something I always liked to do,” he remarks. “I’ve always got used to any car’s shift pattern quite quickly and this time was no different. Driving without the traction control takes a little while until you get the confidence to go to the power to correct the car if you need to. That’s kind of strange at the beginning but it was not too bad. I got used to everything pretty quickly. Like I say, by the end of the first morning I think I was pretty much readapted to the car and really enjoying it a lot more than I thought.”

The 2002 champion is a big believer in the Champ Car formula. “It’s the way the car is built and the combination of the slick tires and the power it has,” da Matta says. “There’s still a lot of power and now there is a turbo lag issue to worry about too. So there are a lot of things to deal with and it’s just a lot of fun to drive. Through my career in Champ Cars one thing I always enjoyed was how much fun it was driving this type of car. It’s really something else. It’s great to be driving these cars again and I’m really looking forward to the races.”

Da Matta takes additional confidence from working with PKV’s new team boss Jim McGee.

“It’s good to work with McGee,” Cristiano remarks. “He’s very clear about the things he wants out of the team and out of the car. On the radio he’s very good. It’s very easy to communicate with him. He’s very easy to understand. He just makes everything very simple. He makes some things that may be complicated look really simple. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun to work with Jim through the whole year.”

Steve Challis is da Matta’s race engineer and the little Brazilian couldn’t be more pleased with the state of the engineering and preparation at PKV.

“So far, its going very, very well. We had two cars running at Homestead. One of the cars had all the updates for 2005 with some different stuff on the car the team has been working on during the off-season. Both cars ran a hundred percent of the time without any problems. Not only the presentation of the cars at PKV Racing but also the preparation is very good too and I think that reflects the good finishing record Jimmy had last year. I think he had only two mechanical failures all year in the races, and that’s a very good thing to have from the beginning.”

Da Matta thinks the elimination of the specified pit window is a good thing. “It makes it a little bit of a fuel consumption game,” he comments. “You have to drive fast and at the same time save fuel, and that’s fun. I don’t mind either way. Whatever the game is you have to know how to play it well. I think for the pit windows not to be determined is much more exciting for the fans watching the race. Sometimes you’ll see guys going all-out. Sometimes you’re gonna see guys conserving fuel. But there will be more different strategies going on inside the race and I think that makes it interesting for everybody.”

Cristiano has a definite goal in mind for this year. “I think what we have to target is to be able to be fighting to finish the championship at least in the top five. To achieve that we have to qualify at least in the top five for every race and if we can achieve that then eventually we may win a race and get a couple of podiums. But first, we have to be able to qualify in the top five for every race. I think that’s a very important thing. It’s something that will be very difficult to achieve but I think that’s what we have to aim for.”

Da Matta believes the Champ Car World Series will quickly regain its high stature in the motorsports community. “I think there’s definitely an open space for the market that CART used to have. I think it’s still out there. I’m sure those people are not one hundred percent happy watching F1 or NASCAR, or any other series. They want to see a healthy open-wheel racing with street courses and road courses and ovals and cars running close and passing. I think this base is still there. It’s just a matter of getting more cars on the grid, more good teams, more good drivers, more competition. I think our space is still there. We went away from it for a few years, but I’m sure the way the series is being operated and directed the way it is right now I think we’ll be there soon again.

“If the series can get back to the level of competition and level of teams and the type of racing like when I started in CART in 1999, it will be a dream come true for me,” Cristiano goes on. “In my racing career those four years from 1999-2002 were the most fun I ever had. It was just a blast. Every weekend you would go to the race track knowing you can win, or if you got one little thing wrong you could be twentieth on the grid. That’s a huge challenge for the drivers and teams. I don’t think it gets any better than that.”

Da Matta has faith that Champ Car’s chassis, aerodynamic and engine formula will bring back the great days of the nineties.

“I think the target for the series would be to bring it to a level like it used to be in 2000 with four engine manufacturers and three or four chassis manufacturers,” he observes. “I think that would be the best-case scenario. In the longterm I’d like to see more chassis and more engines racing in the series. This is something that the series had before so it’s not any magic.

“The way the Champ Car rules are written we can afford to have a couple of engine and chassis manufacturers and we won’t have the kind of domination we’ve seen in other categories. Through the years I raced in CART all the four engine manufacturers--Honda, Toyota, Mercedes and Ford--were winning races and Lola and Reynard were always winning races too, so I think that shows the rules are competitive rules.

“When you talk about a healthy series from a driver’s standpoint it’s when all the teams have sponsors so they can hire whatever driver they want. They don’t have to find drivers who have money to bring to the teams. That’s not an ideal situation for the drivers or the teams. But I think Champ Car has a good plan for the future and soon we will be looking as good as we were a couple of years ago. I feel this year is going to be better than last year and that step by step it will keep going in the right direction. I hope so, and I have a good feeling it will happen.”

Nor is there any doubt that Cristiano da Matta’s return to the Champ Car World Series is a key element in achieving those lofty goals.