Home » Blog » Allan's Blog » Fitness training is snow joke in Germany... Mass Legend... Good to be back in Europe... Sebring starts the race season...

10 March 2008 | Posted in Allan's Blog

The last time we spoke it was just after Audi’s test at Sebring and soon after getting home, it was a case of packing the bags again and heading to Audi Sport’s Annual Fitness Training Camp. I thought it was tougher than previous years with us starting at 7.30am and finishing around 6pm. We were in Southern Germany, on the Austrian border, but there wasn’t a lot of snow about this year. Normally we’ll do cross country skiing from directly opposite our hotel but the lack of the white stuff forced us to drive 40mins, in to Austria, from the hotel to get some nice snow to ski on. The daily journey was a thrill a minute because I chose to ride with Audi’s DTM driver Martin Tomczyk, the best placed German driver in the 2007 DTM. The ‘problem’ was I think he felt he should have been a rally driver and attempted to emulate the likes of Hannu Mikkola each day! But that’s just another part of the team building.

There were new Audi recruits present and both were Brits – Oliver Jarvis and Katherine Legge who are Audi ‘factory’ drivers in the DTM this season. The training camp introduced them to the Audi way of life, which can be very different to the way other manufacturers operate. Audi has its own mentality, the way they do things and operate. They have a lot of respect for its drivers. If you’ve only ever been with a non-manufacturer team, then joining a manufacturer like Audi can take you by surprise by the way they do things and how precise they are. It’s big business for a manufacturer so everyone has to work and pull together. That’s why the annual training camp is a good way for all of Audi’s drivers, whether from the DTM or sportscar programmes, to get together and get to know one another.

I spent a few days back in Monaco before attending the Le Mans Legends dinner in London where Jochen Mass and I were the invited guest speakers. It was very interesting listening to him, his experience from 20 odd years ago being very similar to what it’s like today. Even the driving of the car and what you have to be careful of, and the areas where you can push in the race. I’m certain the assembled audience found it highly interesting because they were Le Man 24 Hour race fans. The one big difference nowadays is that the car of today is capable of running flat out for 24 hours – in Jochen’s day the cars were a little more fragile and it maybe wasn’t a sprint lasting 24 solid hours. Listening to Jochen was fascinating. It was a really fun night and one I’d love to go back to and I’m sure Jochen would too – possibly to sit and listen to the next generation of Le Mans legends.

Next in the diary was the official Le Mans Series test at Paul Ricard in Southern France which was really good – and pretty close for me from Monaco. Dindo, or should I say Dingo after a Starbucks barista wrote on his cup in Naples, Florida, today, and I plus Alexandre Prémat and Mike Rockenfeller, drive a brace of Audi Sport Team Joest entered R10 TDIs in the five race series. We’ll be head-to-head against defending LMS LM P1 champions Peugeot plus around 20 other LM P1 cars, a superb grid in our class, and to be there at the test and get a feel and smell of everything gave all of the Audi Sport people big grins. The test itself went pretty well but the only minus was Peugeot weren’t in attendance so we didn’t have a clear indication of all of our competitors. But the test gave us an idea of what our 2008 spec R10 TDI is capable of.

But now I’m in Florida for the Sebring 12 Hours on Saturday. I flew in to Miami yesterday (Saturday), stopped off en route at various shopping malls, before arriving at the track this afternoon (Sunday) for a seat fitting. I’ll drive with Dindo and Tom, just like last year at Sebring and Le Mans while the other Audi is driven by Lucas Luhr, Mike Rockenfeller and Marko Werner at Sebring. That’s a slightly compromised driver line-up, i.e. not the combination for Le Mans which will be exactly as Audi raced at Le Mans last year, but it’ll be very good experience for Lucas and Mike especially and combine to make a hugely talented trio. Sitting here in the hotel at Sebring this evening, I’m thinking we’re (Audi) facing one of our hardest challenges we’ve come up against.

In addition to Peugeot, who are obviously very fast with a good car and have a good team, there is Porsche. They may not qualify on the front row but we know, from last year in ALMS, that they will be a huge factor in the race. With their larger (petrol) tank compared to our (diesel) tank, due to regulations, they will be able to do around five more laps than us on a tank so they will come into play big time in the race itself. Additionally Acura will be a contender. They won the LM P2 category at Sebring last year. In testing in January, the Acura was taking Turn 1 at Sebring flat out and those of you who know that left-hander will understand that is serious ballsy stuff. So we can also expect them to make a march at Sebring.

So the season is here and there is a lot of people at Audi Sport and Audi Sport Team Joest, plus myself and my fellow Audi drivers, who are all looking forward to Saturday’s race... Bring it on!

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