Red And Ready: Garth Tander.
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6:00 AM Sun 19 February, 2012
Source: BigPond Sport
What is the mood within the team heading into the first round of the championship?
It's fantastic to be honest. Obviously there's been a lot going on in the team over the last six months, with management changes and what-not, so having Steve Hallam (Managing Director) join us is fantastic. He's put a lot of structure and surety around the team and the guys have really responded well to that. Everyone is upbeat and optimistic. We still realise the championship is very competitive and there's a lot of work ahead of us but certainly the feel around the place is that we're more than capable of bridging the gap back to where we need to be.
Does the build-up and preparation feel any different to past years?
From that point of view it's very fresh. There's a been a lot of things we've done internally as far as photo shoots and video shoots along with the usual pre-season rig-moral that's been done very differently. For example putting together a TV commercial for a race team is something I've never been involved in before. There's a lot of viral stuff that gets put out, but a full blown quality television production TVC is quite unique.
Having your behind the scenes HRT team-mates also feature in the TVC must be good for morale?
It gives the guys some ownership and really makes them feel much more a part of what success we have during the year and obviously we're hoping for a fair bit of success this year. Putting them in the public eye more rather than behind the scenes gives us a much more complete team unit.
You won at Clipsal last year - what impact does success on that tough street circuit have on yourself as a driver and also within the team?
Certainly in every championship it's obviously important to get in a good start. We've had some very good success at Clipsal in particular and whenever you get back to a track where you've had recent success there's always a spring in your step but also expectations to continue that success. I'm very excited and looking forward to it, especially with start of the championship being back in Adelaide.
You had some great highs last year with wins at Adelaide, Townsville and a memorable Bathurst. Some drivers would be content with that, but you felt you underachieved?
As a team we had four race wins, a couple of them very big ones, with Adelaide and Bathurst in particular and yet we still feel that we underachieved.
Most teams in pit lane would be happy with the success we had, but there is a different level of expectation placed on HRT when it comes to results. We are aware and appreciate that. Our highs were great highs but our lows were too low and from a championship point of view you can't have big peaks and troughs, we need to be consistent.
We've identified why our lows were so low and found a few things that should help so if we focus on a good start at Clipsal and get off on the right foot we'll try and get some momentum. If we can do that, you tend to forget about any lows in the past.
Do you have a sense that this could be your year to claim another championship?
As we sit here right now, we're all equal leaders in the championship and it's up to us all individually as drivers and teams to put our best foot forward. If we just focus on our job and are good enough to do it well, success will come.
