Focused: Jamie Whincup will return to defend his crown - and aim for title number four when the Clipsal 500 kicks off next week.
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6:00 AM Tue 21 February, 2012
Source: BigPond Sport
What is the mood within the team heading into the first event of the championship?
The mood is good to be honest. We’ve done a good job of keeping it fresh. A change is as good as holiday and we had huge changes last year with team personnel. I think this year with the fresh look of the cars, race suits and helmets the mood is good and we’re ready to go.
Does the build/up or preparation feel any different to past years?
Absolutely, it is completely different. We had one of our best years last year without a doubt results wise and even off track. This year we want to keep improving and we’re going to have to pioneer a few new things to try and keep in front of the field.
You described the run home to the championship last year as an incredible slog – how do you re-focus to do it all over again?
It was tough of course, every year is tough but it just keeps getting tougher and tougher. Last year was the hardest year we’ve gone through with the extra pressure of battling with your team-mate. It was an uncomfortable scenario, one that I learnt a lot from and I’m sure we’ll go and battle it out again.
There have been themes with your journey – to win your first championship, to repeat it, to win in a Holden – is there a theme or focus to keep it fresh again this year?
Yes there is, on a smaller note of course it’s the change in the cars which is fantastic to keep it fresh. I’m sure once Adelaide rolls out there’ll be new motivations. It was so hard to gain that number one and we don’t want to lose it.
With Clipsal looming you have fond memories of last year, describing Sunday’s race as a career highlight. Why so?
One hundred per cent, it was a cracker, a huge day and I thought, here we go, this is what 2011 is going to be all about. The highlight race of the year was race two, battling with my mate Will Davison in the wet, exchanging positions in a roller-coaster 250 kilometre race, one of the most grueling events in the calendar. To come up with a win on Sunday after some dramas on the Saturday, giving up a spot due to fuel consumption, to come out and win on Sunday was a highlight of the year and probably my career.
There’s been plenty of movement with drivers and teams during the off-season, who do you rate as your main challenges for the championship this year?
It’s impossible to say, the only way you can rate your competition is by going on 2011 results, but really my mentality is that 2012 is a brand new year. Forget what we had last year, it is a totally new year. All I can say is that I know Lowndesy (Craig Lowndes) will be strong, he’ll want the number one, and apart from that we’re going to see the usual culprits, the factory teams – FPR (Ford Performance Racing) and HRT (Holden Racing Team), both are very, very strong also.
