Other / Ralph Ellis / 23 April 2009 /

While Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button do battle, Betfair met Britain's other world motor sport star Andy Priaulx to hear how he's trying to get back his World Touring Car Championship crown now the circuit is moving to Europe.

So Andy, three times world champion then only fourth last year. What went wrong?

Nothing - I actually drove better than any time in my career. It was just the SEAT cars came out with a new diesel engine that was too good for everybody else. They actually introduced it the year before, but luckily it was already three quarters of way through the season and I was able to hang on to what I'd done already.

So they suddenly had a much quicker car. Sounds a bit like the double diffusers row in Formula One?

Exactly the same. I don't want to bore you with the technicalities and politics but there was a loophole in the regulations and somebody exploited it. Diesel technology has moved on in the last few years, and especially motor racing diesel engines, and they've exploited that and blown everybody away. It means if you want to win you have to go diesel too, but a lot of the manufacturers don't want to do that so it's causing a bit of aggro in the sport

Sounds like you're not doing too badly then? You're sixth after the first couple of races...

Well it's been encouraging - I think I've gone to another level in my driving last year and this so far, and my mind is right, so it's been a good start to the season. We just have to see what happens now. We've raced in Brazil and Mexico at altitude - in Mexico we were above 1,000 metres - so a diesel turbo engine works a lot better at those heights. Now we are going to Marrakech which is near enough sea level for the next race on May 3 and hopefully our engine will be closer to theirs, we'll see

Does that mean your BMW is starting to be competitive to get your title back, petrol engine or not?

I wish it was that simple to tell you - there are so many variables. In Mexico for some reason the track had a certain level of grip that suited our car ratio, and we were very competitive and had two podium finishes. All you can do is go to Marrakech with the belief that you can win and a huge amount of work and realism. That's what I'm doing. You need control and everything, including your own emotion and expectation, to be balanced.

How much depends on the driver or the car? We're always hearing the same argument in Formula One.

Well the way I look at it, if you took the top ten drivers in Formula One and put them all in the same car they could all be within a tenth of a second of each other. The difference is that the world champion material drivers will hit the time week in and week out, on good and bad days, when the shit hits the fan, when things aren't right, they will still bring that performance, and that's what brings a champion.

Is that why Lewis Hamilton is still among the points even though his McLaren hasn't been competitive at the start of this season?

Yeah, you get to the point where you know what it is like to win, and you have that inner belief and drive, that underlying push you can only get when you've won a lot of races. You just believe that's your place at the front of the grid whatever car you are in. The opposite is like Jenson Button has had. He'd won only one race before this year, so you start to lose your belief, you get to that point wondering if it is ever going to happen to you, but suddenly he's been given the car and the material and he is winning. Now he has to see if he has the belief to sustain that. I've always been a big fan of Jenson and said that in a world champion car would be world champion. If you put Lewis in Jenson's car from last year, he would not have won the title, but if you had put Jenson in last year's McLaren he may well have done.

You did a year as a test driver for Williams in Formula One. How different is it to Touring Cars?

Well in some ways it's the same. Every car at the top level is hard to drive. You could put Lewis in my car, and he wouldn't beat me straight away because you need to have the basic understanding of the car. I found it quite easy to adapt when I was testing because the F1 car does a lot for you. At that time it had traction control so you just got on the throttle and went faster, and the traction control sorted the rest out for you. In a WTC you have down changing, you have to go manually through the gears, you have to synchronise the engine and the gearbox speed yourself, you have all those kind of things as well as driving and rhythm. A touring car is not more difficult to drive but it is a different beast, and if you can drive a WTC car very well, and have done your motor racing education through the Formulas like I did, you should be able to get into a F1 car.

So is that still a dream for you? It's where the really big money and glamour is

No, not at all.

Don't want to sound rude but is 35 too old for it anyway?

Yeah totally. Okay if you put me in an F1 car today, and give me a month to get up to speed, I could do it, but you need that momentum behind you in your career to get the best drive and to stay in front. I've not had that in F1, but I have done in WTC and I'm very happy to be one of the handful of paid professional drivers in Britain. Life's not so bad.

It hasn't always been that easy though. Didn't you sell your house and live in a caravan at Silverstone when you were first trying to make it?

I always consider that meant I did my education. To get to the top level, whether in Formula One or World Touring Cars, you have to be world class, you have to go through the levels to get past the hundreds of thousands of other drivers who are all going through the Formulas to get there. Some can short cut it with money, but I didn't, I did my full motor racing education which has really given me a good inner determination to be at this level and to race at this level.

Talking of inner determination we gather you're running the Flora London Marathon this week...

It's my first time, and the training has been really positive for me in a lot of ways because it gave me a proper pre-season. But then as the mileage gradually increases it becomes more and more difficult to fit it into things. It takes over your life. For the races in Mexico and Brazil we test massively at the beginning of the season, so I was doing a full day in the car, dehydrated by the end of it, and then going for an eight mile run. Not ideal.

So you won't be winning this one then! What time can we expect?

If I can go under four hours I think that would be a good achievement. I'm running for my charity so first and foremost I just want to get round and finish it

We'll wish you luck, and we've got a free £50 bet to add to the charity funds.

Thanks, I'm raising money for the Andy Priaulx Premature Baby Foundation which my wife Jo and I set up after our two were born - they both weighed in at under four pounds and we've tried to provide equipment for the hospital in Guernsey where we live ever since. As for the bet, I'll back Jenson to win the Bahrain Grand Prix at [2.96].

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