Vic Lee - VLR

After an exhausting start to the 2003 season, VLR chose to miss out on the Thruxton tyre test preferring to concentrate on setup work for Brands Hatch. Team principal Vic Lee did make it to the track though, and told us how he felt the weekend had gone.

So how pleased were you with the cars' performance in Ireland?

Well obviously you have to be pleased with what turned out - two cars home in the second race. We gathered a lot of data, now we've got to analyse that and get ready for round three.

How much work did you have to do the get ready for that race?

Dan's was almost finished - we probably had that one about 90% ready. Carl's car just went over there in bits basically, it had no front suspension on it, the engine was only resting in there, so we had a lot to do on his car.

It was unfortunate at the start of the weekend that the ferry times were mucked up, so we missed that which at least got us a night's sleep on Friday, then we started work at about six o'clock on Saturday morning and the next time we got to sleep was about half past three on Monday morning. But we got them done!

How much potential do you think there is in the 307s?

We're really pleased with what we saw, especially in the rain. It's bad enough trying to think of a dry setup, but just when we thought we'd got one the heavens opened and we had to think of a wet one! But looking at the sector times an at the speed trap times the car looks to have great potential.

So what have you been able to change for Brands Hatch?

We had a couple of issues at the rear of the car, we need to do a little bit there. We've got some pretty good ideas which way to take the car. We've also got quite a bit of knowledge on Brands - not on Dunlops, and not with the 307 - but there's a few things we can do and maybe we'll be a little closer there.

Is it encouraging that most of the teams have got 2 or 3 year old designs and yet you have a brand new one?

Well that was my philosophy with this car: we're 3 years into the formula, people interpret regulations differently and there's been a few changes to the cars. There's an opportunity with the 307 but it's going to take time, we can't get too excited with the first results. We can probably find a big chunk of time but to get that last few tenths to be at the front is going to be difficult.

Are there any good practices that Sergio Rinland has been able to bring from Formula One?

Yes, he's been fantastic to work with. The problem we have, which anyone would working with a Formula One designer, is that they want to save grammes. But when you've got a car that weighs 1150kg then a gramme is worth nothing! We had to slightly educate him as to what we were after.

But there's some nice bits on the car. He's done a fantastic job and he's been fun to work with.

Dan and Carl were obviously pleased to notch up some points.

Yes. Obviously Carl didn't have the best start to the weekend, he didn't start the first race due to gremlins. But the strength within everybody just bonded us together. There was no bad feeling, we all accepted that that's what we'd got and we had to live with it. It was a credit to Carl, he sat there and didn't get upset that he couldn't race. In the second race he got some mileage under his belt and hopefully at Brands it'll go a lot better for him.



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