Interview with Fabrizio Giovanardi

Double British Touring Car Championship champion and touring car legend Fabrizio Giovanardi is doing his last year with Vauxhall. The General Motors owned manufacturer announced their retirement earlier this year and the Italian commented the matter in an interview with TouringCarTimes.
“Vauxhall are owned by General Motors and we all know what the situation is,” said Giovanardi to TouringCarTimes.com.

“I think that saving 5,000 people’s job is far more important than racing, it is absolutely understandable that they prefer to focus on other things. I’m sorry about that, of course, but this is a decision I fully understand.”

The decision leaves the Italian without a job after the final BTCC race at Brands Hatch on October the 4th.

“To be honest, I don’t know what’s going to happen. At the moment, I can’t say anything about what I’ll be doing next year. It would be fantastic to continue with Triple Eight, but the decision is entirely up to them.”

Giovanardi is not ruling out that he could be continuing with Triple Eight in another car.

“If they find backing from another manufacturer I’ll be glad to look for an agreement, but I had a contract with Vauxhall, and they’re withdrawing at the end of this season.”

Looking at other touring car series, Giovanardi does not see the World Touring Car Championship as an interesting alternative.

“As for other series I could look at, I think the WTCC is having a very difficult time, as everybody knows, and I don’t know if the championship itself has a future. GTs could be a possibility, but I don’t think anybody has the right budget in that kind of racing. I’m not in a great situation, at the moment.”

The BTCC organizers recently released the plans for a new set of rules called NGTC. The new rules are directly competing against the criticized S2000 rules of the FIA that BTCC and WTCC currently runs under.

“This (NGTC) is a very clever formula, designed for the privateers and not for the manufacturers. We’ve seen so many arguments in the past between the different manufacturers, so what they did was putting forward a set of rules that makes everyone equal.”

Giovanardi feels that it is going to be important that it is not the manufacturers that are controlling the rules of NGTC.

“If the manufacturers want to back someone they’re still welcome, but they won’t be vital anymore. The teams will now be able to build race cars and spend a much smaller amount of money. Anyway, we’re talking about 2011, which is very far in the future.”

With the new NGTC rules being at least two years away, Giovanardi is currently fully focused on BTCC 2009 where the Italian currently is third.

“I’m not completely satisfied with what I have achieved this year. I’ve had so many small problems, and I also had to start from the back of the grid in Donington, when my car failed to restart. It’s not going to be an easy season, but I’m not worried because I’m still there, near the top. We’re surely going to have to fight for this one.”

While Giovanardi is fully committed to the BTCC with Vauxhall this year, rumors have placed him as the new Lada driver in the WTCC.

“It’s not me at all, I’m not going to be the next Lada Sport driver. It often happens in motorsport that there are rumours about you and you’re the last one to know. I am 100% sure that I am going to stay with Vauxhall and Triple Eight until the end of the season.”

The interview was done in collaboration with stopandgo.tv.