Jay Ekkel
Click here to discuss this article at RaceRoom Online.
After Part I, obviously follows Part II of my time at the track. Here are the last few days of my stay at the track during the WTCC Weekend.
While working in the pitlane, cars can get real close. This time it was intentional to get close, but my heart skipped a beat when Huff came driving straight at me to only make a turn a few inches in front of me and to be pushed in to the box.
After qualifying it’s movie watching time for the SEAT Driver for some relaxation. I wonder if they actually are watching the video or if its onboard footage from Freddie Barth’s new GoPro HD???
It’s a 20 meter walk from the pitbox to the hospitality houses, but it took the drivers roughly 5- 10 minutes if not longer, to walk that short distance. Once they were spotted by the autograph hunters, there was no escape.
Fellow simracer Norbert Michelisz was not having the best qualifying session finishing as 15th. His race was not going to be a lot better with a spin and a demotion for Race 2 for speeding during the rolling start.
Colin Turkington debriefing his engineer and team directly as he gets out of his car after qualifying.
After qualifying it is time to find some food, and a little sit. On a day like this you just move from one end to the other end of the pitlane and back, and back again, several times over. It would be handy if we could clone ourselves to be in multiple places at the same time.
The teams work late to get the cars ready for raceday. That it got dark very early these days, didn’t help one bit!
Time to get back to the hotel and get some sleep for race day. Japanese cities at night are a sight to remember!
Just outside my hotel in Nagoya, I spotted this beauty. This car just looks at home in this city environment!
Raceday!!
Racedrivers superstitious??? I think they all have their own rituals for sure, I like this one from Tom Coronel who doesn’t go anywhere without taking his family with him. He is a family man as you can see by the pictures on his roof. It paid of for him this weekend with winning a race in Suzuka! Japan loves Coronel and Coronel loves Japan, he even has an official fanclub there.
No, I wasn’t joking. Tom posted this picture on his twitter (@tomcoronel) showing of the kids department of his fanclub!
Race drivers have the extra capacity to snap in and out of focus and race modus, giving a thumbs up just seconds before the warmup lap. I wonder if they remember this afterwards or if he is already on auto pilot..
How to celebrate a win Coronel style, by Tom Coronel.
This concludes my visit to the Suzuka Circuit in Japan, but my time in Japan is not over yet. I will be visiting 日産自動車株式会社 headquarters for a small little treat and I will let you in on the most interesting parking lot I ever have come across in Japan!
-
Jay Ekkel
WTCC Website