Justin Wilson was speaking in relaxed tones about the twists and turns his career has taken as an auto racing driver. He talked about his unsatisfying season in Formula One in 2003, and about the literal twisting and turning he does to get into his vehicle, thanks to his 6-foot-3 frame. His tone changed when the subject of Sunday's non-finish in Champ Car's season opener at the Vegas Grand Prix was broached. Wilson, of Sheffield, England, completed only 20 laps because of transmission problems. He was not the only talented driver not to get through the 68 laps as three-time defending series champion Sebastien Bourdais and touted rookies Graham Rahal and Simon Pagenaud also did not finish.
But it may have bothered Wilson a little more than the others. Three-time series champion Bourdais has made his money, and Rahal and Pagenaud are the new kids on the block. Wilson finished 11th overall in 2004 in his first season in Champ Car. He was third in 2005 and second to Bourdais last year. There is a burning desire to take the whole ball of wax this year, so Sunday's result was not cool.
"It's very difficult," said Wilson, who will race this weekend in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. "It actually haunts you. I woke up at 5 this morning (Monday), was writing notes on what I think we need to do better. It gets under your skin and that's part of the driver making sure you don't fail again. "Failing is quite a big part of this and you don't want to feel that too often. Once it comes down to race day, you gotta put that out of your mind and think you have just as good a chance as anyone else of being right up there at the front."
In the back of the pack is where Wilson found himself most of the time during his one season of Formula One while racing for Team Minardi. Wilson said that in F1, perhaps more than any other series, it's the teams with the bigger budgets that are always going to do better. Since Minardi did not have a big budget, its cars simply were not as fast as those whose teams did.
"Formula One is very different to most auto racing," said Wilson, 28. "All the cars are built by the teams themselves, so there is a big differences in the speed of the car. You're basically racing your teammate because he's the only one who's got the same equipment you have. "We were the back team, so we were qualifying 19th or 20th. If you qualified 19th it was a good day. If you qualified 20th, it was a bad day."
Wilson moved to Team Jaguar, which was a middle-of- the-pack team, for the last five races of the season. But he was then replaced because Jaguar was looking for a paying driver, rather than one it had to pay. So Wilson happily moved on to Champ Car in 2004. For one thing, its prestige aside, F1 simply was not the grand endeavor Wilson had envisioned.
ChampCars sister series, the Indy Racing League (IRL) has Danica Patrick and Sarah Fisher. ChampCar has Katherine Legge. Her pink and purple web site Is all woman. Her skills on the course are all driver. Legge finished sixth in ChampCars Las Vegas Grand Prix on Sunday.
"Woman Driver" is the first in-depth look at Katherine Legge, in her own words along with commentary from those who have witnessed the transformation from her humble beginnings to her meteroic rise in the male-dominated world of motorsports.
Some say she doesn’t belong on the racetrack. Year after year, she has to prove that she has the grit, the stamina, the physical strength, and the wherewithal to not only race, but to meet all the demands of a career as a race car driver. Who is this young superstar, who came seemingly out of nowhere to capture the hearts and minds of open wheel racing fans? “Woman Driver” is the poignant and inspiring true story of Katherine Legge and her remarkable journey through the highly competitive world of racing.
The story recounts Katherine’s early years, as she sacrificed every available moment of her childhood by racing go-karts. By sheer force of determination, and with the weight of history and gender at her heels, she advanced through the amateur ranks to the professional level. And then the real challenges began.
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