Tandy: Even when it’s been bad, it’s been interesting...
Tandy gets handy with his typewriter for some answers to the questions we posed
Heading into the last ever race for the LMGTE Pro class of the FIA World Endurance Championship, the Bapco 8 Hours of Bahrain, we caught up with driver of the #64 Corvette Racing C8.R, Nick Tandy.
How do you assess your season?
Overall it’s been a good season. Even on the days where we’ve had bad results, they’ve been interesting because we’ve been challenged and are learning. We started the season well with three really strong rounds, even though all three results could have been better than they were.
What have been the highlights?
The highlight obviously Monza. Winning any race in GTE Pro is a massive achievement, so Monza obviously is the highlight. It was a great achievement for Corvette Racing as a whole.
Sebring was the ideal starting point for us. We’ve all done long endurance races at Sebring many times before, so that took out one variable going into our new series and new race season. It meant we could focus more on the differences in championships (IMSA and WEC), the regulations and things like this. We could focus on that rather than the car being at new track or us being at a new track. That really helped us get into the swing of things. It also showed we could be competitive and run the garage and the pits competitively and run a strategy that got us onto the podium. It definitely was a great place to start!
What has been more challenging?
We knew there would be tracks that would suit our particular car better, as there always is. It’s very hard to do anything different from a strategic point of view when you don’t have the ultimate pace during a long green-flag run. We’re used to having more scope for the pit crew and the engineers to have an influence on the races and not just the pure performance of the car. That’s something that has been a challenge to learn as much in this type of racing and series. It’s been difficult to adapt to different styles of racing.
What’s the gameplan heading to Bahrain?
I raced at Bahrain for the first time in 2010 and went there twice before in WEC. I’ve never driven a GTE car around there so this will be fun. The effect of the sand on the tyre and how the tyre interacts with the surface… how each car reacts to the sand blowing around – and it does quite a lot – can affect things quite a lot. It’s one of the challenges. It can be very gusty and windy, and the direction can change. This is another factor with the high-downforce cars that we have. When it’s windy, it does have an influence on the race and it can change lap by lap.
It’s an interesting circuit and good for racing and good to drive. Bahrain rewards consistency because you see the highest level of tire wear of any track we go to. You have to have consistent and clean driving, and the track punishes overdriving. This is good because you always want to influence a race as a driver.
One of the good things there is that you have linked corners… corners where what you do in the first corner influences what happens in the next. You have to figure out how to best get time out of them, whether you give up time in the first part to improve the second section or second corner. That’s always nice as opposed to have a straight, a hairpin and then another straight. Those races are kind of car-defined whereas with these types of corners, you can as a driver affect more of what’s happening and affect the lap time.
Which has been your most rewarding race?
Le Mans was special. We had the pole and were comfortably out front come the morning of Day Two. Everything was looking so good. The fact that the result and points didn’t come kind of takes Le Mans out the equation.
But the fact that we then went next to Monza and did what we did there makes it more special than just saying it was race six or race two. Looking back at Monza, it was exactly what we needed as a team and as a group of people.
How well do you work with the team and your team-mates?
Corvette Racing as a whole has brought a new level of enjoyment to the WEC paddock. The racing we do at the end of the day is serious business. Everyone knows that. But I’ve always found that working with people who enjoy themselves in their work do the best work. So yes, I think we’ve brought a bit of American sporting flair to another paddock, and all the fans, the championship and all the other teams have taken to our way of laid-back, enjoyable – but completely serious when the numbers are on the line – type of racing. It’s obviously working. People enjoy it, and we are getting results so there’s no reason to stop. I love it! It’s funny how the other teams react to us because they’ve never seen anything like it!
