Brabham looking forward to Bahrain challenge.
23/11/2004
After a busy season that his seen him compete in, amongst other things, the ALMS, V8 Supercars and at Le Mans, David Brabham will join drivers from all over the world in Bahrain for the season ending Bahrain GT Festival.
The Australian Sportscar ace will lead the Coopers Racing team challenge in the event, which sees teams from various GT championships come together for the meeting, with one eye on a possible entry into the FIA GT series in 2005.
Having never been to the Bahrain venue before, Brabham says he is looking forward to the challenge of the desert circuit.
“It's a place I've never been, which I always enjoy being involved in motorsport and going to different places,” he told Crash.net at Donington Park, where he was helping Prodrive test the new Aston Martin DBR9. “Bahrain is a new facility so it will be a new challenge to everybody. I'll be driving a Ferrari 550, so I'll be back in the Ferrari and it will be for an Australian team. Coopers are sponsoring it and it will be great to do an international race for an Australian team. We'll give it a go, I've no idea how quick the car will be but we shouldn't be too bad.”
With the team contemplating a possible run in the FIA series in 2005, Brabham admitted it is something he may be interested in – should it fit in alongside his main drive next season.
“I have heard on the grapevine that that is something they were looking to do,” he said. “Whether or not they do we'll have to wait and see. If they were to offer me something and it fitted around my programme then I'd look at it. I'm not sure how competitive the car would be as it's not a Prodrive Ferrari, it's probably a step behind the Prodrive car, so it probably won't be as fast but until I drive it it's difficult to say. I'm sure we'll get as much performance out of it as we can.
“If they did bring it over next season then it may need some updates to get it competitive and obviously I like driving competitive cars.”
Brabham will be joined in the Ferrari by Dane Allan Simonsen, who combined his duties in Australia with a limited run in the British GT championship in a GT Cup class Ferrari for the Hector Lester team.
“He's been tied to the team for a number of years driving their GT car,” Brabham said. “He drove the 550 at Adelaide which won the race, and has been down there for a number of years driving in endurance races in the V8 Supercars and the cars that the Australian team has had. Obviously he's been the key driver for the team but they wanted an international driver for the event and I fit the bill plus I'm Australian.”
You can hear Brabham talk about Bahrain, as well as the new Aston Martin DBR9, thanks to the Crash.net Radio archive – just follow the link below.
Listen Now
|
|
|
|
