With a new racing season come new faces, new rules, and new expectations, and the 2014 version of Red Bull Global Rallycross is by no means an exception. Besides a new strategic partnership with Red Bull, a sizable and talented rookie class, and a new tire partner in Yokohama, the series kicks off with a brand new event at Top Gear Festival Barbados.
We quizzed four drivers—two established veterans and two series newcomers—on their thoughts about the season opener. Participating in the discussion are:
Tanner Foust, the two-time Red Bull GRC champion who joins the brand new Volkswagen Andretti Rallycross squad for 2014;
Ken Block, who finished third in last year’s series points and brought home the win in the 2013 season finale in Las Vegas;
Austin Dyne, one of two graduates from GRC Lites to Supercars for the 2014 season, driving for the new Barracuda Racing team;
and Emma Gilmour, who will make history as the first female driver to ever start a Red Bull GRC event this weekend.
What do you like the most about the course layout here in Barbados?
Foust: The track is very cool. It’s a brand new surface, the gravel section is cool—it’s a bit dusty, and in traffic it’s going to be hectic, but driving it alone it’s a bit technical, it’s a little fast, and we’re having a blast on the VW team.
Dyne: I like it a lot. It’s more circuit racing-like, and I have more experience at that, so it’s nice being my first track in a Supercar. The jump is pretty cool, you just can’t go over it too fast or you break the car. But if you do it right, it seems fine. The track in general, I like a lot—it’s fast, it’s a little more open than we’re used to, and I’m curious to see if the racing will be better with more room, with not as much banging or putting people in the wall, that kind of stuff. I guess we’ll see on Saturday or Sunday.
Gilmour: It was fun. I only did a few laps, and I was still getting used to the car because it was my first time driving the car, so it was a lot to take in. What surprised me about the jump was how slow you had to go over it, because I’m used to hitting everything flat in stage rally, so it was a bit weird to go over it slow. I thought I had slowed it down enough the first time, and we still over jumped it hugely! But it’s a really nice track, it’s quite fast and quite flowing, so it’ll be interesting to race it with other people.
Block: It’s plenty fun, and a beautiful, nice new track. It’s a really good surface, although it looks like it has more grip than it has. We’ve been having a little struggle, because there are longer turns than we’ve had in some of our typical, shorter tracks. So we’ve had a little bit different of an approach with car setup, and also a brand new spec tire this year, so we have to adjust to that.
Speaking of the new spec tire, Yokohama has introduced a radial tire to the series for 2014 after everybody ran on bias-ply tires last season. How do you have to adjust to the new tire and are you pleased with it so far?
Block: I go from so many different tires to different tires, from Gymkhana, to WRC tarmac tires, to gravel rally tires, and we come here and it’s a totally different tire. So for me, I come here and adapt to whatever is under the car. This year’s tire is just a bit different approach, and I really haven’t found it to be too much different than the tire we ran last year. So I’m actually enjoying adapting my style and car setup in getting this one to work.
Foust: There’s a big difference. Normally when you build a car, you build it from the tire up when it’s a spec tire. So you start with the tire, and the tendencies of that tire, and then you build the suspension geometry, the weight distribution, and everything around that, and the type of track. So now we have cars that were built for bias-ply tires, being asked to adapt to radials. So it’s a real challenge on the teams.
Gilmour: For me, there are so many variables at the moment because I don’t know the car well enough to be commenting on if it’s the car setup that we need to adjust more, or if it’s just getting used to the tires. They probably feel a bit more like a rally tire than a tarmac tire, but it’ll be interesting.
Dyne: I prefer this tire a lot more than the old one from Lites, it kind of fits in my wheelhouse in terms of being smooth, and that’s what you have to do with a radial. You can’t just be sliding all over the place, that’s not what they like. So I’m liking it a lot already.
Block: It works, it’s doing its job. Unfortunately this track is quite long for a rallycross track and there’s not a lot of gravel, so the tires have been overheating, but it is what it is—we all have to play the game conserving the tire, not pushing it too hard and making it last to the end of the event.
Foust: it’s going to be a real process for everybody to make these cars work on a tire that they’re really not designed for. But the cars are faster. There’s a bit of sliding on the track for sure, but I really like Yokohama, so I think it’s going to be cool.
The field looks a lot different this year compared to last year’s, not only with a ton of new teams but many drivers running a full schedule for the first time. Four our veterans, how much do you think last year’s action has influenced the rookies? Rookies, how do you plan to race the veterans?
Dyne: I’m going to drive everyone the same. You have to be aggressive, but you can’t be stupid aggressive. You have to keep the car in one piece. That was an issue last year, even with the veterans. Some of the guys showed that they can run clean and aggressive, but most of the guys seemed like they were bouncing off each other, breaking cars.
Block: There are some very talented drivers like Scott Speed and Nelson Piquet Jr., who have raced in Formula 1, so it’s cool to be able to race these guys, and kids like Austin Dyne and Joni (Wiman). It’s cool to see, but for me I focus on what I’m doing right now, which is be the fastest we can in practice, set up for qualifying, and qualifying kind of leads the rest of the event. Hopefully we can get a really good qualifying lap in tomorrow, and hopefully that will set me up to avoid some of the new guys as we go into the main events!
Gilmour: I think it’s a case where I really need to get the experience first, but I suppose I need to still stand my ground. If I’ve got the pace to be mixing it up with the boys, I’ll be mixing it up with the boys, but I suppose I still need to get up to speed. Most importantly for me is to look after the car, especially in these first few events, so I can get the most mileage and speed up my learning curve—there’s no point in damaging the car unnecessarily. I’ve got to learn.
Foust: It’s going to be interesting. You have guys like Scott Speed, (Nelson) Piquet, Rhys (Millen), other people from different motorsports where they’ve been trained to drive kind of clean, and they know that the fastest way around the track is not to be bouncing off the other cars. Then you have some real traditional rallycross and rally born and bred drivers, like (Patrik) Sandell, Rhys is a bit from rally as well, (Joni) Wiman—you’ve got guys where they bleed and sweat rallycross, so they’re used to the contact. So we’ll see.
Dyne: For the show and for the fans, if people can just race each other clean—rubbing’s okay, rubbing’s racing, but not doing anything stupid—that’s kind of my goal. That’s how I’m going to race everyone, and hopefully I’m going to get the same thing back.
Foust: I honestly think that the radial tires will make a difference with that, because the feeling inside the car is so much about keeping it clean and not sideways all the time that it feels like it would upset your own driving line and speed so much to hit another car. I really hope that cleans it up a bit and we can have more racing.
Finally, with all the changes this season, it’s clear that Red Bull Global Rallycross has stepped into a new era. How significant would it be for you to walk out of here with a podium finish, or the first victory of the year?
Gilmour: It’d be fantastic. I’ve got a lot of support from home in New Zealand, and I think it would also repay the faith that Rhys has in giving me the drive here. So I just want to do a good job and keep improving. That’s the biggest thing—if I can keep improving and learning, it’s a long series ahead of us, so it’s important to be thinking about the bigger picture instead of just the do or die of the first corner.
Foust: For us, with Rockstar—we’ve been working with them for a long time, but working with Volkswagen for the first year and Andretti for the first year, it would be an amazing achievement. We’ve had a lot of success working with Rockstar, so they were kind of like “that’s going to be an interesting change, going to a whole new team,” but it is VW and it is Andretti. But here we are, with our middle ground car—as you know, we’re not racing with this car for the whole season, we’ll be racing with the Beetle later on. So if we can have success with the Polo, just by taking an engine we were already given and a two, three year old car, and put some of VW’s engineering know-how and Andretti’s engineering and racing know-how into it and come out with a win, it shows how quick we can really make the Beetle. So I’m really excited about that.
Dyne: I’m amped either way. I’ve reached the pinnacle of my career in terms of reaching the top of a form of racing. My whole career I’ve been in the ladder system, working my way up, so to finally be at the top of something, even the top of something completely different than what I grew up doing, is pretty sick, and I’m pretty stoked on it. I’m just looking forward to the year. It would be nice to have a good finish here, but at the end of the day, if we keep all four corners on the car, get some laps in, and get some seat time in the car, that’s what I’m here for.
Block: For me, I finished last season with a win, I ended up third in the championship, and for all of the bad luck I had in the year, to finish off that well felt really good. But with all that, I was the fastest qualifier throughout the year. So I had the speed, but I didn’t have a lot of luck. For this year, my focus is to average out the bad luck, get a few wins, and hopefully be at the top of the championship at the end.
Photo credit: Alison Padron