One on One with Alex Wurz

Posted on Friday 13 Jul 2007

Alex Wurz recently spent the day with Lenovo, one of the team’s partners, in Seville, Spain, addressing journalists on all things F1.

Here’s what he had to say…

What made you want to become a Formula One driver?

That’s a difficult question but I guess it’s the same things that make someone a Formula One fan. There’s something about Formula One which is like a magnet. My father was a racing driver as well so I’ve grown up as a ‘petrol head’, watching all the racing from an early age. I’m still a ‘petrol head’ now in fact!

In addition to that, in my career I’ve always wanted to go to the top. If you’re a climber you want to climb Mount Everest and as a driver you want to drive in Formula One. It’s is the highest level of motorsport, not only in terms of technology but also in terms of global viewership figures. It’s the hardest racing as well. All of those things made me want to be there. It’s extremely difficult to get into Formula One. So many people want to be there but only 22 can make it.

What role does a PC play for you in your work?

Obviously without a notebook PC I wouldn’t even be able to drive out of the garage because we use PC technology to help start the car: A Formula One car isn’t like a road car. There isn’t a key or a button that we just have to press. The PC is needed to perform a whole load of control system checks. The engine, the gearbox, the pressures and temperatures: All of that needs to be checked by an engineer before I leave the garage and that is done using PCs.

What data do you look at in the car?

When I’m in the car I’m 100% focused on driving and a bit too busy to analyse data! Outside the car there are a lot of uses though and it’s an important tool. You can look at your own data but also overlay it with your team mate and compare where you are quicker or slower. Mainly I use the data to make sure I am finding problem areas of the car though.

So much data is gathered that it’s way too much for the engineers to go through everything to look for issues and solutions. So, I use the data to help my engineer come quickly to any problems. If for example, I go into a corner and feel some bumps, I will go back to the data and look for that section. If I feel it in the car, I can find it on the data and the engineer is then going to be much quicker at solving the problem for me.

What is the most critical thing to look at on the data?

Firstly it’s that everything is functioning alright in terms of pressures, the engines and the brakes. That’s a safety issue and the most important thing. Then you look at everything performance related. For this everyone has their own area to look at: Someone will look at aero, another person the gearbox…everyone has their job and their piece of data to look at. As a driver, you look at performance.

When you’re driving do you forget about technology and just drive or do you continue to take it into account?

When you’re in the car you have to trust all the technology 100% because you’re driving the car on the limit. From the moment you brake until the exit of the corner you are always sliding and controlling the car, fighting against 21 other guys all trying to do the same thing. You have no time to think about it. You have to focus and trust that the team have done their job. That’s the importance of team work. I put my life in their hands and in the hands of the technology they use.

Everyone in Formula One that works on the car has an end responsibility. That’s a key thing. Everyone from the mechanic on the front end to the guy that dresses the engine. He has responsibility for a given job and has to make sure that it’s been done as it should be. All the people that I work with have to learn and cope with that responsibility and that’s not an easy thing. We’re all working on the edge but I trust them all.

Is the technology ever frustrating? Is it hard that there is so much of it?

It can be frustrating that there is so much data that you can never have enough time over a race weekend to analyse it all. You have to be selective about what you look at and make a decision on what you are going to focus one: You have to pick certain parameters and use those to develop the car over the weekend.

How different do you find the car compared to last year?

Quite different. Formula One develops so fast – it’s a speed of development that no other industry is capable of replicating so it’s easy to see progress quite quickly. This year the car has got a different engine, the reliability has improved, the aero is better. It’s just a much better package than last year.

What are your aims for this year?

The aim for anyone in Formula One and certainly for ATT Williams is to beat everyone else and be the fastest on track. At the same time, you have to be realistic though. Coming from a problem year last year, we cannot expect to win overnight because the competition is so fierce. We are fighting against the biggest manufacturers and the best teams in the world. We want to be the best team and we know we can get there but it’s a process not an overnight aim.

When you’re at the track you drive on the limit. So, how do you behave in a road car?

I’m not an aggressive driver and I don’t speed on the public roads. When I’m performing an aggressive move on the race track and it succeeds, I’m a hero in the media. But, when you drive aggressively in a road car, you’re going to lose money, insurance or worse still, your life. It’s a very serious matter so I can only say, the road is not a race track and I never treat it as though it is.

What makes a Formula One driver faster than the rest?

The Formula One industry works on a knife’s edge. The technology, the cars – everything is cutting edge. That makes it very difficult to be the best: Everyone is working at the top of their game and the technology is performing at the top of its game too. That makes finding an advantage extremely difficult. We’re not talking about big advantages: everything we deal with is in very minute amounts. All the teams are close together. What makes you a winner relies on such small things. When you see someone and you think they are slow, you still have to remember how incredibly quick they are. There isn’t one big thing that you can point to. Everyone out there is quick.

How fit do you have to be as a driver?

Extremely! We’re not talking about a little bit of training once in a while. We’re talking about being an athlete. I train every day. You need very good cardio fitness over long distances. Your heart is beating at about 160 bpm for over an hour an a half for a full race distance so that’s the kind of stamina marathon runners have. You also need a very strong neck, shoulders and back muscles to support you in the car and help you withstand the G forces we face at each corner.

Fitness is your insurance. When you’re in top shape your chance of injury is lessened and your recovery time is quicker. You also need it for performance. I have seen many guys in lower Formulae who come into Formula One and cannot manage more than 10 laps. If a normal person drove a Formula One car they wouldn’t last more than 3 laps. To perform at the top of our game, we have to be fit.

On top of that, concentration is everything. You cannot lose it for one split second. For the entire race, you have to be 100% focused.

Interview courtesy of Lenovo