What did you know about your teammate? Charles: Nothing special. I knew him a bit from World Series but we were not in the same team so I did not know a lot. Giedo: I knew more about him. When I was doing 3.5L he was in 2.0L. He was an up-coming talent. Of course we raced together in 3.5L and now we are teammates. He’s always been fast in every category. And now he is a fast teammate. What are each other’s greatest strengths? Giedo: I think Charles works very hard. He has a really good race pace and he is good at saving his rear tyres. Charles: For me, Giedo is very consistent and has a lot of experience so he is able tp be very fast everywhere and to understand quickly where the problems are. What are each other’s weaknesses? Charles: I don’t know. This year, at the moment, he does not have a lot. Giedo: I think he is quick and I have not seen his weaknesses yet. Maybe at the start... Charles: True. Especially at the beginning of this season (Laughs) Who gets to the circuit last? Giedo: Charles! Charles: I’m younger, I need to sleep more (Laughs) Who is the wildest one on and off the track? Giedo: I think on the track, it is hard to say. This season, I am being reasonable. So is Charles, Maybe off the track, me Charles: I don’t know. We have not gone out together yet... Let’s see! Who is the most successful with the ladies? Giedo: I have been with my girlfriend for eight years now. You? Charles: Two years Giedo: There. We are very serious guys. Charles: Very! Are you superstitious? Charles: No. Giedo: Jump into the car from the left side. Always. I used to have more when I was younger. I was wearing a pink underwear. In 2008, I had twenty pairs of pink underwear. It stopped working, so now I just wear normal underwear. Who will have the best road car in ten years time? Charles: I don’t know... Giedo: I don’t care about road cars that much Charles: We both like good cars and racing cars Giedo: I hope to still be in F1 in ten years and drive a good car there. It would be nice if it was a red car! Who will have the most beautiful wife? Giedo: Me! Charles: I’m not so sure about this... (Laughs) Who has the best fashion sense? Giedo: Both. We have the same shoes for example. Charles: We found out that we were buying the same clothes. We do not shop together though, but in Valencia when we go to work with the team, we realised we bought the same stuffs. How would you describe your teammate? Charles: Funny because he makes a lot of jokes. Giedo: Serious and fast. Who is the shyest? Giedo: Charles. Charles: Yes but I discovered this year that Dutchmen are much more opened than Frenchmen. So I’m the shyest. Especially at the beginning. Who is your favourite sportsman or sportswoman? Giedo: I used to like Armstrong. The way he overcame. But I’m interesting in football. I like Ajax. Charles: A woman in ski, I don’t remember her name. She’s from Switzerland and just beat Lindsay Vonn. She is very young – 18 or 19 years old. It was the first world cup I saw. She beat all the top athletes. It was nice to see. Who tells the most jokes? Giedo: I do. I love jokes. This week for example we had a technical meeting with Chris Murphy who was late. He has a funny way of seating behind the computer with his glasses on. I imitated him. Everybody laughed. What would you cook to each other if you invited your teammate for dinner? Giedo: I can’t cook. My girlfriend would have to do it. She is a very good cook and likes it. Charles: I will order some Japanese food (Laughs) Who has the most contacts in their phone? Charles: I don’t have that many contacts. Giedo: I have 367 Charles: I don’t have my phone with me, but you definitely beat me!
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What did you know about your teammate? Jolyon: I heard that he was pretty quick. He did GP2 last year and had a massive crash. Josef: Oh you heard about that one? (Laughs) Jolyon: You can find it on YouTube! I know he raced in Formula Master before when I was in Formula 2. We raced on the same weekends so I heard the name. Josef: Like Jolyon said, I knew him from when he was racing in Formula 2. I was looking forward to having him as my teammate. He is a cool guy. We have a good relationship. What are each other’s greatest strengths? Jolyon: The thing with Josef is that I always think I’ve done a good lap and sometimes I’ll be ahead of him in practice. And then I come in qualifying I’m P8 or P7 and every time he is ahead. Josef: It’s good for both. We can really learn from each other. In many corners, Jolyon is better than me. It’s his first year and it is really tough in GP2. It’s hard to find the braking points notably. You don’t understand what you are doing wrong. Jolyon: We drive quite differently. So that’s good as well. We can improve quite well. Looking at each other’s data cam sometimes change the way I drive Josef: I’m still improving and developing as well. What are each other’s weaknesses? Josef: He’s superman (laughs) Jolyon: My weakness is to hit my front wing at the moment (Laughs) Who gets to the circuit last? Jolyon: I am always late. I’m disorganised (Laughs). Mornings are not my thing... Who is the wildest one on the track and the wildest one off the track? Josef: I am not wild... Jolyon: On the track... I don’t know... Josef: If you consider my accident from last year, I’m really wild (laughs). Off the track, I am still going to university. I can’t be too wild. Jolyon: Same for me. I’m studying management in Nottingham. It’s quite part time at the moment though because I’m focusing on racing and training. Who is the most successful with the ladies? Josef: We have both girlfriends so we are both successful! Are you superstitious Josef: I’m always getting in the car from the right hand side. Jolyon: I’m always getting from the left hand side. That’s the only thing... I don’t know why. I’ve always done that. I have a power-balance bracelet. I started doing really well last year when I started wearing it. Obviously, it doesn’t work here, but I keep it anyway (Laughs). Who will have the best road car in ten years time? Josef: I will (Laughs). Jolyon: We’ll see. Who will have the most beautiful wife? Josef: I will have the best wife! Who would you describe your teammate? Jolyon: Relaxed. Josef: I can say the same... Who has the best fashion sense? Jolyon: It’s probably me. Who is the shyest? Jolyon: Probably me... again! Who is your favourite sportsman or sportswoman? Josef: Senna. Everyone knows why. The way he raced... Everything about it. I want to look at the movie with my girlfriend. Jolyon: Probably someone like Roger Federer. He is amazing. Who tells the most jokes? Josef: Me! I make practical jokes all the time... Arden are good with that! Jolyon: It’s a great team to be racing with. What would you cook to each other if you invited your teammate for dinner? Josef: I would cook exactly the same for Jolyon that I said I would for Marcus (Laughs). It was some Italian cuisine. Czech food is unhealthy! It’s really good, but you can only have it once in a year and it is difficult to cook. Jolyon: Because of my limited cooking ability, I would have to cook something basic! Like a steak... Who has the most contacts in their phone? Josef: 469 Jolyon: 206 On race day I get ready and then come to the track with one of the drivers: generally, although sometimes they come in a bit later! (laughs) I come in, check my emails, and promote that it's race day on Facebook and Twitter: one of our aims has been to try and interact with fans and followers on a real, personal level, and I think that's something that's been quite nice about having the link with Team Lotus, and to be able to draw from that. Twitter in particular was new to me: I've never used it before this job! It’s quite new for a lot of people here, but it does help to bring our fans close to the team, and that’s one of the reasons why we do it, really: some of the other teams do it too, obviously, but not to the same extent. When I first started in racing I’d never worked here before, so I always saw it from an outsider’s perspective, and so to see all the things that happen here was like I was doing it from an outsider's view. People pay a lot of money to come to the track and see all this, so if we can bring a little bit of that to people who don't get to the races then it's all good, really. And that’s why we use social media so much: to give everyone the same view that I enjoy! And I think people like looking at photos: I love taking photos, I take thousands of them! (laughs) I really enjoy that, and I think people like to see photos because then they feel like they're really there with you. With Facebook and Twitter you can be a bit more jovial too, I think: maybe some photos of Luiz being silly in the factory, or Davide, and I think that side of things is quite nice, really. GP2 is a bit more friendly: that's what a lot of people have seen if they have come from watching F1, say, to GP2, and for me that's what's good about GP2. We always talk about the GP2 family, and it is much more like that: it's not so cut throat, and I think it's a lot nicer environment to work in. At the track I look after the drivers if there's any media commitments: I collar them and herd them up! Luiz is very good with things like that: he does a lot of these things personally in Brazil for his own website: he does podcasts and things like that. Davide is a little more reluctant, but once he's there then you can't shut him up! (laughs) Italians are very patriotic, they are keen and there are a lot of fans, so we do get a lot of requests through for Davide. Luiz has a lot of connections himself, so a lot of his stuff goes directly to him: he has a good website and he's well established, so that works that way. And it's all in Portuguese, so I can’t always help! (laughs) And then obviously there are the press releases to write, and I have to get quotes and send them out: we benefit from having the direct link with Team Lotus because we have all their contacts to send them out to, which is great. Back at the factory we are based in the same address as Team Lotus: although we have a separate GP2 workshop over the road, we share a couple of offices with engineers and the race team. Both our drivers are part of the F1 team too, so the link runs deep. This was one of the aims, to have a GP2 team where young drivers can work closely with both teams and, with a little luck and lots of talent, to get promoted over time to the F1 team. It’s also good for everyone in the team to be this close to Team Lotus: we always keep the communication lines open, in engineering and that side, but especially from my point of view with all the travel arrangements I’ve got to organise! I also work closely with the Team Lotus Marketing department too: they are leading the field with all their online social networking, so I take a lot of inspiration from them. As well as our Twitter and Facebook pages we also have a new YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/GP2TeamAirAsia?feature=mhsn) where we post driver diaries and little interviews, and we will do workshop tours and things like that. We always have a GP2 piece in the Team Lotus Notes online magazine too, and we tweet to each other and retweet messages a lot too, to show our family relationship and just to keep things fun. At the track we are obviously very independent from the F1 team, with our own schedules and so on, but we are based outside their garage whenever we run on track. And I think it’s nice to see how involved everyone in the F1 team gets during our races -they love watching on the screens, and they get really excited! Our Team Principal (and Team Lotus CEO) Riad Asmat takes time to get involved in our GP2 Team Principal meetings, and comes to the grid and always watches the races. Tony Fernandes is often at the Grand Prix’s too, and is always very encouraging and supportive, as well as (Team Lotus technical director) Mike Gascoyne. And we gave them a lot to cheer about this weekend (in Valencia), with both drivers on the podium! We get so much support from the Team Lotus guys, and I know everyone in Team AirAsia is happy to be able to show them what we can do. We launched our new connection with Caterham this weekend (the team is now known as Caterham Team AirAsia), and with the next race in Silverstone being our home race this connection will only become bigger: we will have VIP guests from Caterham at Silverstone, we are really proud of this new association, and that we can introduce them to the world of GP2. We are a new team, but currently we’re second in the Teams Championship: that’s an amazing feat, and a bit more than we expected, to be honest! (laughs) But we’re just continuing to work hard and keep going. I hope that all the GP2 fans are enjoying our social media sites, and feel that we’re helping them to get closer to the action: if they do, then it’s all worth it. |
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