Ricardo Zonta believes that the advantage will be for those who can adapt more quickly to the new tires and differential.
With so many changes, mainly technical, its natural that Stock Car begins the season this Sunday (13), in Interlagos (SP), willing to know the car better. Despite the two pre-season test days and the extra session predicted for Thursday (9), drivers and teams still are trying to understand the performance of the Goodyear tires, which replaced Pirelli this year, and the behavior of the chassis with the new differential, more resistant to reduce the risk of crashes - what will make the first part of the season a dispute to know who learned more quickly how to run the new Stock Car 2008.
Who confirms this forecast is Ricardo Zonta, team leader and driver of Panasonic Racing, who will do his second season in this series. "I find that the greatest challenge for everyone will be to learn how to work with the new tires. Those that obtain the information needed to understand their behaviour in conditions of running can have the advantage in this first phase", affirmed the Paraná driver, that in this year divides between the races of Stock Car, Grand Am in United States and the 24 hours of Le Mans in France. The work of the last days left Zonta very optimistic for Interlagos.
"For us, expectations are good, once we were able to develop the car after the pre-season tests. We´re already working in a good rhythm with Augusto Cesário (owner of a F-3 team who debuts in the Stock Car as chief engineer of the Panasonic Racing) and I believe he will help us with the improvement of the car during the weekend",he concluded. The opinion is shared by his team mate, also a native from Paraná, Ricardo Sperafico, who debuts in the team and, as well as Zonta, will do his second season.
"The team change was very welcome. What is lacking now is to find the ideal setup of the car, that is a little bit different than what I was accustomed to, but we will have all the weekend to develop it", he revealed. "In technical issues, we still have a lot of things to find out, and that´s the same for all teams. Nobody is in the limit. The idea is try to arrive at the ideal point before the others", added Sperafico, showing that the two drivers of the Panasonic team begin the season with similar thoughts. In his case, with an objective that is barely an obsession: perform well from the beginning of the year.
Everything in function of the results of the previous year. "In the second half of the season, I was very quick, to the extent that I obtained two poles and a second place in the Rio de Janeiro. Now, I draw as a target to enter in this fast rhythm already in the first races, which is fundamental to dispute the title". The extra training for the first phase of the Stock Car will be carried out in this Thursday at 3:30pm. The starting positions will be defined in the Saturday (12) at 11:25am and the race, on Sunday, at 11:00am with live broadcast by Rede Globo.