Robin Dolejš, the racing engineer of the International Racing System team, has just completed his Brazilian mission. The five-day working visit focused on negotiations about further cooperation with the VW concern, at the presence of Mario Kress, technical director of the team, has resulted in a number of interesting findings.
The most valuable of them was the information about the different concept of the championship. "Technology and development are put aside, in comparison to the European championship, and the Brazilians focus on the marketing side instead," explains Dolejš adding that the weekend attendance of 200,000 spectators, boasted by the latest event of European Cup at the Nurburgring, is quite common in the country of coffee, football and automotive sport. "And in addition the Sunday races are broadcast live on TV. Even though in the F1 class Brazil has Felippe Massa as one of the candidates for the champion title, and even Nelson Piquet has already climbed the rostrum, the truck races are more popular."
Quite different, as Dolejš could see, is also the work of the racing engineers. While in Europe telemetric data are analysed throughout the race, in the largest country of the South American continent telemetry is not particularly their cup of coffee. "Before the race the truck is set somehow and then everything is up to the driver only. In fact it cannot be otherwise. The qualifying and the cup races are one without any pause in between. For the Brazilian engineer the racing weekend ends on Sunday morning, which is something to envy indeed."