Fifer Andrew Kirkaldy believes he can lift the FIA World GT2 Championship in his second year racing for the CR Scuderia Ferrari team.
The St Andrews racer, has more FIA GT pole positions than any other driver in the history of the championship, will partner England’s Rob Bell as they bid for world glory.
“Given any normal year, the season we had in FIA as a first year, most people would have been happy with it,” Kirkaldy, who won twice in Bucharest but had to settle for sixth place in the championship because of a series of niggling technical problems, said today. “But because we did so well in all the other formulas (CR Scuderia won the British GT and Formula Renault titles in 2008) we were slightly disappointed. But 2009 is here now and we want to go out and rectify that.
“We’ve learned a lot from last year, in engineering, driving together, and getting the best out of the team so that should stand us in good stead this year. It’s a competitive car, we know that. We lack a little bit in a straight line but I’m sure Ferrari are working on that.
“We have the rivalry with Porsche, but the great thing about GT2 is that we have Aston coming back into it and other manufacturers looking at it for the future — so it’s one championship where manufacturers are coming back, and that makes it even more competitive.”
Kirkaldy gets his world championship campaign underway at the beginning of May with the Tourist Trophy meeting at Silverstone.
JM