de Ferran/Dragon Racing driver Raphael Matos watches on-track activity Monday before going out to practice during what became a shortened Monday session due to weather
Here's some news and notes from the Brickyard from Monday..................
----Maturing Matos
After a solid 2009 IZOD IndyCar Series campaign that netted Rookie of the Year honors, Raphael Matos expected his sophomore season to start off quickly – to build on the promise he’d shown year after year in open-wheel racing.
“Rafa” had modestly impressive results in 2009, earning eight top-10 finishes, with a best of sixth-place at Milwaukee. For his first year with Luczo Dragon Racing, the Brazilian gave a good account of his potential, and much was expected for Rafa in 2010 when his friend and mentor Gil de Ferran became co-owner of the renamed de Ferran Dragon Motorsports.
All went according to plan at the season opener in Brazil where Matos took a solid fourth-place finish, but over the next four races, the team’s fortunes began to progressively fade. An eighth at St. Pete was followed by a 14th at Barber Motorsports Park, a 20th at Long Beach and 16th at Kansas. As the team unloaded into Indy, the near podium in Brazil just two months earlier was a distant memory.
After ascending up the open-wheel ladder in an effortless manner, the 29-year-old Brazilian has started the Month of May rather perplexed. He’s clearly capable of running at the front and his team has shown its ability to field a competitive car, but when it comes to solving the mystery surrounding their lack of results, Matos admits they are still zeroing in on the answer.
“Everybody here is playing a big part in solving this. I think as long as we have answers for the lack of performance or the lack of results -- we just need to understand why we didn't perform that well and what we can change and try to improve. That's all we can do. We can’t panic. I believe this is temporary.”
The first order of business for Matos and the team is to understand why so many of their events have gotten off to a crawl rather than a flying start.
“We can see in our session times, we can try different things, I can try to improve myself and we only can do certain number of things during the weekend; but there is only so much you can do when you start the weekend off the pace. If we are [outside] the setup window of or if I'm not driving well, you won’t do magic in the race. Obviously, the team and Gil and the engineers, it's just that the flashes of performance that we have, it can look not so big but he can see that we were fourth quickest at Long Beach, we were fast at Barber in warm-ups but in fact very slow in the race.
“When we’re able to find a good balance with the car we can be up there, there's no question about it. [At] Toronto last year, we were quickest in one of the sessions, started third in Long Beach last year – those kind of performances really motivated the team and motivates us and we can see that we have what we need, we just need to put everything together.”
As one of the few full-time single-car teams, Matos was quick to point out that overcoming problems takes longer when you don’t have a teammate.
“You can fix things – but with one-car teams, especially, it’s very difficult to find the answers quickly. That's why I think it's the most difficult part, not having another car to address it so you can say, okay, his setup is different, maybe better there so let’s see if it's better over here. And he's braking deeper than you but you're faster than him here. When you can compare those things, you raise the bar of performance I think. We’re getting there as fast as we can on our own.”
IndyCar racing is an ever-changing game – one where the pace of development can turn a winning car into a backmarker the following year unless a healthy sum of money is committed to R&D. Matos says his de Ferran Dragon Motorsports team has improved their car from 2009 to 2010, but it’s possible their rivals might have found a little bit extra.
“It’s funny, we do have a better understanding of the car but sometimes it doesn’t necessarily translate to performance because there's other pieces that you need on the puzzle. It's a combination of things. It's not only one thing like shocks or the engine. We have improved. This I know. Now we need to catch the other guys. The changes in ownership, management and personnel is likely responsible for some of the team’s slow start. Every good sports team needs time to jell and in a high stakes arena like Indycar racing, it’s an even more critical component when seeking success. With some changes in the engineering department for 2010, Matos says everything is coming together to his liking, but it’s the influence of Gil de Ferran that gives the young Brazilian the greatest cause to be optimistic. Gil, to be honest, I never saw any driver even close to him in terms of knowledge and technical knowledge and the way he picks his engineers, it's amazing. As a driver of his caliber, he has so much knowledge because he really understands it and shares that with me. This is very big for me. Very big. Jay Penske is also very important to my growth. I am lucky to have two owners who are so passionate for me to win.”
With more track time, Matos only expects to get better and to learn more about what he wants from his Dallara-Honda Indycar. “We’re a young team, with one full year of experience, and with a rookie driver, this is the only IndyCar I’ve driven. I don't know what to expect from a different car in terms of reaction and performance. Maybe another team’s car feels different and that’s why they go a little bit faster. I don’t know. This is the only IndyCar I’ve known, but the more I drive, the closer we get, I believe.”
It’s easy to single out Rafa’s lack of results from St. Pete to Kansas, but it’s his growth in one key area that has so far distinguished his rookie campaign from his efforts this year. In the first five races of 2009 Matos finished only twice, crashing out of the other three. In 2010, he’s proud of his perfect finishing record. It hasn’t been by mistake, he says.
“Maturity as an IndyCar driver. That’s the difference from last year to this year. Last year I crashed out a lot in the first part of the championship. I think when I went to Indy I wasn't even in the top-15 in the championship. This year, despite the results aren't that strong, I came to Indy in the top-10, with Dan Wheldon, right next to Tony Kanaan and so on. Big names. So now it is about when you feel you don't have the best car, you still have to bring it home. It's a lot of work for the team to repair and it costs a lot of money, as you know. And you just have to bring it home and score points and go to the next one and try your best to do a better job in the next race. This thing I did not fully see last year. Personally, I'm pushing myself just the way I was pushing last year but with a little bit more of – how do I say this – I am not putting my race in somebody else's hands, that’s what I'm doing.”
As the conversation turned to Indy – a track where Matos qualified an impressive 12th last year – Rafa says he expects things to get tougher once the action resumes.
“I think it will be much more difficult than last year because the field is more brushed up. But I always believe we can be there at the end. We had plenty of speed last year and I hope we can fight for a top-10 finish here and for the rest of the ovals as well. I think we have to shoot for top-10. If we place ourselves in the top-8, top-10, we’ll end up finishing top-5 a lot of times and maybe we'll podium. You never know what's going to happen at the end of a race, so if we can be close, I think we can be in contention. Obviously, we're looking for a first win, for sure, and I think that can happen in the road course, but I find it difficult to see it happen on an oval. But I’ll tell you, an Indy win would be a nice way to win number one!”
----Teammate Travails
......and all this time I never knew Target/Ganassi drivers Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti were comedians............
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2GAWR9Am5w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkxR11anOJY
