In the coziness of WRT’s hospitality we are about to have an interview with Vincent Vosse, WRT Team Principal.
Just the time to take a seat and enjoy a cup of refreshing cold lemon tea (even though we are in september, it’s still quite hot here in Monza) and it’s time for our talk.
It’s not our first interview with Vincent Vosse this year (we spoke in Le Mans) and it’s always a pleasure, for us, to talk with him.
Of course our thought is going to the great result in Fuji in the WEC, last week, even though it’s a different championship from GTWC.
“It was needed for the team, it’s a bit of a relief for the team. The double podium also in LMGT3 was important, we had some difficult races during the season and having that extra push in Fuji was great” says Vincent Vosse.
Our next step in talk is about the morale of the team approaching this GTWC round, especially after Fuji.
“The morale is great, it’s always good to be here in Monza. So nice to be in Italy in general. The track is so demanding, it’s a special track with plenty of history. We would love to make it happen another time here in Monza, we had already some great results here. We will work hard to make another one.”
Ok, it’s time to roll the dices and change completely the topic.
Since we have the opportunity to talk with a Team Principal that made both the 24h of Le Mans and the 24h of Spa, two of the biggest endurance races in the world, let’s ask which one is the favourite one and why.
” Well, very difficult to pick up one race, they are two very different races.
What I can say is that the 24h of Le Mans is the biggest event in the world in terms of endurance. Historically it’s the most known race.
But you know, Spa is my home-race. I’m living very close to the track, I’m born around it and my passion for the sport came from Spa and from 24h of Spa mainly.
Every race that we are doing with WRT is a new challenge and we want to win all of them, it’s always a goal.”
One thing that really cought our attention, during this weekend, it’s the great amount of belgian teams and drivers here in the GTWC series. So, starting from here, we thought to ask to Vincent his point about the belgian environment and mentality in motorsport and why, in his opinion and experience, it is so florid.
“Let’s say, we are well placed in Belgium. We are a little bit in the middle, we are close to Germany, England, Holland and France. Let’s say we are in a good strategic point when you look at the map. Also our culture, we don’t have german culture, we don’t have french one or italian one. We have the chance of having a little bit of compromising amongst them. I think that gives us the professionalism made by the strict way of the german team-working and a little bit the charming of Italy.
We like the atmosphere, it’s very important that everyone should feel welcomed in the team. It’s very important to me.
In my career as a driver I always looked at few different teams and one of them it was Rafanelli-Bigazzi team, an italian racing team where I saw that the hospitality was very important. They made a lot of good negotiation in the hospitality in the past. That was very important to me.
I also shared a lot of time with Michael Bartels with Vitaphone, german team. I took lots of good ideas from them. It’s a bit of everything.”
WRT is now one of the major reality in endurance and GT competition but did Mr. Vosse expect to create such a reality?
“Of course not, the idea behind was to create a good team, something to fight in the belgian championship and our dream was one day to compete and win in the 24h of Spa but we won in our second year so we had to fix the new target.”
Let’s hit the Valentino Rossi topic with Vincent Vosse.
The “Rossi effect”,from different mentality and lots of supporters: is it hard to cope with as a team?
“There are facts: Valentino spent lots of time in MotoGp as everyone knows with all the success he had. When he retired he was about 42 years old, he arrived with us at 43. Age is a fact, he has a lot of energy and motivation. I don’t know where he is taking from.
ou cannot judge or manage this as another person. The energy he has is incredible and the one he wants to put in the program is crazy.
Just you cannot compare with other drivers.
You will not find many other drivers, none of them that we know today, that can be as quick as Vale when they will be 45 years old. This being said, Vale is still in a learning process and he is learning very quickly. We have lots of younger drivers (pro-drivers) which still has a lot to learn from Vale. Starting from work ethic, the way to make things happen. Vale made mistakes during the year or the few years we are together but when you see the speed of his learning you can only do this with some small mistakes.
For us as a team it’s nice having people around, supporters, fans and merchandise it’s always nice. We also enjoy working with Vale, he is an incredible talent. When you are talented you are just talented in many different things you do and it’s his case.”
We really thanks Vincent Vosse for the time that gave us and Luna De Wilde for making the interview happens.
Pictures both from article and cover from Giulia Ferola.