Kiwi driver Chris van der Drift’s overseas GT racing season is starting to come together and he is picking up sought-after Euro racing opportunities.
Often regarded as the first choice to fill a one-off seat in most European championships, van der Drift finally scored a full championship drive in the GT Open championship this year with Italian team BhaiTech.
After a couple of good results in the Italian GT championships, the former A1GP, AutoGP, Superleague and World Series driver received a last-minute call to contest the series in a second McLaren MP4 12C GT3 with Brazilian Luiz Razia.
The class has a “balanced performance” technical rule, intended to give all manufacturers equal race opportunities.
As the McLaren is turbo-charged, its boost has been cranked way back under this rule and it is down on power compared to the normally aspirated Ferraris, Porsches and the rest.
“It’s certainly been an interesting year in the McLaren,” said van der Drift. “We had a lot of DNFs, but when we didn’t have any problems with the car we were on the podium and also had a few pole positions.
“You could look at the year in two bits I suppose – we had some success and some really bad luck. We ended up winning the teams championship and have been invited to the big McLaren dinner. For them it was a triumph with us flying the McLaren flag.
“It’s a very new car to be racing, and we had a lot of things we had to find out about as we came across them on race weekends. At least now we know what parts have to be changed and how often and what has to be looked after.
“Things ended up out of our control at the time though – like in Spain, where we crashed after getting pole when the steering arm broke. It made for a tough and a frustrating season, especially after leading the championship at the halfway point only for everything to go wrong after that.”
In the GT Open series, all the teams do not use the same tyre, and this doesn’t make for a level playing field. Each car’s set-up will suit a particular track configuration and surface, which means the car could be a rocket ship at one circuit and a dog on another.
“It’s really critical how you use the tyres,” said van der Drift.
“There’s no use looking at another car to see how their set-up is working because they’ll be using different tyres. Also, this is the first time the McLaren has used Dunlops, so there’s no previous data.”
On top of his racing duties the Kiwi has been mentoring young Netherlands driver Stein Schothorst, who also contested last season’s Toyota Racing Series.
“I looked after Stein all year and made it to all the events that didn’t clash with my racing. He’s a good guy and he’s a fast kid. That also kept me busy during the year. I’ll keep helping him and will be back in New Zealand for the next TRS championship with him.”
Nothing has really been sorted for next year but van der Drift is confident there’ll be an opening with the team again for next year’s season.
Sports car racing seems to be the preferred route for several fast young drivers who don’t have money but do have a lot of talent.
“It’s a shame, but single seater just costs so much money and the fields are just full of guys who aren’t that good but have massive cheque books,” said van der Drift.
“It’s too hard barking up that tree now, so a lot of us are turning to sports cars and making a career out of that.
“If I stay with the guys I’ve been racing with this season we’ll be doing the FIA GT Blancpain Endurance Series – well that’s in the pipeline, but nothing has been signed yet and I’ll be keeping my options open.”
