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Q & A with Alex Wurz

It has taken him six years as a test driver first for McLaren and then for Williams, but Alex Wurz has finally secured a permanent racing seat for the 2007 season

The Austrian, who last got the chance to compete in a Grand Prix in 2005 replacing Juan Pablo Montoya at McLaren, is eager to get back on the grid and show he still has what it takes to fight wheel to wheel.

Autosport.com heard from Wurz during the launch of the new Williams FW29 in Oxfordshire, about his years as a tester and his hopes for his racing return with Williams.

Q. How different does it feel this winter compared to previous ones where you were a test driver?

Alexander Wurz: It is not completely different. In our world, which is so quick moving, you live day to day. But there is that little bit extra sweet taste all the time, which is the great difference. You know you are racing, and you know you are doing everything and have the direct result.

Q. And what about the approach to testing? Is it different now that you know you are racing the cars?

AW: I think the regulations have made it different, because testing is now more squeezed together so it is not endless weeks of testing piling laps in, where you go for everything. It is very much making a lot of quantity with ultra high quality at a given time.

For example, this year I have tested just two days in the whole winter whereas usually it was 20 to 30 days. It was due to the regulations with one car testing, but my approach mentally for testing is the same.

What you are trying to do in testing is to drive the car to its limits and its purpose - and trying to stretch the laws of physics everywhere a little bit and you are always chasing the weakest link on the car.

It is the same now. But it is great mentally in your own computer up there, it is great that extra feeling that you know it will be you carrying that car on the grid. That is super cool. It is what I wanted to do all the time.

Q. When you get to Melbourne will it feel like a new beginning, the start of something fresh, or just another race?

AW: One race is never just another race. One race is always the thing that you are there and you have to do the best. That is awesome. In all the sports, I have been in cycling before, and the challenge ahead of you is always the greatest.

Q. Did you always believe that you would get back into F1, because you persevered for a long time as a test driver?

AW: Of course I had moments of doubts, moments of big doubts, moments of no doubts. It was a complete mixture and you run through lots of different states of emotions and mental situations. But I don't regret anything with the way it ran, and the way it was done. I was sometimes close, but close is not good enough. Now I am here, but it is not the end. It is actually just starting.

Q. But there must have been offers to race in other things? Was there not a temptation just to give up on F1?

AW: I have always in the last few years received offers. For example two years ago there was one to go to Champ Car with the best team there. But I said I wanted to stay in F1, but not just to stay in F1 but because I wanted to come back racing. It came just after I had done the Imola race for McLaren, so it was slightly different anyway.

I had offers whilst I was contracted to F1 teams from other F1 teams, and all the old chestnuts. But right now there is a big task ahead of me, and that is what I want to concentrate and speak about now.

Q. So it has been worth all those years of pounding around test tracks?

AW: Yes, definitely 100 percent. You never give up. In your private life and in business, there is always a way forward. You just have to take it as it comes.

Q. What about the return to racing? Do you forget how to race after a time, can you get race rusty?

AW: Well, it might be a good excuse in Australia! No, seriously, I don't think so. Look, in all the years you are constantly in the car so the brain is tuned to just going as quick as you can. And the rest, with being on the grid and starting something, I don't think you forget how to do it.

I did it in a one-off at Imola and I was perfectly fine doing it there. I am also, on the other side, I won't be able to make miracle from 0 to 100. But on the other side I don't think there is a learning curve required.

I have been accused that I have been too aggressive with the other drivers on the circuit, with kicking and wheel banging, so I don't see that as a problem at all.

Q. Do you feel there is a lot of expectation on you from the team for technical leadership, because of all your experience?

AW: Yeah, but I have zero problem with that. It is a privilege to race for Williams. The pressure is always on, but it is not a negative - it is a positive. It shows that you are in an environment with a huge challenge, and that is what I like.

Q. How different is the Williams team now compared to 12 months ago. Sam Michael has talked about a lot of change in the technical department, and a bit of a wake-up call last year?

AW: Yes, he is right when he talks about a lot of changes. But what I learned in F1 is that when a team works together and they are all pulling in one direction then that is the best. As soon as you have politics, fighting, finger pointing - that is when too much energy is wasted in all of this and not on the real thing of making the car quicker.

And naturally you could think that after 2006, there is a lot of potential here for finger pointing, for blaming and not getting on with it. But that is not the case at all. Seriously not the case.

I have been here for two weeks to stroll around the factory a little bit, and I had teams where I experienced the finger pointing problem, but that really pleased me it wasn't here. There are no guys who run ego shows here.

They have seen what has been done before, they suggest how they have done it at the other teams, and it came well together. But all that I am telling you now, we will see on the circuit soon. But don't have the highest expectations because it is unrealistic to think that now we are going to blow everyone away.

These days are over where you can do that. It is just about making a new foundation and cutting away the little difference you have from the winners. Sometimes it is the tiny little bits, in efficiency, in power, in mechanical grip. That is what is so important. That is the task I have, to be an integral part of that for 2007.

Q. So do you think it will be a gradual chipping away to move up the front, or can Williams start at the front and go from there?

AW: It is difficult to say. When you look already now at the test times and you look at the single tyre, it is going to be so dreadfully tight. One tenth up and down you will be hero or zero.

And this makes it difficult for me, not having driven the car and not knowing whether the data will transform onto the circuit, I have to be a bit cautious on that one. Of course the main target and aim will be to turn it around and move forward on the grid.

Q. How does the Toyota engine compare to the Cosworth engine?

AW: Well, when I drove it, I can compare it of course, we had the 19,000rpm limiter in. And the Cosworth was famous for revving high, and it was a pleasure I have to say because I am with the British media, to drive such a masterpiece of British engineering with very limited resources!

But it was a very good engine, but you have to see the engine is not only about the power. It is about driveability, fuel consumption and weight. It is a very good engine and I think it is a very strong point.

From the beginning on, I thought it would be good for my share price because I could go in, after being in F1 for many years, to Toyota and tell them what to do. But I couldn't because it was very good already. The setting, traction control...it was all very good.

Q. The Alex Wurz racing driver I remember was a young guy who was never afraid to take chances and was very aggressive. Is the more mature Alex less inclined to take risks? Is he more worried about making mistakes because he feels he is older?

AW: No, there are no worries at all about making mistakes. Risks, to take risks, is something that you have to decide in that split second. So I cannot tell you how I will react if I see a little bit of an opening in turn one in Australia.

But I think with time I know that you have to finish the race to get the points, but on other occasions you have to put your elbows out and stand your ground. That is the decision you have to do in a split second, not now in an interview.

Q. But you had the chance at Imola. What did you come away from that race thinking?

AW: Well, to explain that race. The aim of that race, with the qualifying system there where you go out first and the track is dirty, the aim of McLaren was to put him on the safety strategy where we know we end up with points. Looking back it would have been much better, because I didn't make any mistakes in qualifying, to change the strategy because I did the maximum we could achieve in that race.

If we had 10 kilos less, I would have been in the first two rows and then fought straight in the first two or three positions. But I understood the position of: let's get him out there and if he makes a mistake in qualifying, he will still be in the points with the heaviest car out there.

But that was the race tactic. I was happy I fulfilled that tactic without a mistake, although I had a little scare at the end because they didn't put enough fuel in and I had to drive saving fuel for the final three laps. So it was all done how the team wanted. But it was a defensive team strategy. But I wanted an aggressive strategy because that is how naturally I am.

Q. You were never on the podium there because of the whole BAR thing...

AW: Yeah, I still haven't got the trophy! I paid for it, but I haven't received it.

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