Q & A with Michael Andretti

Michael Andretti: "Firstly, it's good to be back at Zandvoort. I think the last time I was here was in 1978 when my dad was testing a Lotus! The way it came about was, we'd always kept an eye on A1GP and I think we started to get pretty excited about the Ferrari and the new car that was coming out.

"We had some talks with Rick Weidlinger some time ago, but we never really pursued anything. Then we got a call from Tony Teixeira asking if we'd be interested and I said 'absolutely'. This series for us is the opposite of the IndyCar series, so it really works for us schedule wise.

"The other problem we have in the US is that there's not a lot of testing, so this is about getting miles and this we feel is a good way of getting road racing miles for Marco and Danica - which is the plan - so it's going to make a lot of sense as a platform for us to expand. We are in the racing business and we've done well in the US and this is an opportunity to get out there worldwide. We're excited about it, we're going to take it very seriously."

Q. The cars have come together at the 11th hour, but Charlie Kimball did a good job in practice. You must be very pleased?

MA: "I am. I was getting hourly reports. One minute it was doomsday the next it was back on again. We've sent some really great guys over here as part of our team and they've been working really hard. To run trouble-free yesterday was pretty good and then to be fourth quickest today was pretty good, too.

"We called Charlie I think on Wednesday and said 'do you want to drive for us?' and he was in California, so we had to get him on an plane over here for a seat fitting. He's done a very good job for us. It's nice to have his experience as well as having Paul Antony on our team, who so far has done a great job getting us up to speed. I'm really happy with the way it's come on because it was really last minute."

Q. Are you going to bring over engineers from IndyCar or ALMS?

MA: "I don't know exactly how we're going to structure it yet. The key person we needed was someone who knew how to make the cars go fast, and the race tracks and stuff. and Paul Antony was the perfect guy for that."

Q. How are you going to decide who's going in the car?

MA: "There's a lot of factors to take into consideration, schedules etc, but I don't know who's going to race in China. It's probably Marco, but I'm not 100 per cent sure."

Q. How much do they want to represent their country?

MA: "I think one of the problems is that they both said they want to do all the races. I think that's the unique part of the series - the patriotic side. I think it's so cool to be able to carry your colours and they are both very excited about that."