Jos ready for his first Champ Car test

Published on 22 March 2005 by Huub Rothengatter

Yesterday evening Jos Verstappen flew from Indianapolis to Orlando where he arrived at 9pm local time. Raymond Vermeulen and Jos Verstappen spend the night in a hotel and the next day they travelled to the Sebring circuit. All the teams were present, except RuSport (Justin Wilson is one of the drivers for this team), will perform test activities on Wednesday.

Jos is very impressed with the atmosphere and friendliness in Champ Cars. "It's less distant than Formula 1. Everyone talks with eachother, just like friends, no formal things. It's completely different than what we are used to. No pitbox but just a couple of those extra large trucks with tents build against them." This atmosphere suits Jos, just normality will do for him.

It is the first time that Jos Verstappen visits the Sebring circuit. "I have spoken with the engineers and we have studied the data. After some deliberation we decided that we needed to do some 'tweaking' on the car. My seat is almost ready, it only needs some filing to make it perfect. We also needed to change the position of the steering wheel and the same for the pedals. It's only fractions that have been changed but they are very important for the ideal seating position."

This is Jos has been doing today at the Sebring circuit. A few drops of rain fell at a temperature of 25 degrees Celsius. Ready for tomorrow, first test in a new race class, a new car and on a new circuit.

Thorsten Hendriks