Team leader seeks nature's ultimate secret

Team leader seeks nature's ultimate secret

By Hieu Tran Phan, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Monday, April 5, 2010 at 12:04 a.m.

Vivek Sharma

Vivek Sharma seemed destined to become a scientist specializing in particle physics.

Growing up, he loved to take apart pens, smash watches and tinker with cars so he could scrutinize their parts.

Now he heads a team of 2,500 physicists and engineers from 38 countries searching for far tinier parts — those that may hold answers to how the universe began. The researchers conquered a milestone last week when the Large Hadron Collider successfully smashed two protons traveling almost at the speed of light.

“It was an exhilarating event that stopped my heart for about three seconds,” said Sharma, 47, who is also a physics professor at the University of California San Diego. “This is the result of about two decades of effort by scientists around the world. I still have goose bumps thinking about it.”

Sharma talked of the accomplishment and remaining challenges during a phone interview from his team’s offices in Geneva.

Q: Why did you become a particle physicist?

A: I was known for breaking things as a child to study them, and particle physics is also reductionist. It enables you to get down to the elements.

As a teenager, I wanted a time machine after reading books by H.G. Wells and others. My dream was to travel into different worlds. Particle physics allows me to continue that dream. It’s basically a time machine that could get us to the origins of the universe.

Q: Why is the latest achievement important?

A: It’s about discovering the ultimate secrets of nature. On the broadest scale, our projects — if they succeed — will help us understand the roots of how we were formed. In essence, we are looking at why we exist.

There is huge interest in the Big Bang and things like that. I’ve been quoted by more than 400 journalists in recent days, and I’m getting e-mails from students, colleagues, strangers around the world.

Q: What difficulties lie ahead for you and the other researchers?

A: Nature is far more clever than what we can imagine, and it’s trying very hard to hide the deepest answers from us. We are fine-tuning the collider machine to crash particles at higher and higher speeds so we can blast away those coverings. There is a lot of media attention, and that puts great pressure on the team, but we are determined.

We now think there are more than four dimensions in nature, possibly as many as 10.

Q: How have the experiments in Geneva affected you?

A: I’ve developed an appreciation for the citizens of this world whose taxes and moral support allow modern marvels like the Large Hadron Collider to become reality.

This isn’t a making of Microsoft. This is a creation made possible by everyday people, and it belongs to the world. We should all share in this triumph.

Q: How long will you stay in Geneva?

A: The U.S. Department of Energy has bought out my teaching requirements at UCSD so I can stay in Geneva to work on these projects. My team of graduate students and other assistants also live here. We’ve had this arrangement since December, and it will likely stay this way for at least two years.

Q: How will you celebrate your latest success?

A: Spending time with my family will be reward enough. I’m flying back to San Diego to celebrate my daughter’s birthday. I may take her to Disneyland.

Paddock Life - Sepang edition

Monday, April 5th 2010, 09:24 GMT

AUTOSPORT brings you its regular column of life inside the paddock. This week: Sepang

Hot, hot, hot and wet, wet, wet. That pretty much sums up what life was like at the Malaysian Grand Prix, as Formula 1 flew in for its annual dose of tropical weather.

After an at-times chilly Australian GP marred by the downpour that helped turn Melbourne into a great spectacle, Malaysia was always going to be a bit more on the extreme side.

With local interest at a high thanks to the presence of Lotus on the grid, race organisers made even more of an effort to attract fans to the weekend's activities - and were duly rewarded with a bigger than usual crowd.

Part of the entertainment included a concert by Wyclef Jean and Fat Boy Slim � both of whom had a tour of the F1 paddock. Down at HRT, F1 rookie Karun Chandhok showed off his car to Bollywood legend Shah Rukh Khan.

But the highlight for many in the paddock was the return of what was once the annual Malaysian Air Force display � which witnessed Mig-29s buzzing the top of the grandstands and pit buildings over the weekend.

The F1 paddock is full of people who love high-tech machinery, so it was no surprise to see mechanics, engineers, drivers and even team principals venturing out of their air conditioned offices to stand in the paddock and gawp at the machinery that was zipping around overhead.

And there were plenty of laughs at the way the planes' after-burners were so powerful they were setting off all the car alarms out the back of the paddock.

Although the daytime temperature in Malaysia is regularly in a challenging mid 30 degrees Centigrade, it is the speed and ferocity of its afternoon storms that are harder to deal with.

And one of the earliest victims of one of these super storms was world champion Jenson Button, who thought he would do his regular pre-event track walk late on Thursday afternoon prior to his first media commitments.

Button clearly had no idea what the weather was going to have in store for him as, when half way around the circuit, the heavens opened with an immense downpour.

Coats and umbrellas offered little protection for the volume of water that was being dumped from the skies � so Button and his clan had to seek shelter until the storm had passed.

By the time a very wet Button returned to the paddock, a lightning storm had succeeded in knocking out the power in McLaren's offices � so he duly sat down with the press in near full darkness to talk about his build-up to the weekend.

"It's cosy isn't it?" he smiled. "It's like going camping..."

I bet you never got that web in Frome though Jenson�

The heat of Malaysia meant things got pretty sweaty for anyone needing to work outside � so it was pretty bad timing for one of the nearby hotels to have a bit of a shunt with its laundry organisation.

With just one week between the Australian and Malaysian Grand Prix, teams had made a bee-line out of Melbourne on Sunday night to get themselves acclimatised to the heat and time zone change of Malaysia.

This mass exodus meant on the Monday that one of the main hotels where a number of teams were staying found itself dumped with the laundry from more than 400 F1 team members at the same time.

With that number being far in excess of what is standard, the hotel unfortunately lost total control of the situation � misplacing team shirts and trousers, losing pants, handing the wrong team gear back to the wrong people.

With so many people affected, even the setting up of an extra 'laundry emergency' desk to try and repatriate people with their clothing, did not help the situation get totally resolved before team members had to return to work in the Sepang paddock.

And so it was that F1 personnel ended up either a) borrowing badly fitting clothes to get them through the weekend or b) keep wearing their old sweaty clothes!

By race day, thankfully, everyone had pretty much got their kit back � so everyone looked spick and span for the big Sunday audience.

Although the Petronas-sponsored Mercedes GP team delighted the home crowd with a podium finish on Sunday, there was little doubt that a majority of the local fans' eyes were on just one team � Lotus.

The return of the iconic name to Formula 1, especially with Malaysian road car company Proton owning Lotus Cars, attracted tremendous interest.

And it was quite a hectic time for the team all told. There was a host of press conferences in town, the launch of a new official Lotus drink LR8, the signing of a new sponsorship deal with telecommunications company Maxis � and a bit of help in pit stop practice from former English rugby player Rory Underwood.

But one of the most personal moments, which showed how strong the team spirit runs through Lotus, was when technical chief Mike Gascoyne was delivered with a birthday cake on the pit wall before Friday practice got underway.

The F1 paddock is always full of wild rumours and crazy stories � so it's ironic on April Fool's day that things actually calm down a little as people often think the truth is actually a wind-up.

There were people late that afternoon reckoning AUTOSPORT.com's stories on Michelin's potential return to F1, and the ban on outboard mirrors, were April Fools' rather than proper news stories!

There were of course some deliberate jokes though - and it was Scuderia Toro Rosso who kicked off the japes with a tale about how one of its old refuelling rigs had been turned into an ice-cream vending machine.

The team even offered the first 25 people who went down there a chance to try out some of its products � but did warn that the ice cream may have a bit of a fuel aftertaste.

Jenson Button found himself on the receiving end of a joke from one of his mechanics when he was told where the door to his personal room was � only to open it and find there was nothing behind it but a wall.

While down at Williams, Nico Hulkenberg issued a statement saying that he had had to change his name to 'Nico Hulker' for marketing reasons.

He quoted manager Willi Weber as saying: "The name 'Hulkenberg' was too difficult to bring to market, because it is much too long. Hulker' is shorter and even sounds way more dynamic."

Proton Emas family make its debut

Malaysian national car manufacturer Proton has joined the many elite international car manufacturers as forerunners in technology following unveiled a series of concept global cars at the recently 80th International Geneva Motor Show.
The three concept global cars – EMAS (five doors hatchback), EMAS Country (three doors hatchback) and EMAS3 (three-door 3+1 plus-seater) signal Proton’s long-term plan to expand its footprint in the global automotive market.

EMAS – which means gold in the Malay language – stands for Eco Mobility Advance Solution, and is a result of the joint collaboration between Proton, its subsidiary Lotus, and Italian design house, Italdesign Giugiaro (IDG).

The cars were unveiled at IDG’s booth by Proton Advisor and former Prime Minister of Malaysia Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and was on display throughout the exhibition from March 4 to 14, 2010 in the Geneva Motorshow.

Proton Holdings Berhad Chairman Dato’ Mohd Nadzmi Mohd Salleh and Group Managing Director Dato’ Haji Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir as well as Italdesign Giugiaro Chairman Giorgetto Giugiaro and Co-Chairman Fabrizio Giugiaro were present to witness the unveiling.

The unveiling was also timely with Proton’s silver jubilee celebration this year. “We are certainly very thankful and humbled that this is happening as we celebrate our 25 years of existence in the industry. We certainly will make full use of this opportunity to reach out and build our brand further into the global world,” said Dato’ Syed Zainal Abidin.

The forerunner of the Emas family is a five-door hatchback with the emphasis on comfort because the rear seats are the same as the front seats to create four business class seats within just 3550mm of total length.

The front-end features the Proton Shield housed in a longitudinal slot below the bonnet. This also incorporates the light clusters and is enhanced by two distinctive diamond-shaped fog lights. The engine cooling air intake, located between the fog lights, is concealed within a dark grey trapezoid motif. Its size varies according to the type of engine installed, without altering the look of the front-end.

The side is dominated by a belt line that drops down decisively toward the windscreen pillar to increase side visibility during parking manoeuvres. The side is enlivened by a sculpted shape, enhanced by a rib that runs from the front wheel arch then swoops up toward the rear

The windscreen extends along three quarters of the roof to create a sky-dome effect that dominates the view from above. Protective sunblinds are housed in the central cross member and extend longitudinally towards both the front and rear seats.

CHRIS ATKINSON'S SIGNING TO CRACK PROTON TEAM A HUGE BOOST FOR INTERNATIONAL ...

The Proton Satria Neo S2000 Chris Atkinson will drive in Queensland.

EXPECTATIONS for Australia’s biggest championship rally of 2010, the International Rally of Queensland on the Sunshine Coast, have received a huge boost with the signing of world rally star Chris Atkinson to contest the event for the crack Proton R3 team.

Gold Coast-based Atkinson, 30, and fellow experienced World Rally Championship driver Alister McRae, of Scotland, will line up in a pair of Proton Satria Neo S2000 cars for the FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship, of which the International Rally of Queensland (IROQ) on 30 July-1 August will be round four.

The seven-round championship starts with Proton’s home event in Malaysia on 24-25 April. It is expected to see competitors from Japan, China, India, Malaysia, Australia, Great Britain and New Zealand in a series which ranks second only behind the FIA World Rally Championship on the international calendar.

Atkinson, McRae and the British-run Mellors Elliot Motorsport Proton team will be among the strongest contenders in Queensland, where Atkinson won in 2004 before joining Subaru for four years in the World Rally Championship.

After spending all but one round of the 2009 WRC season on the sidelines, the Queenslander will delight fans with his return to full-time, world-class rallying and his home event, which was announced on Good Friday, IROQ Event director Errol Bailey said today.

“This is fantastic news for the International Rally of Queensland. It will be the only opportunity in Australia this year for spectators to see two big names of the World Rally Championship, Atkinson and McRae, in action aboard the very latest Super 2000-category Proton cars,” Mr Bailey said.

“While Mark Webber has achieved magnificently in Formula 1, Chris has also scaled the heights as an Australian in the equally-demanding World Rally Championship and is rightly regarded as one of our top international motorsportsmen.

“We will welcome Chris home. He is a close friend of the event, having won it in 2004, driven the non-competing ‘Zero’ car last year and continued his personal membership of the organising club, the Brisbane Sporting Car Club, throughout his career.

“He is also no stranger to the FIA APRC, having won the Super 1600 Championship in 2003 and 2004 driving a works Suzuki Ignis.

“Chris’s entry in IROQ and the FIA APRC is also great news for IROQ’s sponsors, partners and organisers. This will guarantee substantial extra international and domestic publicity for the rally, a valuable incentive for any company that is considering a commercial involvement.”

Atkinson should bring a strong balance of youth and experience to the Proton R3 Rally Team.

“It’s a fantastic opportunity to drive the next generation of rally car. I’m really excited about the year ahead,” website rallybuzz.com quoted him as saying.

“I’ve tested the Satria Neo S2000 briefly in Britain and it’s a very, very good car. I’m looking forward to working with Proton and Alister in the year ahead. To be honest, I can’t wait to get started on the first event.”

Chris Mellors, manager of the Derbyshire, England, Proton R3 team, welcomed the signing of Atkinson.

“He has shown what he can do at the highest level of this sport and it’s great news for Proton that he’s joining us,”’ he said.

“We’re a real Asia Pacific team now: a Malaysian manufacturer with a native Australian driving one car and a Scotsman living in Australia in the other.

“There’s no doubt this is going to be an exciting season for Proton and all concerned with the programme. But right now the focus is on getting Alister and Chris more time in the Satria and getting everybody ready for our home round of the 2010 FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship.”

The Proton Satria Neo S2000 is the product of an alliance between Mellor’s MEM car preparation company and Proton. It first appeared half-way through last season, while McRae wrapped up the year with second in the Rally of Scotland.

As well as the FIA  APRC, IROQ in 2010 will host rounds of the Australian and Queensland Rally Championships and competitions for Classic and All-Comers entries.

More than 70 cars in total are expected to compete, bringing with them more than a thousand crew members, supporters and media from the Asia Pacific region and Australia.

They will contest a Friday night Super Special Stage under lights on the coast, before action moves to the Imbil State Forest in the Mary Valley for traditional gravel special stages across the weekend.

Public and corporate opportunities to see the cars in action and at rest during service breaks will be available at several points on the course.
 
The International Rally of Queensland is benefiting from Significant Regional Event Scheme (SRES) funding under the Queensland  Events Regional Development Program (QERDP).
 
The QERDP is an investment program designed to extend the flow of economic and social benefits of events to regional Queensland. The SRES celebrates and supports those events that have a particularly strong track record of growth and economic success for their region.
 
A state-wide initiative, the program is committed to enhancing existing events in regional Queensland, as well as assisting in the establishment of new events.
 
Since the QERDP began in 2001, more than $13.6 million has been invested in 645 regional events, an indicator of the important role these events play in their communities and wider Queensland.
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New tech for clean, low-cost power

PUNE: With a dual aim of bridging the energy gap at a low cost without harming the environment, a group of three Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) labs, including the National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), Pune is developing low cost fuel cells using indigenous components, which can help generate power using hydrogen as an alternate fuel to reduce the emission levels significantly.

 

The three CSIR labs working in this project are NCL, Pune, National Physics Laboratory (Delhi) and Central Electrochemical Research Institute, Karaikudi, in Tamil Nadu. The project has been undertaken by CSIR under the R&D programme New Millennium Initiative in Technology Leadership for India.

 

“Fuel Cell (FC) is an electromechanical power source with advantage of both the combustion engine and the battery. It operates quickly and efficiently when hydrogen is used as a fuel. It generates only power and water. Thus a FC is a zero emission engine,” junior scientist NCL, K Sreekumar told Sakaal Times.

 

In the past, several FC concepts have been tested in the laboratory. Amongst them, Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFCs) are considered as attractive power systems for quick startup operations and major technology advancements in this area.

 

But Nafion membranes, the commercial proton conducting membranes used in PEMFCs produced by US chemical giant Dupont, are very expensive.

 

“We have found that this problem can be solved by incorporating tiny carbon nanotubes into the Nafion membrane. It works and energy activation process i.e proton mobility of the membrane is increased by a large margin,” Project Assistant (PA)-II, NCL, Bipinlal U said.

 

Along with this, NCL has an indigenously developed proton conducting membrane, which can be operated at higher temperatures where Nafion membranes usually fail due to their direct dependency on cell humidification to facilitate proton conduction.   

 

Using the modified fuel the original energy production cost is approximately 1000/Kilowatt (Rs 45000/kw). The aim is USD 100/kw (Rs 450), Bipinlal said.

 

Since FC development is an integrated technology, the total energy cost depends on many parameters and always a high level of indigenization in terms of components and processes developments is expected to give cost effective products in the Indian energy market.

 

“Currently the aim of the project is to help generate static power. But the long term plan is to use the process for running hybrid cars. Reliance Industries Limited is one of the industrial partners for testing the technology at a larger level,” NCL director S Sivaram said.

Shakespeare was a Frenchman

A mermaid skeleton sits on the rock in Copenhagen harbour where the Little Mermaid statue is usually placed. The Little Mermaid is off to Shanghai for the World Expo, making room for the April Fool's Day prank.Photograph by: Birgitte Rubaek, AFP-Getty Images, Agence France-Presse, Reuters And Canwest News Service;

W illiam Shakespeare was French, Google has changed its name to "Topeka" and Barack Obama ordered a takeout meal from Indonesia -- at least that's what the world's media wants us to believe.

Newspapers and broadcasters teased audiences with a string of mostly good-humoured April Fool's Day stunts Thursday, with the only angry response coming when a hoax radio interview suggested Bulgaria should unilaterally adopt the euro.

In a play on old Anglo-French rivalries, the BBC spun a yarn about how Shakespeare, Britain's most famous writer, could in fact be French through his mother Mary Arden, saying her name was in fact Mary Ardennes.

It even recruited former French culture minister Jack Lang to play along with the "discovery."

"Of course, we have Racine and Moliere, but we will make some room for him in our national pantheon of literature," he said.

The Guardian said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had challenged opposition leader David Cameron to an election fist fight and printed a fake poster showing a scowling Brown next to the phrase: "Step outside posh boy."

Brown has recently been the subject of bullying allegations after a new book claimed he swore at advisers, turfed a secretary out of her chair for typing too slowly and grabbed a staff member by the jacket lapels.

The spoof story was penned by one Olaf Priol -- an anagram of "April Fool."

Meanwhile, the Sun tabloid proudly declared it had succeeded in creating "the world's first flavoured PAGE," next to a blank, white square which contained the instruction: "Lick here." The paper invited readers to "test our page here and guess the taste."

"We have exciting plans for multisensory branding of the Sun," said a spokeswoman for the paper's publisher News International.

The Daily Mail said the Automobile Association, which deals with emergency calls to car breakdowns, had given staff jetpacks to fly over traffic jams.

"The AA patrol van parks within a mile of the stricken member and the jetpack pilot launches from the back of the van," said the article.

A few British newspapers also ran a spoof BMW ad offering branded roundels for BMW cars in the colour of the political party the driver supports.

In Manitoba, the Winnipeg Sun got irate letters from dozens of readers after they reported the government was set to tax the Internet.

And Calgary-based WestJet Airlines sucked in more than a few people with an announcement about clapper technology on all its airliners, so that passengers could turn on lights and adjust seats by clapping, with the help of a headset transmitter.

Internet giant Google created its own April Fool's prank, saying it had officially changed its name to "Topeka" -- in honour of the Kansas state capital which had renamed itself "Google" in a recent promotion.

"Google has officially changed our name to Topeka," Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said in the company blog.

"Google employees once known as "Googlers" should now be referred to as either "Topekers" or "Topekans," depending on the result of a board meeting that's ongoing at this hour," Google said on its website.

The search engine also said it was launching "Translate for Animals," a new animal translation service.

In Australia, an elaborate hoax by the Sydney Morning Herald and ABC radio said soccer star David Beckham has been lured to join the country's World Cup campaign by a basket of fruit and a "get well soon" card after a recent injury.

With Pope Benedict XVI in the news over pedophile priest scandals, French religious news website I-medias said the Vatican was preparing to launch its own airline.

It said the carrier would be called "Vatican Air" after officials ruled out the names "Angels Airlines" and "RatzingAir" -- a reference to the Pope's former name, Joseph Ratzinger.

Indonesia's Bali Times said U.S. President Obama had ordered traditional fare from the country where he lived as a child after having to defer a visit due to a battle over health care reform.

It included a made-up quote from White House spokesman Robert Gibbs that Obama "decided to personally call up a restaurant in Bali and order some local food."

But in Bulgaria, a radio interview with a hoax IMF expert suggesting that Bulgaria should ditch its currency, the lev, in favour of the euro sparked complaints.

"We do not appreciate the misuse of the name of the IMF," IMF regional resident representative Tonny Lybek said after the Darik radio stunt. The Bulgarian National Bank said the joke was "dangerous" at a time of economic woes.

Jokes about immigration proved more popular in Europe.

Norway's Telemarksavisa reported that an influx of Somali immigrants to the south of the country was so heavy that all road signs would now be written in Norwegian and Somali.

In Sweden, the free Metro newspaper said electronic chips had been placed beneath the skin of all Swedes vaccinated against H1N1 flu, which would give them ticketless access to Stockholm's subway system.

In a bid to close the city's budget deficit, New York's mayor's office announced on its Twitter feed that Mayor Michael Bloomberg had decided to sell naming rights for Central Park, the East River and even ubiquitous former mayor Ed Koch.

"I appreciate the honour bestowed by the mayor when he included me with two of the city's major assets," Koch told Reuters by telephone. "I urge the bidding start at $25 million for me and $200 million for Central Park."

Coffee shop chain Starbucks announced it was launching the "Plenta," a giant 3.8-litre (128-ounce) cup of coffee and the Micra, a 0.06-litre (two-ounce) cup, saying it would meet customer demand for "more and less coffee."

A spoof website identical to the Boston Athletic Association's official site showed new, tougher qualifying standards for the city's annual marathon, as well as a much smaller total field of runners planned for 2011.

Achieving a Boston qualifying time, or "BQ ," is a holy grail for many runners.

The suggestion that most would need to slice another 10 minutes off their 42-kilometre race times caused howls of protest until the prank was exposed.

On a more scientific note, Britain's Independent newspaper reported that London Underground was in talks with the body that created the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland about putting a similar particle collider into the underground tunnel system on the Circle Line.

It said the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has worked out that a particle collider could be created inside the tube line which will see proton beams travelling clockwise and counterclockwise "at speeds of 99.999999 per cent of the speed of light within feet of Circle Line passengers stuck in perpetual immobility."

Q & A with Chris Atkinson

Friday, April 2nd 2010, 18:16 GMT

AUTOSPORT spoke to former Subaru World Rally Championship driver Chris Atkinson about his full-time return to rallying with the Proton MEM team in this year's FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship, after he was announced as Alister McRae's team-mate earlier today.

Q. So, you're back...

Chris Atkinson: Yes. And I'm really looking forward to driving again. I've missed it.

Q. What do you know about the Asia Pacific Rally Championship?

CA: I've done it before, but some of the events have changed. For example, I've never done Malaysia or Indonesia, but I do know the Australian rally, the Queensland Rally - in fact I've won it before. It's pretty close to home for me, about 200 kilometres from where I live; that's just down the street in Australia. It's a good championship with a lot of competition, though.

Q. And what about Alister, how well do you know him?

CA: I met him for the first time late last year. We went out for dinner and he's a really good guy. I'm sure we're going to have a good year working together. I think it's great for the sport that the two of us are in the Proton team.

Q. What do you say to people who see this as a sideways or backward step in your career?

CA: How can it be a sideways step? I'm coming back with one of the few manufacturer seats available in the sport. And I'm going to be doing rallies in a great Super 2000 car, which is really important to me. And I'm going to be experiencing a lot of different conditions this year, which is also really good news. At the end of the day, I'm going to be competing in a great car with a great manufacturer - which is fantastic news for me and for Stephane [Prevot, co-driver].

Q. How much do you know about Super 2000?

CA: Not much. Beyond the Proton, I haven't driven another one of those cars, but given my experience I'd like to think that I'll be able to adapt pretty quickly. I drove a World Rally Car for five years and I'm sure I can still drive a rally car quickly.

Q. How much have you done in the Satria?

CA: I did five or six runs at Sweet Lamb in Wales and that's about all.

Q. What was your opinion of the car?

CA: It was very impressive. I can't wait to get back in it and go again now. What matters right now is getting into the stages and driving.

Q. What do you think are the key differences between a WRC and Super 2000 car?

CA: In a World Rally Car you constantly have the potential to exceed the boundaries of traction, which makes throttle control vital, but in the S2000 car the key is carrying speed - that's what it's all about.

Q. The last year must have been quite tough...

CA: It wasn't so bad to start with and then we got pretty excited about the potential with the Monster team [and a potential WRC programme this season] and we were disappointed when that didn't happen as we hoped it would. But we just kept on working. Being out of the sport for one year was bad, but being out for two years would have been too much.