leo parente: welcome to driveand the 2012 race of champions, day 2. the champions of championfinale. team germany held on to nationscup honors for a sixth straight year. but now, schumacher and vetteland all 16 all-stars battle tonight for personalpride and accolade. all from bangkok, thailand, abig city, a global city with people, pace, and passion,a city of 11 million.
but tonight, we only careabout our 16 visitors. this is the race of championsin its 25th year. it grew from outdoor rallyevents to the stadium events for drivers of all race andcreeds that we have now, gathered to compete on equalfooting to pick the best of the best here at rajamangalastadium for the 2012 home of the race of champions. and the construction of the 700meter, 0.43-mile bangkok track was an event in itself--
the foundation of a true racingfacility, pavement and barriers, and complexengineering, all to make the race of champions theplace to race. a year of motor racing hashelped cull the field to the racers we see in the 2012race of champions. this is day 2 of racing, withthe champion of champions fight tonight. and it is here on drive for ourvery first event broadcast of actual racing anda drive exclusive.
from bangkok, a great city fora second "hangover," but a better place for the 2012 raceof champions, welcome and thank you for joining us. welcome to drive for the secondand last day of the 2012 race of champions. and yes, i'm goingto say it again-- here on drive, a driveexclusive. i'm leo parente, the host ofshakedown, the racing show here on drive.
but tonight, day two, we're notgoing to do it alone as we did before last night. i'm here with tommy kendall,srt viper racer, winner, champion with gt in sedans,nascar, and six-time invitee to the internationalrace of champions that used to run here. so you know something about whenall stars get together. thank you. you did the heavy lifting lastnight to make this show work.
yeah. appreciate it. tommy kendall: well, thanks. i am familiar with thisall-star format. and not only is this a specialtime for drive, it's special for the race of champions. it's the 25th consecutive yearthey've been having this competition. it started as a rally-onlydrivers event back in 1988,
organized by rally greatmichele mouton. eventually it was expanded toinclude both two and four wheel drive as well as toa bunch of different disciplines. as long as there havebeen engines, there has been motor racing. as long as there's been motorracing, people have argued, who's the best of the best? and the only way to settlethat is to get everyone
together at the same time inthe same cars and let them have it out. so is it formula one driverswho compete at the absolute pinnacle of performance? is it rally drivers who dealwith roads that they don't drive on enough todevelop mastery? is it an indy car driver, whohave the most diverse schedule there is? or is it the two-wheeled guys,who have to master that weight
transfer with their own body? well, the race of champions aimsto answer that question. tonight we will crown thechampion of champions. another member of our broadcast team is over in bangkok. he's going to be handling someinterviews and so forth. but john hindhaugh, we askedhim a little bit earlier, who's going to takeit this year? john?
john hindhaugh: oh, thanks. ask me an easy question. sebastien ogier won last yearfrom the rally side of things. he's desperate to defendthat championship. i really think the junior worldrally champion from this year, the mexican lad,is super quick. we saw that last night. he's really got hishead around this format very, very quickly.
you can't write out thegerman megateam of schumacher and vettel. and whatever anybody says,they are in it to win it. away from that, whatabout the grey fox. mick doohan is back in this, andhe's desperate to make an impression. i'll tell you how serioushe's taking it. he bought a buggyto practice on. he's been saying, i'venot been racing.
i've not been racing. he bought a buggy to practiceon his own cart circuit that he's got in the back paddockback at home. so don't tell me that thisis all just a bit of fun. i think-- all right, ok. arm at the back, i thinkit's going to be a race car guy this year. but i'm saying no more than thatbecause i don't want to
make any enemies. leo parente: thanks, john. and you mentioned, whatis race of champions? it's pretty simple. it's 101 elimination. the best talent, as youmentioned, in the world. seven different types of cars toreally test that diversity of skill and talent-- from group elimination to singleelimination to one on
one, best of three for thefinal competition. tonight is the champions ofchampion, individual. tommy kendall: well,we've got the best of the best, i mentioned. we've got michael schumacher,who's a seven-time world champion, three-timeand current f1 champion, sebastian vettel. from two wheels, we have afive-time former champion, 500 cc champion, mick doohan, thecurrent champion jorge
lorenzo, indy car champion,v-8 super car champion, on and on and on. as you mentioned, sevendifferent types of cars. we've got this unique trackbuilt inside a stadium so that the fans can see everybit of the action. last night, those of you with ussaw this exact same format tested to develop the winner ofthe nations cup, where the teams compete as countries. it came down to a classicbattle, like a world cup
match, between germanyand france. germany took down theirsixth title in a row. there were some fireworksas well. why don't you take usthrough those, leo? leo parente: yeah, the 16drivers went at it. and right from the start, veryearly in one of the races, jorge lorenzo proved thattransition from two wheel to four wheel was a littlebit more. he missed the green lightand got a slow start.
guerra had a big lead,his competitor. he spun the car out. lorenzo was back in it. he spun it again. and then, in the panic, i guess,he set off the fire extinguisher. beyond that, we had mick doohan,who was getting his job done until somebraking incident. and he wiped out oneof the barriers.
there were a number of incidentsproving this was intensity on display. even michael schumacher--perfect michael schumacher-- he had his wall brushingincident. but it didn't stop germanyfrom getting to the championship. tommy kendall: so you havegermany taking down their sixth title in a row. some people would say, well, whydon't you send the trophy
right now to germany? well, in the five precedingtimes that they won the nations cup, neither vettel orschumacher has ever won the champion of champions title. so they're going to go at it. the track itself isjust as unique. let's take a closerlook at that. leo parente: getting readyfor the first race. in the audi r8, of course,ogier and guerra.
tommy kendall: yeah,this is a bit of a grudge match already-- ogier, last year's winner,and guerra, a rookie. actually, when they went headto head in the nations cup, guerra took ogier down. well, it looks like ogier isnot going to let any grass grow under his feet. better start for ogier. first time up and over.
this is a tough carto get started. the drivers had-- i don't want to say the mosttrouble, but this car, with that much power andrear wheel drive only, a bit of a handful. leo parente: the audi r8is not a production 8. it's more like the lms gt3race car, rear drive, 525 horse power. tommy kendall: guerra needsto get on his horse.
they were pretty much dead even,which means that ogier has a little bit of an edge. we'll see exactly how much whenthey come to the halfway point, completion ofone complete lap over the whole circuit. leo parente: yeah, tommy,which is it? if you start on the outside,it's the shorter lap? tommy kendall: the outsidelane has the short first lap, correct.
and then it's equalized whenthey switch for the second half of that lap. leo parente: and to be clear,it really is one track. it's a parallel track. so that first lap is ineffect a half lap. you'll cross the startfinish four times. the middle one and the last onecount as the lap and the finish of the race. tommy kendall: and unless theymake a mistake, which is
totally possible, ogier islooking pretty good here. made it through clean. leo parente: and again, you sawa little bit of air coming off the hill. that's why the chicaneis there. tom kristensen, quitefrankly, he earned frequent flyer points. tommy kendall: guerra did notjust fall over, lay over. and you see them celebratingin the
car with their passenger. the passenger is justa lucky fan or vip. what a thrill ride. leo parente: so in this groupelimination, the first two from each group will proceedto the next round. tommy kendall: look at that--sideways and airborne. good stuff. leo parente: we're going tosee a lot of slowmo shots. you've seen them in f1.
got them here. really get the cars working. and we'll see some close up ofthe drivers doing their job. tommy kendall: so an impressivefirst blood for ogier in the first bracketfor race of champions. leo parente: not to takeanything away from nations cup, but this really isthe purity of racing. it's just one on one. you're the driver.
it's your job to get it done. we're moving onto the nextround and the scirocco. it's turbo charged,front drive-- the pdk type transmission? tommy kendall: like a pdk. they call it a dsg, ibelieve, in the vw. leo parente: there we go. tommy kendall: dual clutchgearbox, pretty cool technology.
there's two clutches,two sets of gears. and it just switchesgear stacks. so it's not quite instantaneous,but very little time without power. and this was one of the veryfirst cars to have this type of gear box. and now it's working it'sway through a lot of-- almost every manufacturerhas a version of this. leo parente: and i'm thenot-technical guy.
is it literally almost twogear boxes in there? gear sets? tommy kendall: yes-- one,three, and five. here we have tk,tom kristensen. and we're going to try this. nattavude charoensukawattanafrom team thailand. leo parente: you're abetter man than me. you nailed it. tommy kendall: you cansee that temperature.
33 degrees c was the readinginside of that vw scirocco. leo parente: and honestly, thewarmth of this place has had an effect on keeping thepavement good and getting tires up to temperature. you're going to see thetires up close. they're not slicks. they're running treads. tommy kendall: goodview of overhead. really just have to threadthe needle through there.
say you're racing throughthere and using-- there's literally one linethrough that chicane up and over the bridge. leo parente: these wirelinecameras, i'm sure they're great for the football andsoccer matches here, but they're wonderful forrace of champions. tommy kendall: and kristensenhas this one well under control so far. leo parente: you mentioned12 times.
i may have mentioned he wasin the finals last year. he's always been around hereto pull this thing off-- but never champion. 2005 nation cup championcontributor, but never individual. tommy kendall: andlook at that. after one lap, a fullsecond gap. leo parente: nattavude is one ofthe home boys from the team of thailand, now runningindividually, obviously, here
on the final day. tommy kendall: thehost nation. leo parente: i like thereal race cars-- tommy kendall: he had a prettygood second lap. that gap is about the same asit was at the first half lap checkpoint. see tk using some curb. leo parente: how much do youget into a race management mode, even with a twolap race like this?
tommy kendall: well, if you'resmart, there's no sense pushing for that last half atenth if you know you had him by a second on the first lap. some people feel they're betterat not making mistakes. and kristensen, it actuallylooks like kristensen eased off. so that's what youwould expect. it doesn't matter howmuch you win by. leo parente: unless you're thered bull f1 guy, who keeps
calling into vettel tosay, no, we don't need a fastest lap. you've got the race. tommy kendall: in which vettelusually responds with fastest lap. leo parente: fastest lap. so right now, really, theenjoyment is watching these first group heat races happen. but literally, group a andgroup b are taking turns
getting on the track, gettinginto the race cars, and matching each other. again, four racersin each group. and we'll be eliminatingand move forward. tommy kendall: we'll alternateback and forth between a and b. the a guys are racingthe a guys. the b guys are racing the bguys to determine who, two from each group of four, willadvance to the quarter finals. leo parente: and the easiest wayto follow it is group a,
audi r8 lmses, groupb, the vw scirocco. tommy kendall: this we havefrom great britain-- scotland, actually. we have david coulthard. leo parente: now, i'm guilty oftreating their interviews from last night exceptionallyseriously. and you're telling me it wasfull tongue-in-cheek snark with someone like dc. tommy kendall: almost pokingthrough the cheek, i think.
even afterwards, when you heardschumacher talk about saying it was all year, workingwith the engineers, late after-hours engineering,and so forth. speaking of engineering,here's a marvel-- the audi r8 lms. 525 horsepower, it's got thatsix speed, very similar transmission, twin clutchtransmission. leo parente: you know tommy, asa viper pilot, the rumor-- it's coming to the alms/grand-ammerger.
tommy kendall: well, i knowthere's a lot of calls for gt3 spec equipment, whichhas just been allowed into world challenge. but i suspect they willfind a place for it. and you'll see up againstcoulthard is the australian four-time v8 supercarchamp jamie whincup. [car engine revving] tommy kendall: listento those engines. this just shows you, to haveto switch from rear wheel
drive to front wheel drive,low horsepower, high horsepower. you'll see single seaters,buggies, all wheel drive. the idea is whichever one'scloser to what they're used to, they don't want that tobe the only criteria. leo parente: i just saw jamiewash the nose there coming out of the front straightaway. we do hear over and over,they're searching for a grip. they're searching to get heatin the tires to make these
cars stick. and maybe the front end iswhere it's showing itself first here. tommy kendall: yeah. you saw a lot of steering inputthere from whincup when we were looking over hisshoulder from the outside, kind of a cool shot. leo parente: the audi is, infact, one of the heaviest, maybe the heaviest car here.
but it is one of the quickest. tommy kendall: heavy beinga relative term. leo parente: yes, thisis racing-heavy. not heavy-heavy. i don't know, the r8s seem tomake everyone look like a hero when they're piloted around. oh. tommy kendall: notlike the r18. leo parente: not like the r18.
tommy kendall: so thereyou have it-- coulthard continues showinghis strong form. having a laugh with hispassenger afterwards. up close and personal. leo parente: and again,we're not running things like tc here. tommy kendall: no, no. that's fun police. see him carrying those big luridslides off the corners
with traction control. leo parente: right,there you go. back to the scirocco, back togroup b, one of the new competitors for tonightho-pin tung. now, two of the competitors arenew because they were the two fastest qualifiers in thefriday team asia competition. last night was a nationscompetition, and that was team india representing asia. but now we're individualcompetitors, the
ones that are stronger. and ho-pin is oneof our first. tommy kendall: ho-pin tung, ofcourse, formula one test driver for williams, sauber,and renault at one point. first chinese driver toever race an indy car. we saw last night, there wasquite a bit of local support for the team asia-- especiallythe host team, team thailand. but when we heard the crowd waswhen the local boys were doing well.
but he is coming right intoandy priaulx's sweet spot. this is pretty similar to whatpriaulx has made his name in. leo parente: and andy's been aveteran of race of champions, one of the 6 of the 16 that hasexperience in this event. we'll probably talk more aboutit, that chicane on the hill. but watching these carsnegotiate it, it was new for them yesterday. it seems like the experience is starting to pay off already.
tommy kendall: priaulx'spassenger having a tough time holding the head up. looks like he was leaned overagainst the window. leo parente: well,scirocco, what? 4 or 5 g's? no? at least. see the head is all theway over to the right. in the blue car, see look.
like a newborn, noneck muscle. leo parente: yeah, i was goingto say, i think everyone takes this stuff for granted. when you get in a car,any race car, it is a different feeling. tommy kendall: that ishysterical watching the head in the blue scirocco. leo parente: thisisn't a race. this is a designateddriver home.
tommy kendall: andy's showingno mercy though. he's not exactly slowing downto give him a breather. look at this. and he's going toclose it out. there you go. convincing win forandy priaulx. reminds me, i actually gave aride on a press day in a gtp car to a young 53-year-oldgrandmother that won a and her neck gave out and wasflopping all over the place.
so i gave her the thumbsdown, asking her if she wanted to come in. she said, no dice. keep going. so i ended up holding herhead with one hand. leo parente: did yousay a gtp ride? tommy kendall: gtp car, yes. del mar grand prix. leo parente: oh my god.
which one? tommy kendall: the intrepid. so that is our first groupof four races. so there's a beautiful overheadshot of the stadium. that track was not here a weekago, and it will not be here a week from now. we see the results-- a win forcoulthard, a win for ogier. goose eggs for whincup andguerra, but that is just one. each of them will racethree times.
leo parente: group b. tommy kendall: in group b,kristensen with one win. priaulx with one win. nattavude and tung with zero. leo parente: in the next round,they'll be moving on to different cars. tommy kendall: trying to getdown to the drivers' tent to do a couple interviews. let's see what we've got here.
leo parente: i don't carewhat sport it is, fans love to be on camera. tommy kendall: another one ofour team asia drivers there. and some of the exhibitionactivities that go on in between the races. leo parente: toyotais a sponsor. tommy kendall: that thingis slick looking. leo parente: toyota'sa sponsor. they brought their gt 86,which we all know
is their drift car. we're watching it inrace car mode here at the race of champions. tommy kendall: look atthat steering angle of those drift cars. leo parente: something youdo at home, right? tommy? on the way to the market. leo parente: raceof champions is
competition, but don't forget-- they never forget--it is a show. so the partners come onboard between groups. tommy kendall: greatest sportever invented, as far as tire companies were concerned. leo parente: drifting? and more of the toyotaexhibition. their gt car, the lfa, a veteranof nuburgring, rumored to be coming to gtracing as well.
toyota left f1, but they reallystarted to step up their racing program. tommy kendall: all right, now,we're going to go down to get some thoughts from mick doohanand benito guerra. jennie gow: someone fantasticto talk to. i'm down here withmick doohan. mick, it's nice to see-- how's it going? mick doohan: i think i'd preferto be on too, but i'm
having a lot of fun out there. it's difficult againstthese guys. but hopefully i can atleast end up with one heat win or something. but it is difficult to jumpin cars, having no background in car. and i don't drive in manyraces anywhere. so i'm just happy to behere and hopefully have a lot of fun.
jennie gow: tell you what, yougot the award yesterday, if there was one, for the mostspectacular crash, i believe. you managed to havea little incident. no repeats of thattoday, hopefully. mick doohan: well, i hope not. but somebody had to do thespectacular crash. and i wasn't winning, so i mayas well make it look good. jennie gow: and how do you rateyour chances for today? mick doohan: look, it's goingto be difficult, of course.
but as i say, hopefully i can atleast pick up a heat or two and see how far we can go. but to race against the caliberof these guys i'm racing against, i think it'sbeyond my level of competition on four wheels. but as i said, i'm just enjoyingthe experience. and to be in the same arena asthese guys is fantastic. jennie gow: well, we lovehaving you here. good luck.
mick doohan: thank you. cheers. male speaker: benito, welcometo the race of champions for your very first time. and you have to race sebastienogier in the first race of the event, no pressure. benito guerra: yeah,a lot of pressure. it's sebastien ogier. yesterday i beat him in thenations cup in my race.
but today it was impossible. he was really, reallyfast with the audi. we're going to try to catchup with the next guys in the next races. now my turn is to whincup. and i have to beat him. there's no option. male speaker: thank you. benito guerra: thank you.
tommy kendall: so obviouslyguerra is in this grouping. so he's going to try to reboundagainst jamie whincup. and we'll see mick doohana little bit later on. his first race, he said he'drather be on two wheels. we don't have that in store,but he's going to race the other two wheeler. his first round match up isagainst jorge lorenzo. back to the groupa and b heats. this is going to be ogierversus coulthard.
ogier in red, coulthardin blue. a little bit of curb therefor coulthard. both of these drivers wontheir opening heats. so who can remain undefeated? that's about how youwould expect. you would expect ogier to comeacross first with that shorter first lap. he by a good bit in front. so we'll see wherethey pair up.
ok, ogier with a little bitof an edge, really. this is where he shone lastyear, in the individual won some races yesterday,but they did not advance to the final-- team france did not. actually, this is practice. ogier has just signed withvolkswagen's brand new world rally championship team. leo parente: they did last yearwith the skoda to get the
team some experience in rally. the team has been under carteam, but never in wrc. ogier has took his skill andhis leadership to vw-- and takes the win. tommy kendall: so ogierremains perfect. leo parente: tommy, i'm going toask for your observation on the next race. the first corners for insideand outside line, it looks like they're two differenttypes of corners--
carrying a lot of speed on theoutside and really slowing it down early and getting arun into the tunnel. well, like you said, they bothcover the exact same distance. whether there's any advantage togoing into the tight corner first or the fast oneon the outside-- i'm going to start keepingtrack of that. so ogier was in the outsidelane there. i said i was going to. i did not do it for thefirst couple of races.
leo parente: well, if the gridi'm looking at tells me, it looks like ogier won from theoutside lane the first time and then just won from, yousaid, the inside lane. tommy kendall: no, ogierstarted in the outside lane this heat. leo parente: then in his firstrace, he was in the inside and won it. tommy kendall: ok. ho-pin tung going try to--
now, he ran on friday. he did not have the benefit ofall the running yesterday that the other 14 drivers had. leo parente: and to be honest,i tried to check, but i can't tell you whether there was apractice session before today. i'll be shocked if there wasn'tfor someone like him. tommy kendall: so we've got tungon the inside, kristensen on the outside. leo parente: now, while we'rewaiting for this start, i
wonder what the delay may be. [car engines revving] tommy kendall: kristensenhas been pretty tidy. look at-- comes by dead even, which inmy mind actually, that's a good opening lap for tung. leo parente: tung's experienceas a formula car guy is gpt. tommy kendall: look at that. leo parente: that'shorsepower.
tommy kendall: virtually tied. leo parente: room for tommy toraise his game in this last lap, if he wants to be the guyto get to the finals like he did last year. tommy kendall: tell you what,tung has the short lap this time around. this is going to beextremely close. oh no. look at that.
ho-pin tung knocking off themost experienced guy in roc, head to head. that's a surprise. leo parente: and this is theobvious, that's what makes this competition so cool. tommy kendall: so tung with awin, keeping kristensen from being perfect. leo parente: we all appreciatethese drivers. obviously, we appreciate youtuning in here to drive.
and i'm going to give a littleshout out of appreciation to some partners for tonight'sbroadcast. pirelli, power is nothingwithout control. hertz, who's always travelingat the speed of hertz. gopro, you'll see their videocameras being a hero. and our partner in broadcasting,jalopnik.com, who is carrying the feed and thestream as well over there. and we want you to commentand ask some questions. we've got our littlechat room set up.
michael spinelli, whohandles jalopnik and drive duties, is available. tommy kendall: our next carthat we have not seen yet tonight, the toyota gt 86. rear wheel drive, but lower onthe power scale, just over 200 horsepower, six speedgear box-- a car that has really beenembraced by the tuner world, sporting an aftermarketbody kit. leo parente: and there were somecommenters last night.
no, we don't knowwhich exhaust. we believe it's the trdexhaust system. but you'll hear a greatsounding gt 86. and no, it's not on the fueleconomy prius tires. they're on michelin tires. so there will be alittle more grip. and we'll see what happens. tommy kendall: whincupand guerra. leo parente: our time in thesecars say that the nose sticks.
it's a predictable car andcatchable and tossable. so pretty good for a shortcourse like 700 meters. tommy kendall: when i say theoutside course is shorter, the outside lane-- a little wide there for guerraand hanging the tail out up on-- and he nicks-- this is a yellow card. our understanding, and theychanged the rules mid-race. and then we didn't get clued inuntil a little bit later.
leo parente: that wasyesterday, yes. tommy kendall: yesterdayin the nations cup. our understanding todayis the first-- well, actually, that was acreaming of the barrier. our understanding is the firstbrush of the barrier is going to be a yellow flag warning. the second yellow flag willresult in a five second and race killing penalty. leo parente: so when you bangthe barrier like he did, there
should be a yellow card anda five second penalty. two brushes, you gofrom warning to the five second penalty. and yes, race controlis making the calls. and yes, inevitably, there'llbe some judgment. but when you drive right throughit like it's a-- this should be a fivesecond penalty. tommy kendall: so whincupwith a decisive victory. guerra said, i've gotto win the next one.
it's going to be hardfor him to transfer. he was so impressive lastnight the nations cup. he might have wound himselfup a little too tightly. leo parente: and they showed aseven second differential. so i think they're addingthe five seconds tonight to the time diff. tommy kendall: so in the caseof the barrier up and over, the barriers on top of thebridge, it sounds like maybe there is no warningon that one.
and that's probably a good idea,because otherwise racers being racers, if you say, thefirst one's a warning, i'm going to clobber that thing. leo parente: well, tommy beingtommy, as we were talking about this, his immediatereaction was, well, if you're going to only warn me on thechicane, i'm running the chicane when i need to. but maybe i'm tellingtoo much. tommy kendall: no.
you're exactly right. but this isn't theirfirst rodeo. the officials have seen that. so the brushes that we saw lasttime, brush of the wall will result in a yellowcard warning. leo parente: warning, yes. so as you can already see, theaction pretty much happens fast and furious here. tommy kendall: back in thecar changing area.
and this is where the behindthe scenes is really busy. they've got to adjustthe seats. they've got to pair up thepassengers that you're seeing. and they're doing the best jobthey can to at least-- they can't do it exactly-- but to pair up so that thebigger drivers have smaller passengers, et cetera. leo parente: and literallywhat we're watching is a little bit of a nostart issue.
so the team audi technicianthat's maintaining the cars, quite honestly, seems to havemade a judgment call to put him in another car. tommy kendall: so we were notthe only ones with technical difficulties today. whincup gets on the board. he's obviously feelinggood about that. was struggling adapting tothe left hand drive. leo parente: and there was a lotof talk last night about
literally just having tracktime and experience to get comfortable with this wholeexperience, the cars, the course, and yes, thenew chicane. so yeah, they're pushing theaudi out of the way. not something i'm sure audiwants us to show, but it is part of racing. tommy kendall: and then youcan see in the background, she's shocked as well. [music playing]
tommy kendall: oh, cheekythere michael, cheeky. sebastien ogier: yeah,up to this moment. but still one run to go. and it's not done in my group. so i still have to winit if i want to be sure to be qualified. male speaker: now, we watchedyou yesterday-- spectacular, quick during the rocnations cup. runners up, but you rangermany very close.
how do you rate your chances ofgoing all the way through to winning it again today? sebastien ogier: today i hopeto be a bit better. yesterday in the final, it wasa bit difficult for me. i didn't find the rightrhythm with the buggy. i don't know if i'm going tohave to drive it today. but at least today i hada training with. so i'm a bit more in therhythm with the buggy. and i'm so happy to be here.
and always i try to push thelimit, but it's not easy-- especially with thistemperature. it's really hot. and even if the race isshort, it's quite a big effort for us. male speaker: now, only youand benito here are representing the worldof rallying. and of course, he beatyou yesterday. you've just beaten him.
how do you compare racing aroundthis super special with a proper rally stage? sebastien ogier: difficult tocompare this kind of race. but for sure, we have anadvantage, because rally drivers are more able to adaptto situations quickly. and we change cars all the time,so maybe we have also a small advantage to really beback in the right rhythm. but it's a tough job. so everybody has a chanceto win here.
male speaker: merci. sebastien ogier: thank you. leo parente: i think ogier'sstill a guy to watch through this whole competition. tommy kendall: well, yeah. obviously in his veryfirst time-- the challenges of dealing withall the different car and so forth, the very first time,2011, he went all the way to the end and shocked everyoneand became
the champion of champions. so it's interesting tohear him comment on the physical exertion. you think the short racesand so forth, but take it from him. there's a guy who'sused to doing long rallies and so forth. so 33 degrees c-- i'd have to get out my littlemetric calculator, but it's
close to 100 degreeswith some humidity. leo parente: and taking an f1analogy, running monaco is a lot more invigorating, tougherfor you to work all that time so fast and frequently. we've got a lot going onfor 0.43 miles here. tommy kendall: yeah, there'sliterally no straightaway, so there's no rest whatsoever. so it looks like they'vegot the guys reset. priaulx into a different car.
leo parente: charoensukawattana, how'd i do? tommy kendall: i like it. leo parente: maybe it waseven close to right. because i'm known tomangle these names. obviously the venue of thailandis the second time the race of championshas been to asia. obviously trying to generatesome tourism and some people coming in, as you can see,as well, as the locals.
tommy kendall: so we're seeingthis part of the crowd. some of the stadium shots,of course, you see pretty sparsely populated. well, there you see. so it's certainly not full,but it's not empty. the idea being this isn't anarea that has had major international auto racing. and there was rumors that maybethe royal family might even be coming today,on sunday.
don't have confirmationon that. but again, they want to bringsome of the big superstars there with an eye towardsdeveloping it in this country to maybe get a formula1 race in thailand. leo parente: and that was theother part of the rumor. now this is our firstlook at-- leo parente: nattavude? tommy kendall: i'm sorry. i was off.
i thought we were still[inaudible]. so that's nattavudeversus priaulx. too much wheel spin fromthe thai driver. leo parente: confirming forevernow there is no traction control. a commenter did make a mention,did they remove one of the barriers of the secondpart of the chicane? i do notice that the entrybarrier is three pieces, and the exit is only two.
maybe they did free it up alittle bit one more time. i literally would have to goback and look at last night's video to confirm it. it looks the same. tommy kendall: it looksthe same to me. leo parente: home town. home town. tommy kendall: nattavuderecovered from that smoky-tired start.
listen to the crowd getinto this game. leo parente: and herewe go, the last half lap, the last lap. tommy kendall: can he hang on? leo parente: definitely figuredout the chicane. he's got it. tommy kendall: crowd roar. leo parente: he's got it. that--
leo parente: is an upset. tommy kendall: --is an upset. how about that? listen to that crowd. leo parente: it's fantastic. to your point, if you want togenerate enthusiasm for racing, just have a homeboyget something done. tommy kendall: big smiles. leo parente: and quite honestly,it's starting to
look like a bigger crowd. tommy kendall: exactly. every time i see conordaly, that's what conor daly tells me. he says, they need an americanin formula 1. i'm guessing he hasone in mind. leo parente: yeah, no agendato that comment. but conor's a good dude. tommy kendall: look how close.
leo parente: and i'm telling youright now, i'm going to be guilty of not talkingall the time. if you think you need anannouncer to carry every piece without letting the picturescarry the thought, we maybe are talking the wronglanguage. some of this stuff is justawesome to watch and tells its own story. time for ktm, is itx-bow or crossbow? we're not sure.
tommy kendall: crossbowwould be my guess. leo parente: we'llgo with crossbow. it's an audi. almost 2 liter motor, 240horsepower, rear drive. tommy kendall: basically atwo-seat open wheeler. you can see the front wheels. leo parente: i see the frontsuspension work. tommy kendall: open cockpit,manual shift, h pattern. leo parente: who's gonestyle here on us?
look at those glasses. tommy kendall: benito? and coulthard. leo parente: and that'snot mrs. coulthard. there is no mrs. coulthard. tommy kendall: thereis mrs. coulthard. oh yes. of course there is. karen.
and dc, who is retired fromformal international he's now the voice of formula1 on the bbc. you get a view with guerra. that might be the same passengerwho had trouble controlling the head. you notice the drivers' headshardly ever move, because they know exactly what's going on. the passenger's under braking,huge forward longitudinal g's. pretty good slide thereby coulthard.
probably gave back alittle bit of time. leo parente: and this is oneof the cars that we keep hearing about, the challengeof getting temperatures, getting the front to work. so maybe tossing a little moresmoothly is the way to create speed with the x-bow,crossbow. i'll get it. tommy kendall: guerracame back there. leo parente: guerra's oneof the guys that's
here to prove something. he's got head down seriousnessto this event. tommy kendall: lookat that, air. leo parente: nice. tommy kendall: oh, not enough. not enough. so that is going to be it forour man benito guerra. zero wins in three rounds. coulthard notching his second.
gives you wings. leo parente: ah. tommy kendall: theroller coaster. what a cool experience, ridingaround in a two-seat open wheeler, airborne insidea stadium. that is funny. i wonder if that distractedold dc at all. here's how guerra gave awaya little bit of that time. leo parente: and our co-pilotis holding on for dear life
over there. tommy kendall: nodding inagreement, was she? leo parente: she's alwaysnodding in the brake zone, forward and back. even the thai liketo be on tv. and the big daddy, the mostpowerful car in the gallardo super trofeo, 570horsepower, all wheel drive, viscous traction. that refers to the centerdifferential.
you've got a differential in thefront wheels between the rear wheels and then a centerdifferential, which splits the torque going to the frontand the rear wheels. leo parente: this car is newto this year's race of champions, replacing the fourwheel drive seat rally car that competed last year. and a little, little secret--and yes, i'm paying homage to our sponsor-- this car stays on pirelli tires,not on the other brand
that's sponsoring the series. tommy kendall: look at this. this is the battle of asia. each of these gentlemenhas a win. leo parente: so this startsto become part of that elimination round. tommy kendall: yes. these guys are racing for theircompetitive lives here in the 2012 race of champions.
i think that's tung outto the early lead. leo parente: this course isinteresting, because you've got the street courserunning the walls. and then you've got somecorners that are open with the berms. you can curb hop. you just can't put the car overthe center of the berm to avoid penalty. that would be a penalty.
but they're racing hardand doing it right. tommy kendall: for the mostpart, it looks like they're staying off of the curb'smid-corner. some of the corners like here,where they're carrying some speed off of the straightaway,they're using some curb. basically the rule with curbsin racing, you'll try them. and if it doesn't upset the cartoo much, it helps you a little bit, get a littlebit more radius. like, that's one they'vebeen staying away from.
the one at the other end, afterthe fast straightaway-- and look at that. ho-ping tung shuttingdown nattavude. that gap, the six seconds, itlooks like he must have incurred a yellow card. so tung with two wins. leo parente: thereis the barrier. back of the car. we said it last night, thelambo seems to be sprung
pretty stiff. that car didn't movearound a lot. it obviously got to theend of its rebound. tommy kendall: you've beencommenting on the ride height on the front of thelamborghini. you see where the back isbucking up and over this. it looks like perhaps maybethey've raised the front to give it some clearance whenthe back bucks up. so here comes whincup.
they're running the ktm x-bow. leo parente: and to your point,jamie has one win. so a second couldsolidify his-- tommy kendall: well, he'sprobably going to need a second win to get in here. give him a shot-- well, actually, coulthardhas two wins. leo parente: in groupa-- yes, yes, yes. group a's tough.
i am looking at ogier withtwo wins as well. tommy kendall: even start. so whincup, a do-or-diesituation here. a little bit of curbthere for whincup. and that's a good openinglap for him. there's the curb onthe outside, up and over that curb. i noticed coulthard usedthat one as well. ogier made it back.
big slide. leo parente: oh! awesome. tommy kendall: uh oh. got in too hot at the end ofthe front straightaway. fortunately, that was one ofthose areas where it's curbing rather than a barrier, sowhincup got away with it. he's really getting a littlebit ragged here. leo parente: are we in theoverdriving mode now?
tommy kendall: yeah,no question. but as much as you want it towork, driving harder usually works the other way around. and there's the checkeredflag for ogier. ogier with 3 wins. perfect in round a. prettygood sized passenger too. leo parente: i haveno comment. tommy kendall: these guys beingcompetitive, that's one of things they'd check out.
what are those commercialsin australia, everything's pretty mild? it's just a bit long. see if the eyes get bigger. the helmet got knocked. leo parente: so if you werehoping to go back to the roots of race of champions, rallyingdirt and pavement, jamie just gave you that option. tommy kendall: ktmsuper x-bow.
leo parente: yeah. that's the italiangesture for-- forget it. tommy kendall: thatis a dynamic shot. super slowmo of inching upto the starting line. so what do we have here? this is our last race of thefirst round, the group a and b heat races. leo parente: shouldbe looking at--
tommy kendall: andy priaulxversus tom kristensen. leo parente: so we need someredemption for tom, not that we're pulling for oneversus another. tommy kendall: kristensenwon his first round, lost his second. leo parente: correct. tommy kendall: in the upset. leo parente: ok. is the chicane threecorners or two?
you line the first oneup and try to get a straight line out? tommy kendall: it's basicallytwo, but with a hard exit. leo parente: got it. see i'm using tonightfor driver training with tommy kendall. tommy kendall: now, in some ofthe slowmo stuff, especially with the audi, some of theguys are using the weight transfer going one way.
and they're basically tryingto get to full throttle as quick as they can. speed through there isnot that important. it's getting there withoutclipping the barrier. but getting yourself to fullthrottle to launch down into that last corner. leo parente: and not to soundlike too much of an expert, but you're right. gauging when you go to throttlecoming out of a
corner tells you a lot aboutwhat you're doing with that corner, yes? tommy kendall: well,absolutely. and it's not just-- it's how you turnin and so forth. tommy kendall: whoa. leo parente: that mighthave been too hot. tommy kendall: priaulx. wow, that was close.
they're not supposed to bewheel to wheel, but they almost were there. it's actually reminiscentof what happened-- and look at kristensen,always thinking. he wants to keep going becausehe wants his cumulative time. it's not going to matter forhim, because he's going to get his second win. but that was pretty reminiscentof what happened with mick doohan, the exact samespot on the track where
he took the super trofeo off. leo parente: now i'm not goingto go conspiracy theory, but if we think about it, we sawvettel miss a brake point, save the car in hiscompetition. we saw doohan miss something,go into the barrier. and we just saw anothersignificant brake point miss. i would be curious. tommy kendall: all inthe super trofeo is what you're saying.
leo parente: yeah, kind of. oh, wow. tommy kendall: that's goingto leave a mark. yeah, so he was-- leo parente: wow. it's not the most intelligentreaction, but literally. tommy kendall: there's everybodyseeing it back in the drivers' lounge. so it looks like we're goingto have a little bit of a
delay here. let's go hear what hethought of that. male speaker: -rough there. but not quite as spectacularas that lambo. what do you think went wrong? jamie whincup: the lambo, we'vehad troubles all week with that electronics. i think the abs kicksin, or it goes over a bump and no brakes.
that's clearly what happened. it wasn't a mistake. it was no brakes. so yeah. i think that's the fifth timethis weekend we've had an issue with a lambo. male speaker: now, this is yourfirst race of champions. i presume you're enjoying it. there was a littleexcursion there.
but i've been impressedwatching you. jamie whincup: yeah,i'm having fun. crazy challenge. it doesn't look thatdifficult, being such a small track. but to beat these guys, you'vegot to be absolutely on your a-game and have done plenty ofhomework before you get here. so i had a ball. i think i'm out now.
it's all over. but i had a really,really good time. learned a lot. i'm going to get away. i think i'm going to buy a buggywhen i get home and do some practice. i've had too much fun. male speaker: so all of thesecars are very alien to you from what you drive inv8 supercars, right?
jamie whincup: i was reallyslow on friday. i averaged four, five secondsoff the pace. and a little bit betteryesterday. and today, i'm much better. so yeah, i slightly got better,which was the aim. but all in all, i just wantedto win a race tonight. and i did that. unfortunately, it wasin the slowest car. i'm sure that most ofmy crew will give me
plenty about that. but i had a good time. and fingers crossed of gettingan invite back. i'd love to come backand have a real go. male speaker: i'm sureyou'll come back. it must be nice tobe relatively close to home as well. there's quite a lot of driversnow that have been doing this a long time and quite new.
who do you think now, thatyou've seen, is quick enough to go through and win tonight? jamie whincup: oh,that's tough. obviously, both sebastien andmichael are very, very fast. they've done it yearafter year and are absolutely class act. hopefully seb, he has a bigcrack and tries to get into the german boys. but i think between them three,that's where it's at.
leo parente: so obviouslywe're in clean up mode. and while we're waiting forthat, as well as rebuilding part of the track, jfmusial is in bangkok also with john hindhaugh. so when we look at this replay,maybe from here we'll cut to a collection of driverinterviews as jf took a visit to the drivers' lounge. tommy kendall: whincup talkedabout the trouble of coming to grips with all the differentcars quickly and how quickly
he was getting better. leo parente: so we're recappinga and b sessions. tommy kendall: ok, i see. this is the highlight, packagingthe whole thing. jf musial: what vehicle hasbeen the most difficult to adapt to here? david coulthard: well, i'vedriven the roc buggy and the ktm before, so they're trickyon a course this small. sebastien ogier: the difficultyis to just adapt
every time to all thesedifferent cars, because they are all very, very differentto drive. and the difficulty isimmediately switching your mind every time and be in thatrhythm for each car. benito guerra: i think theaudi because of the big horsepower it has. it's not easy ona small track. andy priaulx: you know what? they're all difficult.
they're all challenging. to drive a car comfortablyis easy. to drive a car uncomfortablyin a really competitive environment is alwaysa challenge. so all the cars have theirown unique challenge. jamie whincup: probably the ktm,which i'm about to jump into it now. so unfortunately i've only donea few laps in the ktm. but it's very pitchsensitive--
awesome car, but very, veryhard to go quick. ryan hunter-reay: experiencereally counts here because there's so little track time. so i would say the roc buggy isprobably the toughest, just because there's so muchsuspension travel. it's the furthest fromwhat i'm used to do. so for me, that's beenprobably the hardest. jf musial: which has been yourfavorite car so far? jorge lorenzo: my favorite car,the funnest one is the
buggy, because youare completely sideways every corner. and it's very easy to control. but also the r8 is very funand the lamborghini. david coulthard: the roc buggy,when it's working well, is probably the bestone to drive here. the other cars is a compromisebecause of the size of the track. sebastien ogier: i likethe audi, actually.
it's a really powerful car, andit's good fun to drive. and the roc buggy is fun also,because it's sliding a lot. benito guerra: favorite car? roc buggy. andy priaulx: well, the car thatgave me the most fun was the world rally car,the wrc car. but we also have the rocbuggies, which are fantastic. so yeah, i would say the rocbuggy stands out as being my favorite car.
jamie whincup: i love the r8. the r8 is an awesomecar to drive. but i'm really enjoying thebuggy as well, the challenge of the buggy. i'm going to take a heap ofphotos of this one and try to build one when iget back home. if one day i get anotheropportunity to come here, i'll have some buggy experience. ryan hunter-reay: i reallyenjoyed the audi.
but it's the fastest one i'vedriven, so naturally as a race car driver, you're going tolike that one the most. the ktm's a lot of fun too. jennie gow: yes, i'm downhere with ho-pin tung. congratulations to you. two race wins-- thatwent pretty well. ho-pin tung: yeah, thatwent very well. winning's always good. and to win against thebest drivers in the
world is even better. jennie gow: we know that theseguys were out partying a little bit last night. were you out with them? ho-pin tung: i thinkall of the drivers were having a drink. and i think this is the nicething about race of champions. it's a great group of drivers,obviously the best drivers in the world.
but it's a big fun event. and we're all havinga very good time. jennie gow: is there anyone inparticular that you had a chat to last night, maybe talkingabout tactics for today? ho-pin tung: well, you justchat with every driver. and it's quite relaxed. and of course, to race againsttom, which to me is one of the greatest drivers alltime, is great. and to beat him, fantastic.
jennie gow: i tell you, everytime your name is mentioned here and every time you get inthe car out on circuit, the crowd go wild. they love you here. ho-pin tung: that'sgreat to hear. i actually know that there area lot of fans over from china to watch this event. so great thanks to all ofthem for their support as well from there.
jennie gow: well, i can hear acar revving in the background. so i'll let you get back intothe drivers' lounge. thank you ho-pin. ho-pin tung: thank you. leo parente: tommy,i've got to ask-- ho-pin talked about hiscamaraderie experience here. what was it like in international race of champions? were those guys as cordialor different?
tommy kendall: theywere great. everyone was really--again, that kind of environment leads to that. here we have a lookat the bracket. so we see ogier, kristensentransfer from group a. ho-pin tung and david coulthard. so we're going to take a shortbreak after this, and we'll be right back with groups c and d,including the winners last night of the nations cup.
the germans have been split up,vettel and schumacher, in different brackets. tommy kendall: entertainspeople. bmw tour back in the 2012race of champions. select the champion ofchampions, we're through the first set of brackets. and we're about to head in tothe second eight drivers. that's a good way to put yourbike on the kickstand. can you do that, leo?
leo parente: no, no. there's talent driving a car,but these guys are on another planet for all i know. tommy kendall: even jorgeis impressed. leo parente: seatsare optional. how do you do that? oh for crying-- how vertical is that, really? i know it's all about weighttransfer, but this wasn't the
demonstration i was expecting. perfect. tommy kendall: you know ifthey're wearing a red bull helmet, they've got skills. it's amazing what they'vedone for-- it's almost like the extremeversion of america-- "the world's got talent." leo parente: if you needed-- male speaker: tom, ho-pin tungwas just talking to jennie in
and he said that for him thisweekend, it's been all about meeting you and racing againstyou as one of his heroes. it's great to seeyou here again. and well done for gettingthrough to the quarters. tom kristensen: yeah, it wasa very interesting group. and we had a veryclose racing. i'm very sorry for andy. because we have seen withthis car that it's for sure not his fault.
we had a few small issues. and on this circuit, shortlyafter you change up, things like this can happen. so i'm happy he's all right. but of course to drive in somany different cars, different drivers, different nations, it'salways a great privilege to be here. male speaker: now, over the lasteight years for me, we've been in very cold conditions.
how's everyone coping withthe heat and humidity? tom kristensen: ok, now you tooka good time, just when i'm out of the car. but it's nice. this is definitely thewarmest race of champions i've been to. and that's nice. it's an outdoor stadium. people are happy.
there's a lot of thingshappening at the surroundings here in bangkok. and it's really nice to tryit that way as well. i'm old enough to have beenat grand canaria, the very fundament of the race ofchampions as well. but i like that it's always-- or at least in everytwo years-- that it's different. and i just hope that i'll beasked to come back always.
male speaker: now, youkeep coming back. and you're consistent. and you've got a chance thisyear to go all the way. what is it about this event? not just the fun, there is somereally good competition here, and the different cars. a different endurance? tom kristensen: yes, but itis a high-profile event. but everything is really--
the people behind, you guys, andfrom frederic and michel, you're creating an atmosphere,which means that we feel like we are low key and we canwalk around and enjoy. and speaking about the past andthe future as well, it's a good time for that. and then we can do it over abeer instead of over a sports drink at the racetrackswhere we are earning our bread and butter. male speaker: that'sbrilliant.
thanks, tom. tom kristensen: pleasure. tommy kendall: in germany,beer is a sports drink. but that's some car--well, look at that. leo parente: i haveno comment, but that's pretty awesome. tommy kendall: touchdown. leo parente: to your point aboutred bull, it's a drink. but it's a brand.
and the brand is all about beingover the edge and being capable of anything. tommy kendall: jumping outof balloons in the atmosphere, et cetera. leo parente: well,there you go. tommy kendall: godbless red bull. so i guess we've got time fora question from one of the viewers asking if you could picka new vehicle for roc, what would you pick, leo?
leo parente: i'm going togo with the porsche gt3, porsche cup car. my first nod would bea '60 cadillac. but a really hot part of thesegment is the m3, c63. c63s with that big torque. i'd like to see more of asedan-type rear wheel drive, high horsepower car. leo parente: i have a feelingyou beat me with the logic of your choice.
so there we go. yellow flag? sure. bike on the kickstand,flip off the front. it's time to hear from anotherone of our drivers. back the drivers' lounge. let's hear from andy priaulx. male speaker: andy, thatlooked a little bit spectacular.
talk us through what happened. andy priaulx: it was a prettydangerous exercise. i had that twice now. unfortunately, it's fired mestraight into the wall twice. so i sort of expected it. but of course, i waspushing hard. i needed to have a goodrace to get through-- maximum attack. but the throttle jammedon me and put me
straight onto the barrier. just glad that weweren't hurt. male speaker: now you get achance to watch the rest. but you really werekeen tonight? andy priaulx: well, you come along way to do this event. but listen, this isthe way it goes. race of champions isa tough business. i've been a few timesin the final now, three times, i think.
so today wasn't my day,but that's life. it's a great event. we love coming. and thanks everybody at raceof champions for making me feel so welcome. male speaker: thanks, andy. andy priaulx: cheers. tommy kendall: ok, the car thateveryone raved about, all the drivers, the "roque boogie"is how they say it.
but the race of championscar-- 1,100 ccs, 170 horsepower,six speed sequential, rear wheel drive. and i think it was lorenzothat said, you're always basically drifting this car. vettel showed that he had thiscar mastered last night. let's see if the upstart thaidriver can give him any sort of a run. this would be a huge upset ifsomehow he were able to get
inside his head, tin sritai. off the line pretty well. but look how tidy vettel washolding that apex a little bit longer in the tightleft-hander that started off his lap. leo parente: that red is theshock canister that we just saw in that suspensionpicture? tommy kendall: yes, that'sthe reservoir for the shock absorber--
damper, as they would say. leo parente: more fluid allowsit to run cooler? and then i'll stopwith the tech. tommy kendall: there's airpressure in there. it's pre-load. some of them have it internal. some of them have it external. they're happy he's keepingit close, i take it. and look at vettel.
he is just-- like hunter-reay said-- he's in a similar situation. you think a indy car has nobody motion or pitch. how about an f1 car? but vettel has reallylearned how to master that weight transfer. that was a left-hander he wasturning right all the way though, by the way,as was that.
leo parente: because he'ssteering with his foot. tommy kendall: taking the set. little bit of a drift. left front. really unweighted upover that curve. and that is a clinic fromsebastian vettel. leo parente: start to watchthe relative times of what they do. obviously time is immaterial ifyou win your race and move
to the next stage. but watch the times of thesevarious cars, the various seven cars. and yes, a viewer asked-- whatis the motor in the roc buggy? 1,100 cc. we're working on finding outwhere that is sourced from. when i get the news,i'll let you know. tommy kendall: i'm going to bethe first to say, winking in super slowmo looks weird.
leo parente: i'd love to havethe mic to the camera person, not just to you, tommy. but that's a wholeother issue. tommy kendall: ok, so here'sthe first appearance from seven-time michael schumacher. we observed this last night,big tapping on the brake, working the brake pedal, workingthe steering wheel, doing everything he canto get heat into the tires on the x-bow.
it's like he putsin a different chip, the robo driver. and this is a rematch,basically, of the exact same cars and the exact same driversthat represented their teams last night in the finalof the nations cup. schumacher got the betterof grosjean. grosjean more time now. and let's see if hecan answer back. it looks like schumacher'sgot his hand on
his passenger's leg. that's the emergency brake.he uses to hold the car. only guy that we'veseen do that. so again, switch in thedifferent chip. look how smooth he isnow with the hands. that choppiness on the wheelbefore was really just to get heat into the tires. pretty close. i think i'd put schumacherslightly ahead, because i
think it's a little more thana car length in terms of the shortness of thatoutside track. here will be the actualreport card. and it is. so a little overhalf a second. but i was impressed last withgrosjean, in this car, how smooth he was on thewheel as well. he's not quite gettingthe lap time. they're dead even.
and this lap should be alittle bit quicker for schumacher. so i predict, all things beingequal, perhaps a two car length victory for schumacher. leo parente: sawing throughthat chicane. he's definitely managing therotation, but it's all under. grosjean brought it backa little bit,. tommy kendall: he did. leo parente: but not enough.
i like watching the passengers'eyes, where they're looking, versussometimes where the driver is. tommy kendall: did schumacherlose a single round yesterday? leo parente: frankly, idon't think he did. . michael dearly has-- tommy kendall: look at himshowing that ap watch. he's got audemars pigueton his helmet. look at him with theglove pulled back. think he's timing himself?
he probably is. leo parente: he's timing whenthe sponsor check arrives. tommy kendall: thatpassenger-- it's hard to tell ifit's the same one. he might have anointed her theofficial passenger of michael schumacher becauseof her weight. she's doing a better job ofholder her head up, though, than some of the passengerswe've seen. you can tell he clearlyenjoys this event.
high five. so this is the bike guys,jorge versus mick, leo parente: and i got to tellyou, the internet is making it tough to answer ourviewer question. i've determined that theroc buggy is running a motorcycle engine. but i can't tell you whichone and from what brand. tommy kendall: don't let thefacts get in the way of good story, leo.
leo parente: ducati. tommy kendall: perfect. leo parente: you know i wasgoing to pick italian. tommy kendall: so the battleof the two wheelers. five championships versus two. oldest man in the competition,mick doohan. i think he said itwas 50 last year. 47 years old for mick doohan. that's the car that jorge saidhe really loved because of the
way it drifts and takes a set. leo parente: is it too obviousto say, if these bike guys love a machine that movesaround, and this thing does as a car, probably the mostsimilarity to the sensation of how to manage weight transfer? tommy kendall: yeah, thesame principles apply-- putting the weight whereyou want it. they do it with their bodies onthe two wheel bikes-- uh, all bikes are two wheels--on the two wheelers.
and look at how close that is,slight edge to mick doohan. oh, and lorenzo nailed thattight hairpin, really tidy. leo parente: there are somecorners here that are classic slow in and fast out. and there are other that aredefinitely carry speed, so you get it all. tommy kendall: this isgoing to be really close at the finish. i give doohan an ever-so-slightedge.
leo parente: if they want torepeat a slow motion shot, lorenzo's concentration inhis eyes was awesome. leo parente: oh, sideways. and your boy-- tommy kendall: look atthat, mick doohan. and whether the rumors are true,if doohan has purchased a "boogie" down under tokeep himself sharp-- he made a good point. all these other guys areracing actively.
coulthard, of course,just retired. schumacher just retired. but all these other guys,they're sharp, sharp. and he's been retiredfor a good while and doesn't race anything. leo parente: we're about tosee one of our two new competitors. we've already seenho-pin tung. now kazuya oshima, japanesedriver, formula 3 champion,
formula nippon competitor,currently racing primarily in super gt in one of the lexus. tommy kendall: two-time classwinner at the 24 hours at nurburgring, so accomplishedin both the single seaters and sedans. leo parente: this is a new shot,watching the suspension work there. the drivers' lounge wasn'tas cordial as this. so oshima versus america,ryan hunter-reay.
tommy kendall: looks like he'sgot to the same passenger sourcing agency thatschumacher's been going to. leo parente: yeah,is this ladies' night at race of champions? tommy kendall: rhr versusoshima in the x-bow. rhr echoed what ogier said interms of the big challenges, keeping it straight. which gear box is this car? which driving style is it?
how are the brakes? et cetera, et cetera, keepingall that straight and getting into the right mode. hard to do even if you werecomfortable in all the cars. really hard to do when you'restill learning them. leo parente: it looks likethere's a real knife edge from getting the car to rotateto having them sliding. tommy kendall: this car, to me,looks pretty tough to-- leo parente: oh, there'sthe penalty.
tommy kendall: slight barrierthere for oshima. yeah, it looks like when theback goes, it really goes in a big way. watch the knees of the passengerflop back and forth along with the head. head outside the car. hunter-reay with the win, evenbefore the time penalty. hunter-reay's first winso far in thailand. so obviously it's for fun.
but pride is a big deal. ryan's my teammate onthe viper program. and he comes to win. when he ran petit le mans,he was not there just to have a good time. and there is the barrier bump. that was as mild a bump aswe've seen, but it's zero tolerance in the chicaneleading to the bridge. leo parente: if we're goingto use last night as any
indicator, a brush isparalleling the wall. a bump is anything thatmoves the barrier. but we'll see. there is the judgment call. look at the air thereon the x-bow. all four off. so after the first round ofgroup c, vettel, doohan on the board with wins. sritrai and lorenzo needto come back in
races two and three. group d, schumacherand hunter-reay. leo parente: it's goodto see that list. tommy kendall: and thengrosjean and oshima. quick heats there from bothschumacher and hunter-reay. leo parente: and if i've gotthe math for the pr right, we're looking at 100 tons oftarmac and about 100 tons of cement to make the bridge. so a lot of people put a lotof work to make this
purpose-built trackcome alive. tommy kendall: really incrediblewhen you think about it, laying down asphalt. and there's a soccer pitchunderneath here and a running track. and so they put the plywooddown first. then they lay the asphalt,pack the asphalt, install the barriers. and all will be gonein a week's time.
so here we have it-- vettel, doohan in x-bows. now, vettel using that-- itmight have been shared from leo parente: so load the clutch,have it in gear, put it on the brake, release,and go. it's almost like v8 supercarsout of australia. tommy kendall: of coursestanding start, but they wouldn't have the hand brake. look at vettel.
man. can anyone stop him? leo parente: well, and you saidearlier, schumacher and vettel have won sixnations cups. but neither one havegot to the champion of champions award. and it's funny-- again, vettel,he's the youngest f1 champion in history. obviously the youngest two-timeand the youngest
three-time. he did it back to back. but for whatever reason, peopleare not giving him maybe as much credit, becausehe's in that all conquering red bull car. and so here, he's naked-- no team, no engineers. and he's been awesome. and look at this.
he is really laying it down. they're both in the same halfof the bracket, so we cannot have a schumacher-vettelfinal. but if they keep winning, theywill come up against each other at some point. leo parente: this feels likechristian horner on the radio. no sebastian, we do notneed a faster lap. tommy kendall: andthere's grosjean. and there's the first jimhancock sighting of the
telecast, talking withmr. hunter-reay. jim hancock, of course, is theorganizer for roc usa, in charge of getting thecompetitors there. leo parente: and those of youkeeping track, this is the austin f1 helmet designedfor sebastian vettel. tommy kendall: style pointsfor mick doohan. leo parente: it's good to seethat the race of champions has figured out how to do trackside videos that are often how's that?
does that work for you people? we appreciate your support. vettel may be under controlin these buggies, but that doesn't sell michaelschumacher short. he seems to master this thing. tommy kendall: think kazuyaoshima looks up to michael schumacher? tommy kendall: looks like he gota better start than him-- slightly, ever so slightly.
but look at schumacher attackthat second curb. wow, laying it down. pointing it in from the walls,so he can brake in a straight line slightly into the corner. one of the things that's soimportant, in a car with this much weight transfer, the morecritical it is that you brake in a straight line, otherwise,because you've got to get that weight transferring forward,which takes a little bit of time, unweights that rearwheels, you'll be really prone
to being tail happy goinginto the corner. you see what he's doing? he's starting the carin before he really squeezes the brakes. leo parente: this may soundobvious, but to pay that off, the weight doesn'tjust transfer forward or side to side. there's a diagonal that youneed to manage too. and you've four corners tomove the weight around.
tommy kendall: yeah, sobasically, you've got the weight on the front, youtransition it, right front, right rear. leo parente: i'm the one whoalways goes off about people who say, drive it likeyou stole it, or beat the car to go fast. watch schumacher and vettel. there's none of thatgoing on here. commanding victory.
another win for schumacher. he and vettel are perfectthus far. can anyone-- well, they might have to knockeach other off at some point. leo parente: i'm looking atthe ever-growing list of viewer questions. and we appreciatethem coming in. how about having the hostpredict a winner? no, i'm not goingto go there yet?
let the action tellfor itself. do we think the track is toosmall or to tight for the big-powered cars? well, i've got an answer. tommy kendall: it'sall relative. everyone's on the same course. obviously, these cars arenot being able to stretch their legs. but it's a trade-off.
obvious the idea of this,they've been racing-- it used to be held in the canaryislands outdoors on more of a dirt track,especially. that's where the buggiesoriginated. when they moved to the stadiumformat, they've been all over. they've been in the bird'snest in beijing. they've been in thestade de france. they've been in wembleystadium. they've been in dusseldorf.
the idea of bringing the race tothe people is a compromise they've accepted so thatyou can see the whole track and so forth. leo parente: and we don'tplan this stuff. i'm on the same page. the course is the course. the car may not be perfectlytailored, but every driver has to deal with it. and how a driver doesis what race of
champions is all about. real quick one, the r8 audi. it is lms spec, which means itis closest to a gt3 spec. it's a race car. it's a rear drive race car. i have no comment. tommy kendall: hometown boy, tinsritrai, with the support of the locals. leo parente: lorenzoneeds a win, right?
tommy kendall: yes,they both do. they both do to keeptheir chance alive. sritrai had his blinkeron, i think. leo parente: i've done that. it's very embarrassing. tommy kendall: at least theydon't have any wipers. i've done that too. leo parente: i'vedone that too. tommy kendall: yeah, exactly.
ok, so sritrai has madeit back up by a good bit over jorge. leo parente: incidentally, itjust answered the question. i don't see a lot of shiftinghere in this car. tommy kendall: yeah, you seenone on the on-boads. look at sritrai. lorenzo in trouble. leo parente: and once again, youcan hear the local crowd. tommy kendall: oh, he wasclose to that barrier.
wow. [inaudible]. here they come. llct, ladies love cool tin. awesome, with blinker. leo parente: that's perfect. i like his helmet too. it looks good. tommy kendall: passengersporting some driving loafers
with white socks. and that jorge. leo parente: i actually am notgoing to dis this question. tommy, do you think this eventis usually won by the best or the luckiest driver? tommy kendall: well it'sdefinitely the best given all the variables. i don't see a lot ofluck involved here. all of the guys except for thenew, ho-pin tung and oshima,
raced yesterday. so they're startingto get equalized. they've all seen eachof the cars. obviously, the experience tendsto combat itself, which you're seeing with vetteland schumacher. it's like the defendingchampion, it just gets harder and harder to knock them off. but at some point it happens. and what's led to the german'sdominance in the nations cups
has not translatedthe next day. so it's one of these things,especially when you get into the single elimination. here you can make a mistake andget away with it, because you got three racesto get your wins. there, a single lossputs you out. leo parente: i think theluck, every effort to minimize it, is there. the cars, the manufacturersare working really hard to
equalize these cars. as tommy said, the experienceis starting to pile up in terms of time on the track. it's not two tracks. you run the same lap, the samedistance, the same everything. but racing does have the luckfactor, but sometimes you make it yourself. sometimes you don't. and experience, in my mind,always wins out in the end.
tommy kendall: so romaingrosjean and ryan hunter-reay in the roc buggy. leo parente: thisis an important race for both of them. leo parente: i know isaid the obvious. but literally, these guysneed to start piling on some wins here. tommy kendall: you can arguemore important for grosjean, who got blanked by schumacherin the first round.
but grosjean with a prettysizable advantage at the halfway distance. leo parente: so tommy, if thecar moves around a lot like this, it really is the biggestchallenge to be smooth and keep it under control. on a formula car, the dampersand the springs keep the car planted. here, you've got to managethat weight. so basically, fore aft weighttransfer is controlled by the
two pedals, the brakeand the throttle. left right is controlledby the steering wheel. and so how do you combineall those? you're blending weight transferforward, steadying it into the corner gently, havingit come off the corner gently. the hard part is going intothe corner, getting it stopped, and transitioningin the corner. look at grosjean. i commented how smooth he wasand quiet on the hands in the
in car we saw last nightand so far tonight. i've been impressedwith grosjean. he gets a win now. hunter-reay, obviously,not what he needed. a second win would have probablyguaranteed him passing through. but now, the pressure'sgoing to be on for rhr in the last round. tommy kendall: so we've gotthe cheerleaders on track,
entertaining the crowdon the changeover. here's an update onthe standings. vettel perfect, twowins in two races. sritrai with a bit of a shockergetting on the board, doohan with one, andlorenzo with zero. in the other bracket, ofcourse, schumacher also perfect, two for two. look at the times. 15:59 to grosjean's 15:76.
hunter-reay also with one win. and oshima fighting for hislife, needs to get a win. actually, it's goingto be tough. one of them's going to haveto shut grosjean out. here are the germanssharing a laugh. vettel thought it was funnierthan michael did. leo parente: is this the danceteam or the tryout? because we're not looking atnfl football here, are we? the track is a parallelcourse.
and i think these routines areparallel, because i'm not sure they are always onthe same step. tommy kendall: this is thesong you were dancing to before we went on. it's one of my favorites. tommy kendall: your pom-pomswere silver, though. leo parente: and isit psy or p-s-i? let's just get thatout of the way. tommy kendall: p-s-y.
leo parente: p-s-y. p-s-iis a racing thing. tommy kendall: butthis isn't-- leo parente: i know that. tommy kendall: you knew that. i think she's double jointed. tommy kendall: this cheer teamhas officially got more air time than half of the packduring the racing season. tommy kendall: the joysof world feeds. leo parente: by the way, younotice half of the pom pom are
now on the track. and you wonder, why ami watching that? ryan hunter-reay, post-raceinterview. male speaker: welcome. have you been enjoyingit so far? ryan hunter-reay:oh, absolutely. it's great to be herein bangkok. it's just an honor to be hereand a privilege to be racing against all of these guys,most of them legends.
so it's a lot of fun. track time's pretty limited. so every lap, every corner thatyou get is a big deal. and i've been learning alot the last few days. male speaker: nice race therewith romain grosjean. now, after the season thatyou've had, anyone would think you'd just want to take theoff-season and not see a race car again for a few months. what's the attraction?
ryan hunter-reay: that's whatlife's about, racing cars. that's what i love to doand hopefully get to do a lot more of it. but i've been strugglingwith the buggy. a bit better in the ktm. and later on, i'm racing michaelin the stock car. so a variety of cars, buthopefully this one will be a little bit more up my alley. ryan hunter-reay: thank you.
thanks for having me. jennie gow: david coulthard ishere in the drivers lounge. two wins under your belt andthrough to the next round. you must be pretty pleased. david coulthard:i'm surprised. yeah, it's always nice to beable to progress and gives you other opportunities to drive. and the crowd are getting behindeveryone out there. andy, just out of camera shothere, was giving them some
entertainment when he crashedthe lamborghini. was it lamborghini? it was. it was a lamborghini. and yeah, looking forwardto the next part. jennie gow: it's nice to seeandy's well enough to eat his mashed potato. you're going to go back out inthe next round, and you'll be up against the chineseho-pin tung.
david coulthard: he's beenreally quick, hasn't he? so it may be the endof my evening. but i'm going to focus and seeif i can deliver a good lap. jennie gow: well, you've juststocked yourself up on your five a day. you're having a good cupof coffee to get yourself in the mood. david coulthard: indeed, yes. full focus on tryingto achieve success.
jennie gow: good luck, david. leo parente: now, the last timei went for a coffee was after an evening out. what is david telling us? we've got the current motogpchampion jorge lorenzo. actually, it was mickdoohan who said he'd rather be on two wheels. i don't know if this isa special request to get his mojo back.
leo parente: i wonder if he'ssaying, you know what? can i take the carson with this? i'll try. tommy kendall: i'll tell youwhat, though, he is a bad motogp guys, talk about weighttransfer and just balanced on a knife edge what they can do. leo parente: well, i don't wantto pretend to get in the head of a guy like this, butwatching him race in motogp, it's like he never gives up anypart of the corner ever.
and he always feels like there'sa way to get by. tommy kendall: well, you seethem going two-wide, three-wide, and so forth. part of it's a function of hownarrow the bike is relative to the overall track width. but the trust that they placein each other, literally, sometimes body english thatwe've seen in some of those big battles. and you said last night, youthink rossi is going to have
his hands full with lorenzo. absolutely. lorenzo is absolutely at theheight of his powers. with stoner retiring, you'd behard pressed to see anyone really take it to him. you have pedrosa, who showsflashes but doesn't seem to be able to maintainit consistently over the whole season. leo parente: and i'm sure yamahadoes not want honda to
rule the roost. and as much as i'm a rossi fan,we're hearing lorenzo is a really, really nice guy. here we go. taking a look at the lineup, ithink over the course of the night we're going to have someof the f1 champions, vettel and other champions, do a littlebit of demonstration, not just the redbull radicals. tommy kendall: it makes itlooks like that smoke is
coming out of that vw wrc carthat's sitting in the infield. it is not. leo parente: so tommy, i'mgoing push it again. you know these guysmore than i do. it sounds like coulthardwas kind of detoxing from a night out again. tommy kendall: you never cantell with these guys. they played it up that theywere out trying to wear everybody else out.
and it might have backfired onthem in the nations cup. coulthard is through tothe quarter finals. it's a relative term. everybody's out. the prudes are probably in bedby 2:00, and the vets are going until daylight. leo parente: do you have a senseof anyone being more focused here, like head down? guerra seems to be--
tommy kendall: guerra seemedlike he might have gotten too much sleep. i alluded to that, maybe alittle bit too revved up. leo parente: your first timewhen you were at international race of champions, was itjust over the top with, oh my god, i'm here? tommy kendall: therewas a lot of that. when i saw that wall with allthe helmets and you see the drivers' names, i'm sure for aguy like guerra, for ho-pin
tung, the asian drivers to walkin and see their name on a helmet cube along withschumacher, vettel, kristensen, et cetera, has to bea little bit overwhelming. the iroc was not held in a placeas cosmopolitan as-- i don't think we're going tohear from grosjean here. so we're going to talkover this interview. we apologize for that. i was going to say, it was notheld in places that were nearly as sexy as---
romain grosjean: well,they said that. is that triple world championjust trying to disturb you during the interviews. leo parente: and i guessthey did cut it off. so you were ultimately right. that interview did not work. tommy kendall: apologiesfor that. so as i was saying, we racedin places like talladega, alabama, darlington,south carolina--
not exactly places known fortheir bustling metropolis night life, ping pong ballshows, et cetera. leo parente: come on-- hooters and a dave and bustersnot good enough? tommy kendall: talladega. i shouldn't say this,but i'm going to do. dick trickle is a competitor. leo parente: yes. i can see where this is going.
or was that it? tommy kendall: that was it. leo parente: someone asked aboutthe background of some of the new guys. ho-pin tung, formula guy,gp2 champion, i believe. tried to qualify forthe indy 500, but here comes the nuance. he was in gp2 and was injuredand replaced by romain grosjean in 2010.
grosjean went on to win thechampionship the next year, got himself back into f1. so i wonder if they talkedto each other here. tommy kendall: sritraiand doohan. it's going to be x-bows. so this is actually an importantmatch up between sritrai and doohan,each with one win. two wins will getthem through. so basically the winner ofthis race will transfer.
hear the crowd. they're into it. doohan with the edgeoff the line. leo parente: did i hearwhat i heard? tommy kendall: i think i mighthave heard a barrier there. i hope not. we'll have to waitand see and ride. oh, we're not going toride with doohan up and over the overhead.
i guess that makes sense. local producer goingto stick with. ok, and so doohangot back around. heading into the final lap. doohan, slight edgeover sritrai. coming back, it looks likesritrai has pulled some of it back on that first half a lap onthe second complete lap, if that makes sense. leo parente: barrier'sin place.
tommy kendall: it is in place. see, look, i think sritrai-- doohan, that was close. 6/100 of a second. and sritrai goes through. wow, he nailed thatlast corner. nailed it. leo parente: never give up. never give up.
tommy kendall: that was thecar that was so prone to having the back just step out,especially on the cold tires. winner-- oh. ok, now they're saying,mick doohan winner. so i'm guessing we're going tosee a replay of the barrier clip that we thoughtwe heard on board. yup. ok, well--
leo parente: so thebarrier was there because they put it back. tommy kendall: basically,they put it back. exactly. what a bummer. we did hear it on board. leo parente: sritrai, asiaformula renault experience, not exactly the sameas this x-bow. tommy kendall: what?
leo parente: good ears, tommy. good ears. tommy kendall: so mick doohanshowing there's some life in the old dog yet. doesn't eliminate himself. leo parente: so this is thefirst time we're seeing the euro racecar, whichwe call nascar. that camaro nose-- not branded camaro, but itis that type of car.
chevy v8, 450 brake horsepower,back to an h pattern, four speed,rear wheel. not the heaviestcar out there. biggest mass, maybe. tommy kendall: you justcontradicted yourself. leo parente: mass? tommy kendall: mass is weight. leo parente: size. tommy kendall: size.
volume. so that was a little weird. it said h pattern with optionalsequential shifter. this is actually an importantrace for grosjean, because he has one win. he lost to schumacher there. so if oshima wins this one,it'll probably come down-- well, it will depend onhunter-reay's final in elapsed time, perhaps.
so what grosjean wants to do ishe wants to make it so he doesn't have to rely onsome other factor. so grosjean really needs to geta w here in the euro car. leo parente: and thefairness factor-- both these drivers,this is not a car they're familiar with. it's very atypical for whatthey normally race. tommy kendall: what areyou talking about? grosjean comes from a longline of nascar racers.
leo parente: there you go. billy bob grosjean. tommy kendall: jean girard. leo parente: i wasgoing to say. he's the guy in themovie, right? tommy kendall: this,look at this. oshima laying it down. leo parente: and i literallythink grosjean saw that and started to pick it up.
tommy kendall: i don't know,because oshima has that short outside lap for hisfinal time. leo parente: yeah, i agree. you're right. tommy kendall: wow. tommy kendall: so barring anypenalties, oshima with a-- oh, did you see that? tommy kendall: the laptime came up-- barring any penalties.
i think that's how i read it. so his name came up first,but with a higher time. so winner romain grosjean. so let's see-- oh, gosh. a convincing-- leo parente: backto the chicane. tommy kendall: yep. wow, that's a squeakerfor grosjean.
so he gets his second win. so now it's up to hunter-reay totie on wins with schumacher and grosjean. needs to knock off schumacherin the next round. if he does that, they'llall be on two wins. and it's going to come downto overall elapsed time. leo parente: which is thecorrect way to look at this, and a little bit contradictoryto my comment that it doesn't matter if time, whenyou get the win.
but at the end of the day, thattiebreaker will make all the difference. we're getting to the topof the hour here. going to give you a littleshout out to our partners hertz, gopro, and of courseour partner for communications, jalopnik.com. this is a race thatwe want to watch. tommy kendall: well, nowwe've switched over to the other bracket.
so this is vettel-- leo parente: and? world champion, jorge lorenzo. we've got the motogp and f1champion going head to head. tommy kendall: two ofthe young guns. leo parente: i wonderif jorge-- seriously, has jorge concededin his mind? or is he never say die? got to be never say die.
tommy kendall: well, i think heprobably realizes he's not going get through on wins,cannot get through on wins. but a nice way to go out wouldbe if he could run the four-wheel world champ close. and he's-- leo parente: to your point. leo parente: and guys, that'sthe bottom line of a champion. there never is a never. tommy kendall: don't leavethe putt short.
there's no reason tothink that vettel's going to make a mistake. look at that, 1.3 seconds. leo parente: i hope she realizesthe honor of racing next to sebastian vettel. tommy kendall: she ought to justpull the e-brake, just for giggles. leo parente: you'rea mean guy. you're a mean guy.
a clinic. tommy kendall: so rapidlyheading for a showdown with his teammate, vettelremains perfect. the farewell forjorge lorenzo. and now ryan hunter-reay,last-gasp attempt to stay in this competition, having tounseat michael schumacher. tommy kendall: well, jorge didnot go down without a fight, but it wasn't terribly pretty. had a tank slapper for goodeffect, collected a banner
somewhere along the way. and look at vettel, makingit look easy. up and over. so down to the last racein the preliminaries. and look at this-- hunter-reay told us it was goingto come down to the big car, the nascar car, euro car. leo parente: does ryanhave experience in this type of car?
so actually, schumacher beinga veteran of roc has more experience in this car. the only was mistake we've seenschumacher make in two days has been that henicked the barrier. he didn't knock it-- it wasn'ton the overpass. but it was entering that lastcorner on the inside lane. knocked the barrier, justclipped it with his fender on his entry, lining upfor the corner. and it knocked the barrier back,did not draw a penalty.
but that's literally the onlychink in his armor we've seen, and it was in this car. look at him. it's not an accident he'sgot that watch. it's become a littlebit of a dance now. f1 races, you see the guysgetting their watches on before they go into thepost-qualifier, post-race conferences. big curb hop from schumacher.
leo parente: and i've watchedhim do a couple of things with curbs to get thecar to rotate. tommy kendall: thisguy is tough. tough, tough, tough. that's the wall that heclipped yesterday. and he came oh-so closeto this time. so barring a-- leo parente: could be that. tommy kendall: he shouldpick it up because he
needs to keep going. he lost a lot of time there. but i was going to say , ifschumacher somehow were to clip the barrier on theoverpass, the five seconds, he might even have close to afive second lead here. no such luck for the machine,schumacher. so he remains perfect, settingup a showdown, heading towards a showdown with sebastianvettel. hunter-reay's first tripto the race of
champions will end here. and that concludes our roundof preliminaries. we've gone from 16 down to 8. we'll show you those bracketshere in a little bit, on who transferred. oh wow, big slide. bounced it off the cushion,darlington style. through the dirt. yep, lost the back goinginto the gray stuff.
ouch. hey, e for effort. so here we have mick doohan andsebastian vettel talking about what they just saw. looks like michael'spassenger there. he drew a big guyfor that one. i like you well enough now. i didn't like you whenyou climbed in. but you pulled off a w,so you're ok with me.
a little bit of a recap ofthis set of brackets. schumacher in the x-bow,dispatching grosjean, high five to the passenger. buggies. stick around, and we'llbe right back. heading into thequarter finals, can anyone beat the germans? chris harris: so here i amsitting in a 997 gt2 rs. and i'm going to have a dragrace, but i wanted to be a bit
more interesting. so i'm going to usea motorcycle. i have a man called ben with me,and he's brought along a ducati 1199 panigale. and it fascinates me, becausei can't ride it. and we are goingto have a race. [engines roaring] tommy kendall: we are backin bangkok for the look at the brackets for theeight drivers that have
transferred from thesecond group. vettel-grosjean andschumacher-doohan. being treated to a littlebit of an exhibition. coulthard has hopped in. leo parente: dc, yeah. tommy kendall: he'sstill in this. so he's got to do alittle exhibition. now, we've shown a little bit,what you've seen in some of the highlights--
a red bull car doing donutson a white patch. that was something they've donethe last couple of years. they did it with vettel. they did it a couple of yearsbefore with hamilton. those were nine panelsof artwork-- full size, burningrubber donuts. so broken off, each of themhave a little bit. here's coulthard giving histhanks to the locals-- or giving his thanks to dietrichfor getting paid to
go around the world and dodonuts in formula 1 cars. it's a smoke show. thanks to alex zanardi forstarting that whole gig. leo parente: that's true. and now you see it everywhere. and they've created donut zoneshere to make sure we all get that to happen. david coulthard, fromretirement, but not retiring out of cars.
he's doing this for red bulland will continue to do so. we saw him at the new jerseygrand prix when they were doing that preview videoand running the lincoln tunnel, was it? holland tunnel? lincoln tunnel. tommy kendall: so as i said,dc, is still in this leo parente: and let's hear fromanother red buller-- how about sebastian?
male speaker: sebastian, howdoes it feel to watch your old car out there being spunaround by david? sebastian vettel: it's nice. i think he did a good job. male speaker: you're going to goout there and join the show in a moment. but just quickly, you are onfire, you and michael this weekend, winning the nationscup last night, undefeated so far.
what's going on? sebastian vettel:well, we'll see. at some stage, at least oneof us will get defeated. so we'll see. it's a fun night so far. i'm looking forward to therest of the evening. for sure, it's going to bevery close, so we'll see what we can do. male speaker: i hear you'reneeded outside.
so i'll let you go. tommy kendall: well, statingthe obvious, but maybe it wasn't obvious-- that one ofthem, since they are in the same half the bracket,their showdown will come before that. and look at this, this is asneak preview of ogier. leo parente: the polo r,the rally car, was just debuted in monaco. so here is the actual vehicle.
i take that back. that is still one ofthe demo cars. the real wrc, a little moretweaks to it, a lot more aerodynamics in the back,believe it or not. and as i said, they ran theentire season with an s2000 spec skoda to get the team up tospeed, to keep ogier sharp. and i guess his team mate islatvala, as they pull this program together. tommy kendall: although that'snot what he's saying on the
rear window. leo parente: it couldbe his co-driver. and i'm hearing rumors thatthere's a volkswagen motorsport announcementthat could be coming as early as daytona. tommy kendall: i have notheard that, so do tell. so, getting strapped in. so ogier had to hop straightaway out of that. jennie gow: romain, yesterdayyou got into the semi--
into the finals, sorry, ofthe roc nations cup. today, where do yourhopes lie? you got into the next round,which is the first challenge. romain grosjean: yeah,first challenge. well, first challenge,is already going to the next round. it looks ok on some cars,not good on other cars. let's see if i'm fightingagainst vettel on the first seed of the quarter finals--
not the easiest one. he's got a lot of experienceof the race of champions, but who knows? jennie gow: well, you managed toget two wins against oshima and also hunter-reay inthe first section. i know vettel must be one ofthose names that you think, ok, it's the toughest challenge,or one of the tougher challenges. but you can do this,can't you?
romain grosjean: well,i'll try at least. let's see if it's a little bitthe same as yesterday, where they got very goodwith some cars. and i'll have to adapt to it. jennie gow: well, fingerscrossed for you. romain grosjean: thank you. leo parente: i'm not surei'm signing up for that. i am signing up for the beliefthat romain's here to do a little bit of redemption.
i know everyone's taking a shotat his f1 performance. he's been here withthe second round. he's a champion fromother competition. i bet you he wants to make astatement going into 2013. what a great photo-opwith the current-- that just shows you the levelof the competition, the reigning two-wheel andfour-wheel world champions, jorge lorenzo and sebastianvettel. vettel's saying, you are nuts.
what i do is crazy enough,but what you do on two wheels, no thank you. yeah, grosjean, back to yourpoint about grosjean. for sure, we've seen somepundits online after last night saying, i'm surprised hemade it through the first quarter of the heats. he had a rough year. got his hand slapped a numberof times and is certainly looking for redemption.
if he wants to go any furtherthan he is right now, he's going to have to go through,like you said, a tough draw. leo parente: you wonder if youget a second shot at f1. you've got kimi asyour teammate. did it just come downto trying too hard? tommy kendall: you'd haveto ask you him that. it's hard to say. that's a tough-- kimi, would there be a hardercharacter to read being
alongside of? i don't think he knows what he'sgoing to do next, much less anyone around him. i don't get the idea that kimiplays a lot of games. he's pretty straightforward,which is nice in a teammate. what you see is what you get. you might not get a lot, but atleast he's pretty sincere. so here we have it. here we have the pairings.
ogier-kristensen,tung-coulthard, vettel-grosjain-- leo parente: great race. tommy kendall:--schumacher-doohan. so that's what he was saying. vettel and schumacher have beenpretty much unbeatable. so they're heading towardseach other. each of them, one more win. we're down to a singleelimination time.
so any losses here,and you're in the lounge having cocktails. leo parente: and i've alwaysbeen amazed at qualifying, things like f1 qualifying, wherethey leave themselves that one golden lap to get itdone, and the real pros do. we're in that mode right now. tommy kendall: yeah,this is it. you have to be perfect,doesn't matter. those three wins, the perfectrecord for vettel and
schumacher, buy them nothing. there's no extra. they don't get lane choice,any of that stuff. so they have to continue toexecute to continue on. it's similar to the playoffsin the nfl. you could be undefeated in theregular season, go into the playoffs, one loss, andyou're going home. so the pressure really getsratcheted up at this point. leo parente: i was totallylistening, but i was also
focused on-- that's the mostaggressive front end r8 warm up i've seen. who's that that justdid that for us? tommy kendall: i thinkthat's ogier. leo parente: ogier, sorry. and kristensen, mr. audi. i hope we have an in-carshot of kristensen with the open face. leo parente: i knew youwere referring to
what we saw last night. tom gives us a demeanor whenhe's interviewing. and then the demeanor in thiscar, i don't want to give it away, there it is. you'll see him when he drivesif they show the shot. totally turns it on and justgets down to work. tommy kendall: ogier had ademon start in his race against guerra as well. been watching sometop fuelers.
kristensen ran a pretty goodlap, even without the start. this is a tough battle. last year's winner, sebastienogier, going against the most experienced roc pilotin tom kristensen. slight edge to kristensen. oh, that's a warning sign. i think that's not the barrier,i think that's a brush to the barrier. i don't think that's apenalty yellow card.
airborne for kristensen. setting up for the last half. god, he came close again,just rubbing the barrier all the way down. now's the time to useevery inch of track. last half a lap. who will advance, ogieror kristensen? kristensen to the line firstby half a second. leo parente: and did prove thefirst part of our yellow card.
tommy kendall: [inaudible]. you can see the treadedtires there. leo parente: and again, we'vebeen told on the treads, it's working with the surface. still a relatively green track,even though it is probably rubbering in. and the whole concept of heat,whether it's the ambient or just getting heat in the tires,and getting a slick maybe up to temperature ona short course like this.
tommy kendall: well, obviously,you get a little more tread squirm, whichgenerates heat, if it is in fact a race tire. here's mick doohan. if it is in fact a race tire,it'd be a softer compound, if it was a rain, or anintermediate, of something of that sort. all right. so we've got coulthardup against--
i think this is tung. leo parente: tung, yes. someone asked about, what arethe speeds the different cars are hitting? i'm not sure on all. i think we saw on thex-bow, 70s, maybe a little above that. it's a small course. but with more horsepower,probably more speed.
leo parente: quite a launch. tommy kendall: tung was alittle bit asleep there. coulthard trying to getthrough to the semis. ho-pin tung, who knockedoff kristensen. not knocked off, but defeatedhim in one of the preliminary rounds for a bit of acareer highlight. you heard from him. his english is betterthan my english-- certainly better than mydutch or my chinese.
leo parente: i just saw somebarrier pushed aside, but i don't know whether that was doneby a car, back when the race started. tommy kendall: some oppositelock entering there, that weight transfer getting the backend out for ho-pin tung. he's closed up here. this is going to be a closerace if there is not a penalty for tung. oh, oh, oh, and it'sgoing to be--
oh, he just got him on theoutside, nascar style. little bit more momentum withthe bigger radius there. and coulthard by less thana tenth of a second. he had more than thatedge from the start. so you can say he won iton the starting line. leo parente: ho-pindid bring it back. but once he gave himselfa disadvantage-- tommy kendall: coulthard playingthe role of tung suppressor.
leo parente: were you waitingall night for that one? tommy kendall: i was going towait to see who sent him home. say ah. leo parente: so you've beenprepping for this whole show. matter of fact, i heard youprepped by watching a movie. tommy kendall: well, my seriousprep was watching "hangover 2," of course, whichwas set in bangkok. it's always fun to watchthe professionals work. tommy kendall: we do thingsa little differently.
leo parente: yes you do. and we are trying to learn. tommy kendall: the bannerpass, age-old tradition in thailand. leo parente: i think theymisunderstood the instructions for the wave. i can't see schumacher. tommy kendall: it's either thator the rendition by the pom pom girls.
leo parente: the roc girls. so this is the racethat romain says-- and it is-- make or break. every race from here onout is make or break. it looks like he's put himselfin the way of destiny. the german steamroller,schumacher vettel, heading towards a showdown in thesemifinals for whoever will face the winner of theother bracket.
kristensen relieved. dc and kristensen holdingup the banner. and schumacher as well. so not a lot of springchickens. the young guys are gettingcongratulations from tung. i think he's talking aboutthe delayed start. david coulthard: i don't knowwhether to shift or not. and the shift is loose. leo parente: so the bump on therev wouldn't let it go?
ho-pin tung: and theni floored it. it went dit-dit-dit when itshifts up to the second gear. tommy kendall: oh, i think maybehe was talking about doing left-foot braking,perhaps. ok, she's confused. and now she's not. tommy kendall: that's whati would have done. ooh. leo parente: [inaudible].
tommy kendall: whincup'slast ditch effort. lorenzo [inaudible] hunter-reay. leo parente: no, no please. tommy kendall: coulthardequipped with gopro, doing his donuts, whipping upa batch of donuts. schumacher with a fan. try doing that at an f1 race. not going to happen.
ok, so here it is,vettel-grosjean. so we had a rematchof last night. grosjean, france, wentto the finals. and the actual pairing forfrance was ogier versus vettel in the buggies. grosjean versus schumacherin the x-bow. grosjean could notdefeat schumacher earlier in this car. can he do the unthinkable?
ok. he's figured out the parkingbrake now, perhaps from watching the feed. leo parente: could be. couple of shows ago onshakedown, we asked about which country was mostimportant to racing. and germany and francekept rearing its head into that list. we've seen it now two nightsin a row, where it matters.
tommy kendall: littlefranco-german battle. it's been going onfor a long time. on the pitch, on thebattlefield-- leo parente: wasn't going to goworld war i and ii, but ok. tommy kendall: --onthe racetrack. revs up. winner advances, losergoes home. leo parente: vettel is sopatient, the way to turn that tunnel corner.
but i don't think romain'sgoing home early yet. tommy kendall: well, hehad the shorter-- oh, big wiggle. big wiggle on the tail. i see smoke. leo parente: there's somethinggoing on there. tommy kendall: he gotinto the wall. he got into the wall. no way.
vettel's fender is dragging. and the only way that wouldhappen is if he hit the fend. leo parente: penaltyfor vettel. tommy kendall: andit's deranged. look, the right rearis towed out. he's cooked. he's done. talk about an upset. grosjean--
well, vettel was right. one of them will lose. grosjean, i'm sure,has picked it up. yes, he realizes he's justgot to cruise it home. leo parente: and reallya strong time. tommy kendall: yeah,in the 15s. leo parente: i think that'sthe fastest we've seen. tommy kendall: there were acouple of guys in the 15s. schumacher was in the 15s.
grosjean was in the15s before. upset. well, like i said, you can beundefeated in the regular season, undefeatedin the prelims. grosjean sends vettel home. let's see if we can see, wheredid he hit the wall? right here. bang. leo parente: that'll do it.
tommy kendall: bang. leo parente: and that'sthe hard concrete. so that obviouslypaid it's price. tommy kendall: oh, troublegetting tire tread. and we had seen thatwith the x-bow-- when the rear goes, it stepsout in a big hurry. want to see super slowmo. wow, grosjean, peakingat the right time. leo parente: look at the rim.
stunned the crowd. so we're going to have-- well, i don't want to-- leo parente: well, we went fromthe impossible task of having to go through two germansto romain sitting there saying, hey,i'm halfway home. tommy kendall: well, let's notgive it to schumacher. mick doohan says, listen,hey, i'm here. if mick doohan can--
well, like we said, they'vewon six in a row. and neither schumacher orvettel has ever won the can schumacher break the jinx? he's been virtually flawless. leo parente: now we keep callingthese nascar-like. and one of the commentersnoticed, yes, this is lighter than a nascar. this is about 2,600 pounds. tommy kendall: way lighter.
almost 800 pounds lighterthan a cub car. leo parente: racing weightlighter, but still same construction. and still not a small car. tommy kendall: less weight,less power. leo parente: less mass. i got that part the last time. tommy kendall: schumacher,showing us what time it is. leo parente: he's just waytoo relaxed, though.
yeah, i saw that part too. tommy kendall: so this is thecar that he dispatched hunter-reay in. i'm not sure doohan has driventhis car yet in competition. leo parente: i agree with you. i don't think he has. and i'm going to goconspiracy theory. i've never seen schumacherin not the red euro car. tommy kendall: you're stretchingthere, but ok.
well, 12 world titles betweenthese two men. 12 world titles. and here we go. who will advance? leo parente: that statement,tommy, really does become the beauty of race of champions. the question, who elseshould be here? look what we have rightnow on track. tommy kendall: we askedthe organizers how
the drivers are selected. so they have a committee. schumacher using lotsof curb there. diming in that corner out. get a good shot upover the bridge. getting far left so that hehas a good angle into that barrier that's caughtso many people out. wow, look at this. leo parente: he just seems tohave figured out the chicane.
tommy kendall: yup. and it started the cornerbefore, by going out a little bit wide and diming that. he's able to hold it tighter tothe left for his trajectory up onto the bridge. leo parente: andthat's where-- tommy, to your point-- racing a track is notconnect the dots. you really have to create theflow and think ahead.
it's like billiards. tommy kendall: yeah,very good analogy. see, look at that. holding the car much tighterto the left, which you can only do if you set up the cornerbefore, which you only set up the corner before. so with combination corners likethat, you work backwards. 17.0 in the stock car. and it looks like doohangot the barrier.
you are number one sofar, mr. schumacher. so schumacher-grosjean. caught the barrier. he knew he was behind. he knew he needed to makeup time, doohan did. very respectable showingby doohan. advancing into the quartersand losing to michael so we had the question about howthe drivers are selected. i started to tell you, butlet's hear from the man
himself who doesthe selection. leo parente: frederik fromthe race of champions. tommy kendall: frederikjohnsson, the director of the race of champions. jf musial: second time that therace of champions has been outside of europe. why thailand? frederik johnsson: well, it'sthe 25th anniversary of the and after having been reallycold in paris, london, and
beijing, and germany last year,we felt that this was the perfect space fora celebration. jf musial: so the question thata lot of our fans have asked us is, how are thedrivers actually selected to be here? frederik johnsson: we have anorganizing committee which select the drivers. and obviously, you're lookingat a combination of the biggest names with the mosttitles in the big
and if we can, of course, thechampions of the year. but it's difficult, because youhave to confirm drivers well in advance. and this is the middle ofchampionships, so you don't know who's going to win. so i think we got a prettyunique mix of formula 1 world champions. we've got the motogpworld champion. we've got the v8 champion ofthe year, the indy car
champion of the year. so it's a nice mix. and it depends on the year,from year to year, and how available they are depending onthe date at the end of the season as well. jf musial: so we've got avariety of different cars-- some that are new, somethat are not. how are the drivers actuallychosen to be in what car for which heat?
frederik johnsson: it'sa complete draw. we've got so many differentcars, and you just have to try to combine it. the important thing with therace of champions is that it's always two identical carson the start line. only driver's skill makesthe difference. jf musial: so final question. when's the decision made forwhere race of champions will be for next year?
frederik johnsson: sometimeearly next year. after an event, we always sitdown with the team, analyze everything. and then we take a decisionon the future year. jf musial: somewhere warm,somewhere cold? frederik johnsson:i like the warm. tommy kendall: there we haveit, the final four. schumacher-grosjean,kristensen-coulthard. leo parente: and if you didn'tnotice, jf musial, our
executive producer, was inbangkok and is capturing these interviews. that was he talking to our raceof champions official. and to recap-- paris cold, thailand warm. more warm please. that's terry grant, the man wesaw doing donuts while he was outside his own car in lastnight's nations cup. so i'm going to have torecalibrate here.
so we've gotcoulthad-kristensen, schumacher-grosjean. not a surprise. all four of these gentlemenhave been to the race of champions before. some, like kristensen,have been over-- it kind of makes me question howhard it is to do, if the car will do it by itself. this is the tough part.
leo parente: so this is whatgoogle's talking about with autonomous car? ok, yes. first guy to do donutsin two cars at once. he's going for a record. leo parente: this may be it. by the way, i saw the samething when i last valet parked my car. tommy kendall: ok,i take it back.
that is not easy. leo parente: let's not forgetthat motor sport, however you define it, is all aboutentertainment too. tommy kendall: do i need to say,do not try this at home? as a matter of fact, i got totell you, it's hilarious. because the more we talk toeuropeans, the more they keep talking about america and ourappreciation for the show part of motor sport versus thepurity and technical. so somewhere along the line,you don't want to lose what
racing is all about. but entertaining the audience,keeping them in awe-- was that too obvious-- is part of the experienceof coming to racing. and the race of championsclearly has figured it out between sessions. tommy kendall: so while theguys get reset for the semifinals, a littleintermission for the fans. terry grant doing his thing.
leo parente: one of our viewersasked, have we picked a favorite car? we've heard from the drivers. which one do you like? tommy kendall: i like ther8, i have to say. the combination of the sound,the big power, the rear wheel drive, the r8 is probablymy favorite. and the buggy. the buggy is cool to watch.
and hearing enough of them saythat that one seems to be the one that really rewards theultimate technique. leo parente: my silence isreally an implicit agreement. i am on the same page. i know the buggy's supposedto be cool to run around. i like the r8. i like the way it performs. and even though it'sa small track, it looks great out there.
and it goes quick enough. our final four, we've gota couple of people here. tom kristensen has beenbumping up against the champion of champions formore than a few years. tommy kendall: madethe final round-- was it-- leo parente: last year. tommy kendall: last year. ok, so he sent ogier home.
so the one guy that beathim last year, he is already taken care of. david coulthard, who has notwon this competition before but has looked quite strong. schumacher, who's been perfectthus far, but has not ever won the individual. and romain grosjean, who justdid the unthinkable and sent sebastian vettel home. there's grosjean now saying,that that legend car looks
like it's in his squintin lotus colors. for a while, it seemed likelotus was racing everything, maybe not legend's cars. i think they've pulled in theirhorns a little bit. they've gotten out of theirindy car agreement. leo parente: and of coursethe lawyers are racing after danny behar. well, speaking of ourfavorite car. tommy kendall: all right.
so we have kristensenin the red r8, coulthard in the silver. semifinal number one. coulthard looks like he got apretty good start, really ripping through. it's a little misleading,because that outside lane, the first series of corners,is so much faster. but coulthard really-- oh, look, the fact that they'recoming across here
dead even means that ultimatelykristensen got the better lap. leo parente: i just see a littlebit of a smoother r8 in that red car. we talked about how tidyschumacher was coming up onto the bridge. and he had that r8 plantedagainst the left side. and look at that, prettyconvincing gap. so he can manage this gap littlebit, which we saw him
do in a preliminary race, wherehe knew he had a little bit in hand. and so he backs off just a hair,makes sure he's safe through the danger areas,if you will. now he's got one more time. watch how tight he holds thecar through the second part here, setting up forthe overpass. through there a last time. he's clean, little bit of air.
and kristensen for the secondstraight year will be in the roc race of champions final. look at that time. 14. yeah, he's pumped. well, the track, youwould expect it to be getting quicker. but also, the chips are down. who will he face?
leo parente: but if i'm lookingat that right, that's quicker than the buggy. that string of pearlsled lights. what happened here? hey now. that's grip. leo parente: so i know they'reall from the same volkswagen group, but to me a lamborghiniis more of a kid's poster. this thing is a mature adultexotic car, the r8.
tommy kendall: lookat that wing too. leo parente: hard to beat. tommy kendall: wow! leo parente: i guess you startto feel the dynamics of the car, the edge of the car. you don't really have to look. he's just sensing hisway through here. is that true? you really startto get a feel--
tommy kendall: yeah,pretty soon. the best analogy i can make isafter a good bit of time, you have, again, themuscle memory. and the muscle memory doesn'tjust apply to unwinding the steering wheel. you've got some things thatyou're subconsciously processing, bumps, frequency,stuff like that. and when you drive atnight at daytona-- here's schumacher.
look at him warmingup those tires. male speaker: the speed of thesteering is very slow. tommy kendall: once you getreally dialed in, your eyes are almost just finalconfirmation. when you run at night,you can't see much. the sun comes up in daytona. and all of a sudden, you'relike, the edge of the road should be here. oop, there it is.
so wow. leo parente: it's go time. tommy kendall: schumacherundefeated today. the man he beat earlier, thevery first race of the day, which was a rematch of lastnight, the x-bow ktm. schumacher arm up on theside for the start. i like that style. leo parente: that'sinteresting. tommy kendall: littlebit of curb there.
hold it tight. little wider there. this car, letting the carout a little bit more. narrower car than thatbig euro car. grosjean is going to haveto really hustle. and he's got three more circuitsto do it in, but schumacher isn't going to giveit away most likely. leo parente: definitely youcan tell from the past-- tommy kendall: oh,look at this.
leo parente: whathappened here? tommy kendall: well eithergrosjean ran the lap of his life, or schumachergave it back, or a combination of the two. grosjean ahead at halfway. if there's a time-- last night we saw him-- look at how tight he is there. and he's close with theshorter final lap.
god, this is goingto be close. who will transfer to the final,robocop schumacher or jean girard? listen to the crowd. leo parente: where is romaingetting this time? grosjean. leo parente: look at that. tommy kendall: another 14. it's unbelievable.
leo parente: it seems likesomething's going on coming from the bridge over to thatlast part of the track. but man, he's finding time. leo parente: and schumacherlooked smooth. i didn't see the bobble. tommy kendall: no, we wereon board with him. leo parente: and we go to superslow here, maybe we will see something. wheel spin launch.
they're both prettylocked up there. like you said, when we were onboard with michael, it looked like he had the advantage. tommy kendall: yeah, comingaround the first time by-- well, he's a good sport. big win. big win for-- and he's going the tough way. after sending those twoguys home, he's got
to feel like whoever-- he probably hasn't even lookedat the other side of the bracket, because he was soworried about his side. but he's got to go up againsttom kristensen. he'll have a smile, buthe's not happy. leo parente: i think we'regoing to have a few words from michael. i'm curious what he'sgoing to tell us. male speaker: well, that was agood fight there with romain.
but in the end, you goout at this stage. how do you feel? michael schumacher: well,you can't always win. i had a good day yesterday,and i tried my best. and it wasn't good enoughin that moment. male speaker: what an amazingweekend for you. and your roc nations cup lastnight was particularly impressive. michael schumacher:it was, yes.
but we seem to have this habitthat strong on saturday and then not good enoughon sunday anymore. male speaker: and have youbeen enjoying in bangkok? michael schumacher: indeed. didn't have much time to goaround, honestly, because it was a short weekend. but well, it's still the event--that's what is the main concern. and we enjoy that one.
male speaker: and so now itcomes down to tom and romain. who do you think isgoing to walk away as champion of champions? michael schumacher: well,the better one will win. much more important to say thankyou to all the people involved in roc, to allthe people that actually make roc happening. because it's a special team,it's a special effort, and a big challenge for all of them tomake a happening like this.
and it's great to beable to do it. male speaker: agreed. it's great for us tohave you here. what is next for you? that's what everyone's asking. tommy kendall: christmas. leo parente: tommy, do they sendgerman drivers to obvious interview answer school? tommy kendall: he's learnedfrom bernie ecclestone.
tommy kendall: how toanswer in one word. that was a very warm congratsfrom michael to romain. tommy kendall: like i said,he might have a smile on his face. but the competitive-- he's not happy. i don't blame him. leo parente: and i'mreally sorry. we didn't see what reallyhappened on those laps.
i don't think i saw where romanfound the time or where schumacher gave it back. we did not. leo parente: the goprocamera is not pointed directly to the track. and it's on his helmet,i might add. tommy kendall: so this isour other bike stunt guy, mr. bill dixon. what?
no hands. so as the final preparations forour main event, the final, between tom kristensen-- mr. le mans, eight-timele mans winner-- and romain grosjean, who'sgone a long way towards redeeming himself. the off-season canbe a long time. and they say you're only asgood as your last race. he had a rough go thisyear in formula 1.
they are keeping himfor next year. he's been re-signedfor next year. but wow, what a confidence boostfor grosjean to get to the finals here in succession,to knock off 10 world championships. leo parente: i'm going to askit this way, when you're on, do you start to feel likethere's someone else doing this and it's inevitable? or is romain sitting there andreally into it, where he feels
like, ok i've gota work harder? does it start to takeits own initiative? tommy kendall: it's one of thosethings where when you get in the groove, you'refocused and you're intent, but you're not trying too hard. it's flowing. you're in the flow. leo parente: so does your mindget to, i don't want to eff this up, i'm flowing?
well, it's interesting. there's two kinds of mindsets. there's trying notto fail, which tends to lead to choking. and there's people thatwould rather lose-- they're trying to win ratherthan not lose. which seems like a smalldistinction, but to get the best out of you andin a pressure situations like this--
look at that. leo parente: i'm smilingbecause of two things. a little bit of my italianamerican background went with the don't screw up. and if you think that way,you inevitably screw up. and i remember going to a firststreet race, and someone said, don't look at the wall. if you look at the wall,you're going to hit it. don't look at the wall.
tommy kendall: i have a sayingwhen i'm teaching that i got from another instructor. basically, where youreyes goes is where your vehicle goes. so it says, even if you're ina big slide and you think you're going off, look whereyou're trying to get to. he said, look towardshope, not reality. leo parente: well said. and the way it works.
tommy kendall: so grosjean,there aren't too many guys that have been sent homefrom formula one that get a second chance. and i don't think the talentis in question. and just about the time youthink he's cooked, he'll come up with a good performance. i love-- oh, thailand. he's thankful too that hegets paid to do this.
leo parente: little bit of arecap in the video world. tommy kendall: highlightof the semifinals. kristensen super tidyin the red r8. first time we've seensomeone in the 14s. and no sooner had we said thatthan grosjean just upset the apple cart by turning in a1:14 run in the x-bow. and look at economy of motionwith his hands. leo parente: yeah,that may be it. it just may be a compilation ofa number of little, little
things that gavehim that time. tommy kendall: he took it allback on the second half of the first lap, is where thebig gain or the big loss came from. like i said, it was probablya combination of both. he was effusive in his praisethere, as he passed grosjean. he's like, i want toget out of here. what time is it? leo parente: that wasthe worst one yet.
no face, big smilefor the camera. back to the clock to get out. tommy kendall: going back tojohn's prediction earlier, he said, i predict a racing driver,not a rally guy. so he is correct. will it be the greatestendurance sports car racer of all time, tom kristensen? or will it be a guy who's stilltrying to make his mark, romain grosjean?
grosjean, he's a championmany times over. everybody here has donethat in some form. he was the f3 euro serieschampion in '07. but what's earned him his chanceback into f1 was he, in 2011, won the gp2 seriesand gp2 asia. oh, and we're going to get tosee that in-car of kristensen leo parente: i was just goingto say, how ideal is this? you've got the shot. you've got the careveryone loves.
tommy kendall: bell helmeton and romain grosjean. two complete laps, four timesby start and finish for all the marbles. who will be the championof champions? pretty much even on the start. look at how much curb grosjeanused going in there and letting the car reallydrift out. it's nice and tidyfor kristensen. leo parente: there'sthat face.
tommy kendall: lookat that face. on to the front straightaway. can't see. grosjean ahead. that's on board withkristensen, up and over into the-- look at those eyes. head totally still. opposite lock.
oh, close, close, close. slight nod, 4/10 to grosjean. whoa, big slide, but look howtidy he was able to keep it. it was almost like thatwas intended. leo parente: did you see wheellift on the front of it? grosjean, same thing. just unweighted left front. i'll tell you what, heis in the groove. tall, thin guy sittingway up on that wheel.
leo parente: i was justgoing to say that. very close. tommy kendall: when you're atall guy, you're used to doing stuff like that. big opposite lock. and here we come. tommy kendall: 2012 champion of champions is romain grosjean. talk about--
oh, got ahead of myself there. we're out of the eliminationstage. we're best of three here. this is not singleelimination. leo parente: you and i bothgot sucked into this. tommy kendall: i did. i was so-- tommy kendall: well. leo parente: we'renot done yet.
by the way, here comesthe expression. look at kristensen. tommy kendall: a littlebit of tongue action. leo parente: i hate to say it. tom's smooth, but the wheelwork of grosjean is that much better. tommy kendall: yeah, he wasdefinitely a little bit more aggressive on the wheel. so out of the roc buggy.
leo parente: i was lookingat my notes. did they even talkto each other? oh, here we go. kristensen was inrace mode there. he had his game face on,cracked a smile. oh yeah, yeah. good job. congrats. ok, into the x-bow, the carthat grosjean just used to
eliminate schumacher. kristensen, i don't knowif we've seen-- we've definitely seen him in thex-bow during the nations cup, because i remarkedabout the open face helmet in the open car. but he has not driventhis car today. leo parente: not tonight. tommy kendall: that isa pretty tall order. he has to win this race, he'sgot to do it in a car he
hasn't driven today, and he'sgot to do it against a guy who just won in the car. leo parente: you've summarizedit more than perfectly. tom's no slouch in termsof the thinking part of this sport. so he knows exactly what he'sup against right now. tommy kendall: anotherbell open face. we've got an all-bellhelmet final. leo parente: i'm about to ask,what helmet do you wear?
tommy kendall: who do i wear? leo parente: yes sir. tommy kendall: i wear a bell. leo parente: why did inot see that coming? oh look, a gopro camera. you know how they get to thetrack, hertz is international. tommy kendall: what kindof tires they roll? leo parente: these arenot on pirelli. these are on michelin.
thank you pirelli, though, forsupporting the drive 2012 race of champions broadcast. and of course, jalopnik.comfor being there with the streaming. i'm sure the viewer comments. and honestly, i don't wantto see the drifty thing. i want to see the finals. tommy kendall: let'sthrow a bike in the middle of the cars.
hopefully there's a driverin each car this time. leo parente: that just lookslike the george washington bridge on rush hour. tommy kendall: there wasno one in the car. same thing. good thing he's wearing afire suit, not a helmet. good thing. leo parente: jf was telling usdriving the traffic in bangkok was a little creative.
i wonder if this is just ademonstration of that. tommy kendall: i'd liketo see the bike guy on one of those tuk-tuk. tuk-tuk? leo parente: yeah, yeah. tuk-tuk. tommy kendall: that'd be betterthan mick doohan in a cab, i think. leo parente: did wetell that story?
we already told that story. tommy kendall: we toldit last night. but basically for those thatwere not with us last night, part of the night timeshenanigans, mick doohan talked his cab driver out ofhis cab the other night and proceeded to give hiswhole party-- and this gentlemen, mr. grant,was in the other cab. rear tire up on the wall. and that's one thing i alwaystell people about "days of
thunder." the most realisticpart of that movie was the rental car scene. so i can only imagine mickdoohan and our drift king-- put it on the kick stand. front flip off of the bike. so that is going to set thetable for the second of three races, assuming if kristensencan tie it up at one win a piece, we'll go tothe tiebreaker. leo parente: my only advice onrental cars at race tracks,
don't try to bump drafta geo metro with a ford econoline van. i was in the metro, oppositelocking at about 70. tommy kendall: ok,so here we go. kristensen. leo parente: has hegot sunglasses on? tommy kendall: no visor, nowindshield, so he needs something to keep the windand/or everything else out of his eyes.
so expect the aggressiveburnouts. we'll not want to do thatmis-shift on the real start. working the wheel. trying to get some tire tamp. leo parente: so last night, wehad the debate about an extra warm-up lap. it looks like thatis a moot point. just getting it done withwhat they were given. tommy kendall: here comes themr. le mans, tom kristensen,
aka like a boss, with theopen-face helmet in the open-cockpit car. reminds me of a quicklittle story. paul newman, i saw him drive aformula atlantic tlantic car in an open-face helmet,because he wanted to drive it so bad. but back to the action. here it is. sudden death for kristensen.
he has to win this race if hewants to force a third race. got a good start on the outside,up over the curb, heading up onto that bridge. kristensen switchingback to grosjean. into the final corner. i'll tell you what, kristensenis looking good coming off the corner. i think both guys mighthave brushed the wall. but he's going to put thepressure on grosjean.
wow, grosjean, big oppositelock, same arc he used in the buggy to double apex that. and grosjean has clawed it back,a little bit more speed they're going to bepretty close. grosjean with a 2/10 edge. totally tidy grosjean comingoff there, not on that exit curb. it is a treat to watchkristensen's precision on the overpass chicane.
and look, he's run a good lap. grosjean's going to have toreally make it happen, which he did the last timeagainst schumacher. kristensen-- leo parente: tidy, tidy,tidy through there. tommy kendall: i don'tknow where-- grosjean is so quick on thatinside lap, the outside lap. and that's it. leo parente: yep.
tommy kendall: i don't wantto call it, because i called it too early. that's two wins. grosjean is the championof champions. now officially, wow. probably everything he wanted,to come into this race of champions and take away from it,romain grosjean beat them all and went through germanyto get it done. tommy kendall: yeah, started offfacing schumacher in the
very first race of the day inthis exact car, the car he lost to at the end ofthe nations cup. couldn't get it donefor france, but he got it done for himself. leo parente: i still wouldlove to dissect that lap, because somewhere betweenheading toward the bridge and coming to the start andfinish, he finds time. tommy kendall: i thinkit's that arc. we saw it in thebuggy, and it's
somewhere near the bridge. and so he's really got it intothat perfect drift all the way around and just is able to carrysome speed up and over. leo parente: and this is whereif we played the telemetry game, you could look at thethrottle trace and figure out where it is, right? tommy kendall: i guarantee you,schumacher is summoning. he's like, i want that data. i want that data.
you've got to be happyfor this kid. leo parente: definitely wantto hear from these guys. and we will in a minute. as soon as they get out, we'lldo the interviews. tommy kendall: and kristensendid not lay down. kristensen ran a reallygood race. but grosjean had to beathim, and he did. leo parente: well, middle of therace, kristensen had it. he was in front.
leo parente: here's the fullarc of romain grosjean. like you said, back into f1 witha team that just is going to announce two sponsors. they've got renault power,everything seems to be going, and now he's the raceof champion. male speaker: romain, you arethe champion of champions. romain grosjean: i'm feelingpretty good. especially with tom in front. i have deep respectfor this man.
being here in thailand andyesterday, the final for the french, today winning therace of champions, it's a very good feeling. male speaker: it'sa great feeling. and for you to be inthe final again. tom kristensen: yeah. almost, but he dida solid job. when you win two out of three,then certainly it was within a 3/10.
he deserved the championof champions. romain had a tough season thisyear, but the speed has always been there. and he certainly showedduring this weekend. and congratulations for agreat effort for him. male speaker: you've provedsomething this weekend. that must mean something. romain grosjean: it's a longtime i haven't been on a podium actually.
so for this to come back onthe top level is good. and yeah, it's a fantasticatmosphere. we all come back every year,very happy to be here. and last year, sebastian wasthe champion of champions. this year, myself. it's pretty good. now we need to go fora nations cup. male speaker: congratulations. ladies and gentlemen, romaingrosjean, the 2012 race of
champions championof champions. leo parente: i actuallylove the camaraderie of race car drivers. tom kristensen, the consummateprofessional, putting in perspective what romain grosjeanjust accomplished coming out of a tough year. tommy kendall: well,schumacher's reaction, he had a smile, but wasn't happy. kristensen had a smile,wasn't happy.
i've been cracking on grosjeanwith the nomex. i suspect the other peoplesporting that next year, in case that's wortha tenth or two. but there you have it,romain grosjean. the smile says it all. the weight of the shoulderslifted off. in team sports, half of thepeople win every game and half the people lose ineach competition. in racing, one competitortakes all the spoils.
everybody here is a champion,deserved to be here. but there's only one championof champions. and for 2012, that isromain grosjean. thank you for joining us on thisexclusive drive coverage of the 2012 race of championsfrom bangkok, thailand. thanks for joining us. we'll see you next time. leo parente: tommy, thank you. thank you for your help.
everyone at drive, thank you. john hindhaugh. and viewers, love itthat you're here. hope you enjoyed it. there's more of this coming. thanks again. as tommy said, good evening.