Season in Review: Maro Engel

It was a tough season for the German rookie Maro Engel, but that didn’t stop him from chatting with v8supercars.com.au about the year that’s been. While his future in V8 Supercars is unclear, he spoke about his enthusiasm for the category and the difficulties faced by Erebus Motorsport V8 in its first season running Mercedes-Benz AMG E63s.

V8supercars.com.au: What was your best race?

Engel: “Probably Darwin, when we got our top 10 result. That certainly seemed like a race where the car was working well and I was able to preserve my tyres, race well and race into the top 10 on pace.”

What was the most disappointing race this year?

“Probably a lot of DNFs and technical gremlins – they were all equally disappointing.

“Obviously it’s been a very challenging year in terms of reliability, especially at the start of the year, then things like the two dampers breaking at the Gold Coast, the brake failure at Sandown, similar issue at the penultimate race in Sydney.

“There’s been a lot of DNFs and technical problems which were very disappointing.”

Best battle on-track?

“I couldn’t really classify one higher than another – there’s been a lot of on-track battles throughout the year, but I wouldn’t say one stands higher than another.

“Obviously we have been battling with all kinds of people, so wouldn’t really classify one higher than the other. I think it’s a different story when you’re racing for a win and battling then and it stands out more, but in our year I wouldn’t say anything has stood out more.”

Best off-track memory or achievement?

“I certainly enjoyed the horse riding in the US, it was my first time on a horse! So that was definitely a very fun activity.

“Apart from that, my (soccer) team cleaning up all the European trophies was special this year – they won the Championship league, national Championship and German Cup as well. That’s a pretty special feat which probably happens once in a lifetime, so from a supporter’s point of view that was great, and being able to watch the games live from TV in Australia was pretty special.”

What was your goal at the start of the season and how did it play out?

“The aim was always for myself to be as close as possible to (teammates) Tim (Slade) and Lee (Holdsworth). And where possible be ahead o them and I feel like I’ve pretty much achieved that. There were a lot of times where I qualified either ahead or in between the two and raced in between the two. I guess things like the cars performing slower than what we hoped for and the amount of technical DNFs or time we had to spend in the garage to repair the cars, I guess those things are out of our control. Certainly my aim was to be as close as possible to Tim and Lee – they’re proven benchmarks obviously and I think I fared quite well in that part. Unfortunately we were all competing further down the grid that we’d hoped for.”

What was the team’s best achievement?

“Clearly we started the year with a car that’s in a very difficult position and we managed to improve that even though it still wasn’t a winning car, or racing for a podium finish at the end of the yea. I think a lot of improvements still went into the car, and obviously they need to keep improving the car for the future.”

What’s been the most challenging part of running the new generation cars – for you, it’s not just been a switch to Car of the Future, but a new manufacturer?

“It has been a massive challenge for everyone involved and long hours and hard work has been put in – from that perspective it’s just something they have to keep cracking away at.” 

Best performance by another driver?

“Definitely there have been some very, very good drives in the Championship. I’d say probably Craig Lowndes winning by 20 plus seconds at the first race of the year. It’s a massive winning margin and he’s obviously done a really good job there.

“There’s been other races as well and may different winners this year as well, so I guess a lot of people will go home at the end of this year feeling they’ve done a really good job.” 

Most valuable co-driver?

“I guess Steve Richards because he won Bathurst! That’s the big prize, the one everyone wants to win, and they put in a flawless performance there… I guess a fairly influential team boss thinks the same!” 

The best change for the Championship in 2014?

“Having a clear definition of the formats. There’s three clear format which hopefully brought across to the fans are very easy to understand. There’s three clear formats of what types of races each is going to be and I think that’s a very position one because I believe it can get a bit confusing with the amount of races and different formats we do this year. Sometimes four races sometimes three, sometimes two races sometimes one, it was just all over the place I guess. I think reducing that and having that very clear format will make a very positive change.”

Engel in 2013