A solid second season in the World Endurance Championship has John Martin encouraged that his career is on the right track.
Having left his native Australia as the country’s reigning Australian Formula Ford Champion at the end of 2006, the now 29-year-old worked his way through a succession of open-wheel classes before arriving in sportscar racing.
Speedcafe.com’s Stefan Bartholomaeus caught up with Martin at the latest WEC round in Japan to discuss the season, his future, and the incoming arrival into the WEC of countryman Mark Webber.
SPEEDCAFE: John, it’s a long road from Formula Fords in Australia to the World Endurance Championship. Are you happy to have ended up here?
JOHN MARTIN: Well, obviously Formula 1 was always the dream, but you need a lot of money to get there and we just didn’t have it. The step to GP2 was the critical one and we just couldn’t get it done.
But we found other ways to stay in single seaters with a bit of A1GP, which was good, and the Superleague Formula. That series had really good prize money; we actually made money out of those three years there, which was a bit of a change for motorsport!
When the Superleague thing ended it was suggested we had a look at sportscars, so I went to Le Mans and then ended up in LMP2.
It’s an awesome series. It’s good racing and a new challenge to do these endurance races. I think it’s a little bit harder than single seaters in a lot of ways.
SPEEDCAFE: What’s been the biggest challenge of moving across? Sharing with another one or two drivers has to take some getting used to after single seaters, where you can afford to be quite selfish…
MARTIN: Absolutely, that’s the hardest part. Over here you end up wanting things that you just can’t have. It’s always a compromise with both the cabin ergonomics and the car set-up as well.
You end up with padding in your suit and all sorts of things, which can be annoying, but at the end of the day you’ve just got to live with it.
The multi-class racing is something a bit different as well. We’re quite a bit quicker than the GT cars, but then the P1 cars make us look stupid. You’re looking forward and backwards at the same time…
SPEEDCAFE: What’s it been like in the team this year? Obviously you’ve been with Alan (Docking) for a while, but the G-Drive involvement has brought a lot of changes with adding a second car and the official Nissan link.
MARTIN: For me it’s honestly more of a family than a team now, I’ve been part of the ADR squad for such a long time. My engineer I’ve been working with for five years, so we don’t really even need to talk anymore to know what each other are thinking.
Moving to two cars has been a bit difficult at times, but at other times it works for you as well. The guys are all professional and are good at what they do.
SPEEDCAFE: How big a blow was Le Mans for the team? Finishing third (in LMP2) and having it taken away post-race must have been tough to swallow.
MARTIN: It was just a bit shit really. You do all that hard work and then have it taken away. It’s certainly the hardest race I’ve ever done and I certainly felt we earned the podium.
The rules state that you can’t have any more than 75 litres (of fuel tank capacity) and we had 75.4 because of circumstances. It was simply that the tank grows when its new. Did it help us? Not really. If anything it hurt because you can’t do an extra lap with it and you just end up carrying more fuel around.
It was a kick in the teeth, but standing on the podium at Le Mans was pretty amazing, and they’re not getting their trophy back, that’s for sure. I earned that bad boy!
SPEEDCAFE: The Le Mans result clearly made winning the championship a struggle as well. Are you already looking ahead to next year? Are you likely to go around again with this team?
MARTIN: We don’t have anything locked in yet, we’re still looking around. Obviously I’d love to stay in this championship again, and ultimately you’d do that in a factory P1 car. We’re working everything towards that.
There was a potential opportunity to test with Toyota at the end of last year, but that never happened and they were a bit unsure about what they were doing and what budget they had.
I’m hoping to have something locked in for the WEC by Shanghai, but we’ll see. Every year you want to do it as soon as possible but you get to January without anything. It’s always last minute.
I’d like to do something in the American sportscar side of it with the merge for next year as well. We’re talking to a lot of people about doing some stuff out there. I’d like to at least do the Daytona 24 and Sebring if I can.
That championship looks really cool and it doesn’t clash with any of our rounds. Ideally I’ll do both championships and be busy for the whole year.
The WEC is only eight rounds and after Le Mans you have two months of nothing. You can drive a few odd things here and there in the UK, but nothing serious, which makes it hard to get back into it at the next event.
SPEEDCAFE: Do you feel that you’ve proven yourself in P2 to the extent where you are a genuine contender for an LMP1 seat in the WEC?
MARTIN: I’d like to think so, but I’m still learning all the time. I’ve had some really quick team-mates over this year and last year and I’ve been every bit as quick as them.
The toughest has been Mike Conway this year, and the good thing is we get on ok and like the car the same way. He’s a good benchmark as well because he’s been everywhere, testing F1 cars and racing IndyCars, so if I can keep pace with him I’m pretty happy.
SPEEDCAFE: Mark Webber is going to drop into the top end of this category next year. Any thoughts on how he’ll adapt?
MARTIN: Well, he’s done sportscars before so he should know what to expect. Prototype cars are pretty much just big single seaters, so he should jump in and be very quick straight away.
He’s got the right mentality for it as well. He thinks about everything, he’s not selfish. You’ve got to be a full team player in this championship. Some people come in and start demanding stuff, but it’s not like that here, it’s a full team effort.
SPEEDCAFE: Do you think having him involved will help you at all in the sense that it’ll boost the profile of the championship in Australia?
MARTIN: Hopefully. Just having Porsche coming in is big enough in itself, but with Webber coming as well it’ll be more of a talking point in Australia.
I think the profile of the championship in general has gone up since last year, and with more manufacturers coming I can’t see it going backwards. I’d like to think that I’ll be here for that and maybe end up in a Webber situation.
SPEEDCAFE: Are there any plans to come and do any racing in Australia in terms of V8 Supercars enduros or anything like that?
MARTIN: Absolutely. I’d love to go back and do the (V8 Supercars) enduros and maybe one day if the right opportunities came up I’d go back and race full-time.
But at this stage, as far as full-time driving goes, I feel I have a bit of unfinished business here and would like to stay here and get it done. I love these cars as well. They’re nice to drive and super quick. I like it a lot.
