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Michael Caruso’s eighth start in The Great Race will be significantly different than any that have gone before it.
The 30-year-old lines up as one of eight Nissan drivers upon the manufacturers’ return to Bathurst after a 21 year absence.
Caruso and co-driver Daniel Gaunt are donning special race suits for the occasion, replicating those worn by Mark Skaife and Jim Richards to the first of two consecutive Bathurst wins in 1991.
Amid the fanfare of Nissan’s return, the reality is that Caruso will be hard pressed to match the fifth place finish he scored at Garry Rogers Motorsport last year, let alone the podium achieved three years earlier.
Caruso spoke to Speedcafe.com’s Stefan Bartholomaeus about the weekend ahead and his progress on a 2014 deal.
SPEEDCAFE: Michael, your first Bathurst in a Nissan and they’ve dressed you up like Jim Richards…
MICHAEL CARUSO: It’s a really good thing to be a part of this weekend, and meeting up with Jimmy and doing the photo shoot was pretty cool.
He’s a cool cat. He’s pretty laid-back, he’s obviously been very, very successful in his time, and he still continues to drive really well in all the categories he does.
To do that photo shoot with him and stand alongside him representing Nissan now 21 years on from the last appearance here is really special.
SPEEDCAFE: So what can be achieved in the car this weekend? Is it going to be a struggle speed-wise to be competitive?
CARUSO: It’s hard to say. I think practice tomorrow is going to really show that. It’s just hard to know where we’re going to be. Our cars weren’t flash at Sandown, but go back a meeting before that and it was flash, so it’s very circuit-dependent.
I’ve seen a bit of press saying we’re going to drive harder and be fast over the top of the hill, but when you talk about the competition in this field, it’s second to none in the world.
Running a super lap time around here like Greg Murphy or Craig Lowndes have done in the past doesn’t just require you to be fast in a straight line, it requires every aspect of this circuit to be spot-on.
We’ve got to have the cars handling well, and they have been all year, everywhere, regardless of where we’ve been running. That’s the funny thing when you’re running 20th or when you’re running up the front of the field, the cars handle just as good as anywhere else.
SPEEDCAFE: Potentially you’ll have a bit of a handful across the top if you’ve trimmed the cars out for the straights…
CARUSO: Well that’s the type of thing that we’ll be chasing, taking the rear wing out and trying to get it as fast as we can in a straight line just because it (the engine) is costing us so much.
The other aspect as well is because we don’t make the same power down the straight, the motor doesn’t make the same power going up the hill as well.
Clearly, this place is very steep in sections, especially form Mountain Straight up through The Cutting…
SPEEDCAFE: And the fuel economy? The seven compulsory stops should help, but it’s clear that you guys were pushing for eight.
CARUSO: Look, to be honest, I’m not a fan of the compulsory stops at all. At this day and age, coming to Bathurst and setting rules like the seven stops, eight stops, whatever, that’s not how I remember it growing up as a kid.
It used to just be a matter of who did the best job on the day, whether it was the least stops or more stops, and that’s how the race has always been run in my eyes. So I’m a bit disappointed that everyone has to come here and run a rule where you’ve got to determine the stops.
I mean, you wouldn’t be surprised if we see someone stop on the first lap just to get a stop out of the way. Clearly it won’t be a Nissan or a Mercedes, but effectively it’s just smoke and mirrors (the compulsory stop rule) in my eyes.
SPEEDCAFE: But surely the compulsory stops are better than nothing for you guys?
CARUSO: Yes, but I just think there’s got to be another way to achieve it. Like I said, if someone pits on Lap 1, you know they’re not pitting for fuel, they’re not pitting for tyres, they’re pitting to get rid of the pitstop. No one wants to see that type of racing.
It’s very, very hard when you’re watching it on TV to even understand why everyone has to do the seven stops, let alone being at the race track to follow the race for 1000 kilometres, it’s quite hard, so I guess we need to work at that.
It looks now that there’s the right people in place that seem very, very focused to getting all those aspects right. It looks like it’s going to be in better shape pretty soon.
SPEEDCAFE: How are you feeling about the reliability of the Nissan package? 1000km is kind of uncharted territory for everyone.
CARUSO: Unfortunately for us, we didn’t have good reliability at Sandown but I guess now we’ve been through that we know what works and what we can improve.
I think the one thing that everyone will be in the same boat clearly with the Car of the Future is the front-end, which is pretty similar up and down pitlane now, everyone’s got the same thing to deal with.
It’ll probably just come down to preparation to be honest, and if one car’s failing, a gearbox for instance, and the other cars don’t, then it might be the way they’re preparing it.
The tyres will be interesting as well. It’s going interesting to see if there’s any dramas there with the tyres 18-inch because every year we come here people are damaging tyres flat-out.
We’ll obviously have to assess that throughout the practice and qualifying and I’m sure that before the race people will know what position we’re going to be in.
SPEEDCAFE: And for yourself, where are you at with 2014? There has been a lot of positive noises about you staying here, but nothing more.
CARUSO: Nothing’s been confirmed yet. We’re just pressing on to be honest and, at this stage of the year, coming to this event, it’s quite busy and every bit of focus comes on to Bathurst with the preparation and making sure everything’s right.
It’s important I guess that we don’t think about the wrong things at the wrong time, so there’ll be plenty of time to get it sorted, I’m sure.
SPEEDCAFE: Do you feel it’s a formality though?
CARUSO: Obviously we need to firm everything up. The team are keen to keep me here and I’m happy to stay here as well, so like I said after this weekend, everything will start to I guess calm down.
It’s no different up and down pit lane, we’ve seen a lot of the chat with other drivers, no one wants to rush into things before Bathurst because it’s so busy and you need to prepare mentally for this circuit, as well as physically.
SPEEDCAFE: You’ve clearly put in the hard yards this year and believe that next year is where you’ll see the rewards.
CARUSO: We knew it was going to be a tough year, I guess as a driver you think that it’s going to improve quickly.
The team have been working very hard, I like the people here and it’s all going really well, we just need to continue to work and we’re slowly seeing that progression now towards this back half of the year.
The cars are improving and I think everyone in pitlane knows that once we get horsepower and fuel economy, we’re as good a chance as anyone else to win races.
It’s just a matter of getting those two things right I can’t see why we won’t be winning here. It’s a matter of getting that as good as we can.
