Rock Hill, South Carolina – Since the departure of Will Hoskins from FIRST for 2022 was initially rumored in the media, there has been all sorts of speculation about who his replacement would be. One day after Hoskin’s first points contribution to the team in seven races, we have that answer. FIRST have decided to promote long time test driver Stefan Klien into a long awaited spot on the FV grid. Stefan has been the test and reserve driver for the team since 2018, making the current season his fourth in that role. He finished 3rd in the 2018 VWRS championship and 2nd in 2019. He did not race in 2020 and has not raced yet in 2021, but will be participating in the 2021 eVirtual Series for Highwind Electric Racing. Key portions of the press conference have been included below: Adam Blocker: “I’d like to start off by welcoming everyone to our new facility here in Rock Hill, South Carolina. The team has just moved here within the past few months, and while we are still putting the finishing touches on the facility, everyone is really excited about the room it will give us to grow in the future.
However, we aren’t here to discuss the new facility. After a promising couple of races on the track and an optimistic outlook for next season, we felt that the time is right to announce a key piece in our efforts next year, the driver of our 74 car. Our history with this driver dates back to 2017, when I met him for the first time. From our first conversation, I was impressed by his intellect, knowledge, and passion for racing. We brought him into our youth academy, where he made a name for himself in the VWRS series and established himself as a reliable test and reserve driver. He has continued to impress us over the past couple of seasons, despite not doing a lot of racing. His input in the simulator and on test days has been invaluable, and he has been eager to engage on the engineering side of things to help the team as much as he can. It gives me pleasure to introduce Stefan Klien, 2022 FIRST Formula Virtual race driver.” (Applause) Stefan Klien: “Thanks for the heart felt introduction Adam. This has been a long-awaited moment for me, it’s a goal I’ve been chasing for a long time. To join the FV grid next year means a lot and I’d like to thank everyone at FIRST for the amazing opportunity.” Reporters were then given the opportunity to ask questions to both Blocker and Klien. Reporter: Stefan, first of all congratulations on the promotion. Talk to us about the difficulties of not racing much the past couple of seasons and how you are planning to make sure you are ready for the season? SK: “It’s no secret the past couple of years haven’t been easy for me. As a racing driver I want to drive, and I’ve missed that. However, I think the last couple of years have given me a much different perspective on racing than most drivers have. I know a lot more technically that I did two years ago and I’m looking forward to how that knowledge will pay dividends when it comes to setting up the car and giving input to the car’s development. In terms of preparation on the driving side of things, Highwind have given me a great opportunity to drive for them in eVirtual this upcoming season and the goal is to fight for a championship with them there. I think running that season will give me a great opportunity to get back into race form, both physically and mentally.” Reporter: Adam, can you provide us some insight on the thought process behind these driver decisions? First, the decision to keep Stefan in house instead of loaning him to another team the past couple of seasons and second, the decision to drop Will Hoskins – one of the most established and respected drivers on the FV grid? AB: “Running an FV team means making a lot of tough decisions. All of the team here at FIRST respects Will Hoskins. He has been an excellent contributor to our team, both on and off the track and whatever team is smart enough to sign him for 2022 won’t regret it. Unfortunately, FV is a competitive business. Between Will’s established wage demands that he has earned and the recent on track struggles, we couldn’t come to an agreement for 2022. This wasn’t down to Will being unreasonable in my opinion, it was more that we just couldn’t find an arrangement that was in the best interest of everyone. We wish Will the best in the future. In terms of Stefan, it’s no secret that we wanted to loan him out to race for another team and we got close on a couple occasions to doing a deal. In the end nothing worked out and we had to make the best of the situation. As I mentioned earlier, he has made good use of the past couple of seasons despite that and I look forward to seeing how he gets on in eVirtual with Highwind here soon.” Reporter: Stefan, can you talk to us a little bit about what it will be like having Felix as a teammate? SK: “I’ve gotten the chance to know Felix over the past four years as part of my reserve driver role. We’ve both changed a lot over the past few years as we’ve both gotten more experience in different areas. As he’s shown in the past couple of races, he can be one of the quickest drivers out there and isn’t afraid of anyone. Ultimately, he will put a lot of pressure on me to perform with his pace but that’s how FV works. If I didn’t believe in myself and the team didn’t believe in me, I wouldn’t be here.” Reporter: Adam, any comments on how the driver pairing will work together? AB: “They already know each other well, and I think they compliment each other well. Felix will have almost 70 starts in FV at the start of next season, so he has plenty of experience to help lead the team and he is just hitting his stride in terms of on track performance. Stefan, with his experience on the technical side of things the past two years will play an invaluable role in helping us with setup and development direction. We expect a lot of learning moments in a rookie season, but ultimately we’ve had good results with our previous two promoted youth drivers in Oleksandr and Felix and hope that Stefan will continue that. And likewise, let’s not forget about Carson who we previously announced will be stepping into the reserve role. He has been in FV from the start and I’m looking forward to having an experienced outsider’s perspective on everything.” Reporter: Adam, any expectations for next season in terms of performance? AB: “Returning to the top 3 in the Constructors’ is a must for us if we want to rebound from this season. It’s no secret that this season we made some fundamental mistakes in our car design that put us in a bad spot. On top of that we’ve had a lot of execution issues and just straight up misfortune at times. However, on the engineering side of things we think we have identified where we went wrong and have made a lot of changes for 2022. In addition, Ford will roll out a fundamentally new engine design for the first time since 2019 as they felt they are starting to get near the ceiling in terms of extracting performance from the current package. Obviously with a lot of new designs on a car, there is going to be some risk that not everything will work as expected initially, but that’s where pre-season testing will be important for us. We know other teams are working hard for next season as well and it won’t be easy to make up ground with the crazy amount of competition in this series. No one knows what will happen – that’s what makes it FV.” With that, one part of the FV silly season has been answered. But there are still many parts of this story remaining. Who gets the second seat at Downton alongside Zetticci? And what does that mean for the driver that doesn’t get that seat? What’s the future looking like for Will Hoskins? And what about Allar Kangur? Lots of high profile drivers are still unconfirmed for next season, in what could be one of the craziest silly seasons in FV history.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
|