MOTOR chats to Marcos Ambrose
by TIM ROBSON pics GETTY IMAGESQ&A
I
n 2005, Marcos Ambrose was at the
top of the V8 Supercar pile with two
championships to his name – he left
that behind to start all over again in
the toughest motorsport discipline on the
planet, NASCAR.
Ambrose is no stranger to doing things
the hard way after a character-building
couple of years in Europe chasing the
ultimately elusive prize of a seat in
Formula One.
In NASCAR, he persevered in a
culture that did not welcome outsiders
easily, racking up nine wins across
three categories, and marking his
place in the sport’s top echelon, the
Sprint Cup.
Now, after nine years, the Tasmanian
Devil is back in Oz, racing with the
newly formed DJR Team Penske outfit
in a single-car effort for 2015. The
Launceston native has been welcomed
home with open arms, and he resumes
his interrupted V8 Supercar career at the
Clipsal 500.
MOTOR caught up with him for a chat.At what moment did
you say, I’m done with
NASCAR, this is as far as
it’s going to go?
There was no conscious moment when I
woke up one day and said, right, that’s
it. It was one of those decisions that just
crept up. I reached the point, certainly,Return of the King
A lot can change in nine years. We talk with the Tasmanian about NASCAR and
returning to a very different V8 Supercar championship to the one he leftDoes it give you the s**ts
you didn’t tick the ‘oval
win’ box?
Yeah. I mean there are a lot of reasons
for that. Certainly, in NASCAR it’s not
straightforward. I got to my own point
where no matter how much I was trying,
a win was getting more and more elusive
on the ovals. There was a few races there
back in 2011 and 2012 that when my
team [RPM] had its intermediate oval
program dialed in. We were leading
for quite a few laps on the intermediate
ovals, and I thought that was going to be
the moment.
But, to be honest, when you do get
those races, you just can’t take anything
for granted. At any point of the day your
car can go away or come to you, because
the clouds roll in, or more rubber goes
down, or there’s a late caution, or
whatever. So there was never really a
moment when I thought ‘I’ve got this
win in the bag’ and it’s been taken away.
To get an oval win after 300 starts...
you’d think that maybe you could!
[laughs] But a lot of guys have had a
career like me and not even won a race.
Certainly, I look back at my NASCAR
stuff and I’m pretty proud of what I’ve
done. I don’t have any anger or negative
thoughts about it. I enjoyed it and did the
very best I could. I’d give myself an A
for effort, and I’d give myself maybe a
B+ for results.in my career where I thought I’d got as
far as I could. We weren’t moving across
as a family to live there forever; we were
always going to come back to Australia
when it was done.If the DJR Team Penske
deal hadn’t come up, would
you have been on the grid
at Clipsal this year?
No, absolutely not. The decision to
come back was independent, and was
made before the [DJR Team] Penske
opportunity came to light.You said it took three
seconds to say ‘I’m in’ to
Roger Penske. Have you
had time to reflect on it
now you’ve had a taste of
V8 Supercars again?
I got my butt whipped at Homebush.
Maybe I should have spent six seconds
thinking about it, not three! But yeah,
I love a challenge, and this is going to
be a really big challenge for Roger, for
the Penske organisation, for Dick, and
everybody at DJR, myself included.
And to have Roger Penske in Australian
racing, I very quickly had a sentimental
feeling about it, knowing it’s going to
be great for Australian motorsport, and
I want to do my part to make sure that
comes together.Ambrose’s last full
V8 season was 2005.
He wasn’t the most
popular driver during
his time in V8s. He’s
certainly got the
popularity now, but
can he add to his two
championships?34 march 2015 motormag.com.auWorldmags.netWorldmags.net