Champ Car World Series: Belgian Champ Car Grand Prix

Topics:  Belgian Champ Car Grand Prix

Jan Heylen
August 25, 2007

HEUSDEN-ZOLDER, BELGIUM

THE MODERATOR: Now we're joined by Jan Heylen, the Belgian driver here, who will start 11th tomorrow. Jan, after not turning a lap at all yesterday it's got to feel good to get some laps under your belt and know the car is ready for tomorrow.
JAN HEYLEN: Yeah, well, I don't think we got enough laps in, but you know, it is what it is. I think with the team and the car that we have, I think we could have done better if we had had an extra day.
I think all in all with the day we had yesterday, I think we have to be happy with that 11th place. We're not too far off the pace, so we're a little disappointed. I was hoping to do a little better here in Belgium coming back from Road America, but again, I think we couldn't expect a lot more than this after yesterday.

Q. Just looking at the car (Inaudible).
JAN HEYLEN: No, it's just the guys, they do this every day and they have been for the last, I don't know, 20 years. They know what they're doing, and this morning when I got in the car it was exactly how it was -- how it should be. So that's all. The car was ready to go. The guys did a really good job of getting it back together for this morning's session.
Also, the first session this morning I thought went pretty well. We just didn't improve enough to make the difference here in qualifying.
THE MODERATOR: Can you just talk about what it means tomorrow morning to wake up in your own bed knowing you have a big race?
JAN HEYLEN: Well, we've been waiting for this for a long time. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it, even though today wasn't the best qualifying session ever. I think the race is wide open, and I'm really looking forward to the race, and we'll put on a great show. I'm going to try as hard as I can to get up in front.

Q. Do you feel after just one day of practice and qualifying, again, do you feel like you have a correction that you want to go apart from the race? Do you feel confident about maybe getting up to another level tomorrow?
JAN HEYLEN: Well, that's the problem that we're facing right now. We're not quite sure if we're on the right platform with the car, but it's a risk now to go all the way back and try something different. We're going to think about it tonight and the guys are going to look at it, and I'm sure they'll come up with something good for tomorrow.
But it's exactly that, what you're saying. I think right now we're just a couple of tenths away from being really in there, and with the small changes that we made since this morning or after practice, it wasn't enough to keep up with the others. So now we really have to think about whether we're going to stay with what we have or try something different tomorrow.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much.