A Conversation With Nick Tandy

Amid the noise being made about Porsche’s return to the prototype ranks after almost two decades away, Nick Tandy’s return to La Sarthe for the first time since 2011 has understandably gone under the radar. Not that he was ever very far away, but since then, much has changed. After defeating the late Sean Edwards for the Porsche Carrera Cup Germany title, Tandy narrowly missed out on the 2012 International GT Open crown with Marco Holzer and also took four wins in the ADAC GT championship with Christian Engelhardt, earning him the Porsche Cup for the most successful privateer of 2012 and with it, the holy grail of sportscar racing, promotion to a works drive. As well as the added bonus of career stability, the result is a more fundamentally rounded racing driver, better placed to take on the rigours of 24 hours than he was three years ago.

Tandy's last appearance at La Sarthe came with the Felbermayr-Proton
team in 2011 came to an early end. (Credit: Proton Competition)

“The main things it gives you is greater experience of how to work within a team,” said the Englishman, whose main focus is on the United Sportscar Championship this year. “From a driving point of view, of course you will keep improving in terms of speed and experience, but it’s the whole thing of making a car work over the course of a weekend that you really develop and that’s something Porsche does very well. 

"It’s great that they have the factory driver programme in amongst the different race programmes, which is very different to how some of the others go about it and I feel very fortunate to be a part of it.  I wouldn’t have any of this without Franz Konrad and Konrad Motorsport; he took a chance on me when I was brand new to Porsche and thanks to him I was able to show something that nobody else would have got to see otherwise. Everything I’ve done with Porsche and going forwards, it all starts from the foundations and I was very fortunate to have a team good enough to go out there, win races immediately and win championships pretty soon after.”

A racer in the classic mould who will jump in and drive anything and everything – winning twice in four races in the ELMS last season and adding a further three victories on his off-weekends with Trackspeed in British GT as well as outings in the Daytona, Nurburgring and Spa 24 Hours – Tandy’s burgeoning reputation on both sides of the Atlantic is testament to a prodigious speed and work ethic that has served him well throughout his career.

Tandy was the only man who could get close to the all-conquering
RAM Ferrari in the ELMS last year, seen here on route to victory
at the Hungaroring. (Credit: Proton Competition)

“To be honest, I’m a race car driver and I like to go racing,” he says. “Of course if there’s a programme like last year, ELMS was my main focus and that come above everything else, the same with the Tudor championship this year. But if there are free days and free weekends, it makes sense to get in a car because you’re always going to get better, gain more experience and most importantly, we love racing, that’s why we’re here. The more I’m involved with Porsche, the more I get to go racing.

“It’s really nice to have the programme in the States. When I looked at what Porsche were doing worldwide this year; that was really where I wanted to have a go and it’s even better than I was expecting. The championship a really close fight and I’m really enjoying visiting all these new places. I’d never been to Long Beach before and there are many still to come like Indy, where we’ll be racing with the NASCAR guys, so I’m really looking forward to that. And the best thing about the programme is I get to do the two big races – for me at least – on the WEC as well, Silverstone and Le Mans, which is fantastic!”

As Porsche defend their hard-fought 2013 crown against the likes of Aston Martin, Ferrari and Corvette, they do so in the knowledge that with Tandy’s win in the TUSCC season opening Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona for Porsche North America, the 911 RSR GT3’s enviable 100% record in 24 hour races remains unblemished. And having had an instrumental role in the car’s evolution over the winter, with particular emphasis placed on aerodynamics, Tandy has every faith in the machinery to put himself and WEC regulars Patrick Pilet and Jorg Bergmeister in contention come the finish, all the more important when considering that Le Mans counts for double points towards Porsche’s world championship bid.

Bergmeister, Pilet and Tandy (left to right) took second at Silverstone,
but will look to go one better at La Sarthe. (Credit: Porsche Motorsport)

“[The record] doesn’t put any pressure on at all, it gives you confidence,” insists Tandy. “One of the strengths of Porsche historically has been their teamwork in endurance events, which explains why they’ve won so many times in so many different disciplines across the world. It gives you confidence that you’ve got that level of support to go there and hopefully run for 24 hours without issues, which you have to do nowadays to be in contention to win a 24 Hour race. Obviously that’s what happened at Le Mans last year and at Daytona, and it’s what we’ll be pushing for again.

“First and foremost, we can’t do anything stupid. Especially as the third driver, you’ve got to be consistent, you can’t risk doing anything silly as it’s about scoring points for the team and helping Porsche win the manufacturers championship. So that’s the main aim, but I’m a racer and we all want to win, so I’ll just race as I normally race; that’s what Porsche have brought me here for and put me in this factory programme. We’ll be going 100% for the win. But that said, anything can happen, that’s just motorsport.”