Interviews

Inside Embassy - Warren Hughes

© Planetlemans - Gabriel Portos

As you start a conversation with Embassy Racing driver Warren Hughes it is difficult to relate the quiet and relaxed gentleman in front of you with the fast driver he is on the track. Rated as one of the fastest British drivers of the last years, Warren is as interested in racing and winning as he is in developing a car, in deciphering the clues that will get you to top performance on the circuit. Our dialogue starts discussing his long term commitment to Embassy Racing and the reasons behind it.

PLM- Warren, it is not usual to see a driver signing a multi-year agreement in endurance racing, what was the motivation behind your Embassy deal?

WH- Well, first of all I have to say that it took quite a level of commitment from Jonathan (France)! Such a deal is quite unusual in this area of motor racing. That for me was a big confidence boost in itself, the duration and objectives of the program were pretty compelling. Additionally, the quality of people involved (Peter Elleray, Alastair McQueen to name just two) was very high. From a career point of view the stability factor was also important, as well as being able to get the rewards from your work on the program. As a young team coming together, having stability on the driver side is an important factor.

PLM- Talking about drivers, lots of fans were happy that you share the car with Jonny Kane now.

WH- I have an excellent relationship with Jonny. I’d say we’re compatible in and out of the track, there’s no friction at all between us. We had been team mates before at MG, LNT so we know each other well. On the other side we do push each other and it works really well since we are open and honest to each other and that helps the team a lot.

PLM- Jody Firth mentioned it was easy to tell when one of you has a bad day as you’re so evened.

WH- When a team is so new (including the project itself) having a known factor like the level of the drivers is really a plus. It takes an unknown out of the equation and speeds up development.

PLM- How do you see your relationship and contribution to the team?

WH- This role has opened up another arena for me, I can contribute more to the team thanks to my previous experience in different cars and manufacturers and I have much more input from a technical point of view. Based on your feel and experience you can guide the engineers in some cases. In fact I enjoy testing as much as I enjoy racing. The analysis, looking for clues to improve performance, all this is very interesting and motivating to me.

PLM- And in the case of Embassy with a brand new chassis there most be lots of that…

WH- Well, usually you make changes looking for the indicators to see if those changes made a difference. No car is ever perfect but a new project has usually bigger issues and a wider scope to investigate and develop.

PLM- How is the interaction with the designer? This is fundamental to get the WF-01 higher up the ranks.

WH- The interaction is very good and very positive. Peter (Elleray) is very much part of Engineering at Embassy and he is integral to the car development. My input to Peter is one of the key relationships in the car development. Alastair (my engineer) knows the car very well but perhaps does not have the intimate knowledge of the designer himself. The 3 of us and of course the other drivers working together makes things crystal clear for all in terms of the avenue we need to go to fix an issue.

PLM- Obviously, there are many things that you cannot solve during a race weekend.

WH- No, and additionally Peter understands how the car was born so he is the most logical person to help development. As I said I enjoy this part as well; in fact I have been in development projects before with Ralt in Formula 3 and MG for Le Mans. However, this time around the team look at me often for direction. It’s not every time, clearly but it’s a nice responsibility as I like my opinion to be valued.

PLM- What is your objective in this project?

WH- Success on the track more than anything else, both from a personal and team point of view. I hope as time goes on we get closer and closer to achieve that. It is a tough moment to come into LMP2 with Porsche having risen the bar so high and everyone else responding to that. Competition in this class is very tough now, you can’t just have “your package ready” and go racing. We need to push very strongly to catch up and grow stronger in the process.

PLM- So what drives your motivation knowing the situation in the class?

WH- The motivation for me is the same as for the team: we want to win races. Nobody at Embassy will be satisfied until we achieve it, we are busy laying lots of stepping stones on the way to that but winning is the goal.

PLM- Will a win just do it for you then?

WH- For me success is not being fortunate in one occasion because my drive is to prove my ability at what I do, in this case only winning convincingly will do it for me. If you lose that drive, that hunger to win then there’s no motivation, nothing speaks louder than race wins in motor sport.

PLM- So what’s your balance of the season up to now, are you satisfied?

WH- There’s been lots of massively positive things about the Embassy project and its potential but I have to say I am frustrated as the season has not reflected the car’s or the team’s true performance and potential (Editor’s note: this conversation happened before Embassy’s 4th place at the Nürburgring 1000km). You are familiar with our issues at the beginning of the year and the delay in parts delivery so all the development was affected by that.

PLM- And looking further?

WH- There’s a big commitment from Jonathan for next year’s development, it will be a very busy and exciting winter for us at Embassy. We need to take a significant step as our competitors are not idle either! It’s a huge undertaking to go against manufacturers like Porsche and this is why I mentioned the class has changed. When people speak about LMP2 fragility they sometimes forget that these are cars developed by small teams…except for Porsche of course.

Motivation and commitment are both there, experience and talent as well. Warren Hughes is one of the fundamental elements of the Embassy machine and he’s clearly focussed on one goal only: get the chequered flag first.