Hello Everyone!

Well, the seasons now approaching fast and I´m looking forward to another great year. Winning the Porsche Supercup for a second consecutive season in 2007 was really special but its time to move on now and since becoming a Porsche factory driver I´m moving up to GT racing full time. My main program this year will be the 2008 FIA GT Championship with the Porsche Factory team, Prospeed from Belgium. My team mate will be Manu Collard and with his experience and speed, plus the improvements made to this years Porsche GT2 RSR, we can go into this year feeling pretty confident. Of course we have very stiff competition, particularly from Ferrari but so far our testing has been positive and the developments Porsche promised look to have worked.

Since winning the Supercup back in October last year I haven´t really had a chance to relax. January was unusually busy with the Dubai24h and the Rolex Daytona 24h. In Daytona it was one of the strongest fields ever and having led for most of the race we were all bitterly disappointed to finish 2nd. Unfortunately the sand played havoc with the TRG Porsche and standing on the podium it dawned on me that 2nd is the worse place to finish in a 24hour race. So much effort from the whole team and Porsche goes into winning the race and looking up the step to the winners receiving their Rolex watches didn´t help matters. In February all the Factory drivers were whisked off to the Canary Island for the annual Porsche training camp. Ten days of intensive fitness traing, eight hours a day was a bit of a shock but the atmosphere was great and I really enjoyed meeting all the other drivers. Needless to say there was plenty of practical jokes, particuarly involving my hotel room since I was the new boy - garlic mayonnaise in your toothpaste is really not that nice.

Anyway, back to racing and this weekend see´s the start of the Le Mans series in Barcelona and I´m delighted to be finally racing a Farnbacher car after years of competing against them. They are one of the best Porsche teams in the world and like in the FIA GT Championship, myself, Alan Simonson and Lars Nilson are confident the Porsche GT2 RSR will take us where we want to be.

Richard