Learning to do more than just go quickly
When the Ontario road racing season opens in two weeks at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, professional driver Kyle Marcelli of Barrie will be in the middle of a pretty steep learning curve.
You see, a year ago, when he was racing an Audi R8 GT3 for an American in the Pirelli World Challenge series, there were only two buttons on the car’s steering wheel — one to activate a radio exchange with his pit crew and the other to squirt water into his mouth. It was a piece of cake, particularly since the drinks button didn’t work. It was not difficult to remember the one radio button.
This year, he’s driving a Ferrari in World Challenge for Vaughan-based R. Ferri Motorsport and the steering wheel has — wait for it — 20 buttons and there are another 20 on the Ferrari’s dash. Forty buttons in all, which can present a bit of a challenge.
Marcelli — who’s 27 — and I were talking a few weeks ago about the upcoming season — he’s partnering with Spanish driver Alex Riberas in SprintX races, which will be one of the World Challenge series classes on display at the upcoming Victoria Day Speedfest at CTMP — when he mentioned the difficulty of remembering which button does what on the 488 GT3 Ferrari while he’s shifting gears and turning laps averaging more than 100 miles an hour.
“I had one day of testing at Virginia International Raceway three weeks ago,” Marcelli said.
“It was funny; when I met with Remo (Ferri) and it looked like we were going to do this deal, he said to me: ‘I want to make sure we do at least one or two pre-season test days to get you up to speed and comfortable in the car.’
“I replied that any competent driver should be able to get in a new car and get up to speed pretty quickly. It turned out that in terms of pace, driving quickly was the least of my worries. I got going fast and the engineer came on the radio and said, ‘Flip this switch,’ and ‘Lift that button.’ I’d spend two laps just looking for whatever switch or button he was talking about.
“They gave me an engineer’s handbook to study. But it’s one thing to look at it on paper and close your eyes and try to memorize the placement and the function of buttons and switches, but in the heat of battle, it can be something else. During the test, it started spitting rain and I spent a full lap trying to find the wiper.”
Kidding aside, do all those little gizmos have a reason to be there?
“There are a few common buttons that are go-to,” he replied. “There are two traction-control buttons, a fuel-mixture one, the radio and the pit buttons — those are the common ones. Then there’s a scroll page which you use to find the driver’s page that gives you the sector times, your overall lap times, your r.p.m.s, your gear selection, the water temperature and the oil pressure.
“But then your engineer might ask for a battery volt number or the fuel-remaining number or something a little more technical, so you use the scroll button to go from the driver’s page to the mechanic’s page. Hopefully, before long, this stuff will become kind of second nature, but right now, I’m a little overwhelmed by it.”
Last weekend at Virginia, the first World Challenge SprintX races of 2017 took place, and Marcelli and Riberas had a so-so weekend. They qualified fifth on Saturday, but wound up tenth in the race because of a misunderstanding about the rules — and they weren’t the only ones. The SprintX is a 60-minute flat-out race in which two drivers must participate 50-50. And there must be a pit stop for tires as well as for the driver change that must last a minimum of 30 seconds. That’s what tripped them — and others — up. Their pit stop was lightning quick, and they were later penalized for being too fast. Rules are rules, however, so their race Sunday was better, but just: they were sixth.
To say Marcelli is looking forward to racing at Old Mosport on the Victoria Day weekend would be an understatement. In fact, it’s like coming home for any Canadian driver because it’s been the country’s longest continuous operating racing circuit since it opened in 1961.
“It’s special to race at home,” Marcelli said. “It brings a different element of excitement, but then there’s also the other side — there’s additional pressure because you’re racing in front of a lot of familiar faces. Every friend and family you have wants a free ticket. So there are pros and cons.
“The circuit itself has come a long way. The owners, Carlo Fidani and Ron Fellows, have put a lot of time and money into it. It’s still so unique. There really is nothing like it in North America. That’s not just me saying it; a lot of my American racing friends and guys I’ve raced against in Europe all agree that it’s extremely challenging and fast. Modern circuits, like the Circuit of the Americas in Texas that was built specifically for Formula One, aren’t as demanding. At the Circuit of the Americas, you can take big risks and the worst-case scenario is you might run a little wide. You can use the runoff road and then come back on the track. At Mosport, you really have to have confidence in the car to go quick. You go off there and you will hit something.”
Marcelli won’t be the only driver looking to “go quick” when the Castrol presents the Victoria Day SpeedFest kicks off the major events calendar at CTMP May 19-21. The lineup will be headlined by the NASCAR Pinty’s Series (they’ll run the Can-Am 200 for stock cars) as well as all classes of the Pirelli World Challenge series. Three Canadian series — the Canadian Touring Car Championship, the Ultra 94 Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by Yokohama and the Nissan Micra Cup Series — will round out the weekend.
Now, when you go to the Grand Prix du Canada in Montreal in early June, or the Honda Indy Toronto at Exhibition Place in downtown Toronto in mid-July, if you want to get near the big stars, it will cost you additional money for access to the paddocks. Not so at CTMP. All the paddocks are open, and spectators are invited to mingle with team members, drivers and to look at the racing cars up close.
For additional information on ticket prices, camping and the Saturday night fireworks display (hey, it’s Victoria Day, remember) please go to the facility’s website at canadiantiremotorsportpark.com. One thing I will point out, though: anyone 16 and under who is accompanied by a paying adult will not have to pay admission.
It’s been a bit of a hard climb for Marcelli to get to this point in his career. A former Canadian Formula Ford champion, he’s entered 182 races in his career and won 21, captured 24 pole positions and finished on the podium 72 times for a podium percentage of about 40 per cent.
He’s been a professional racer since 2010 and always been in a car, but the opportunity with Remo Ferri’s team is the first one where there’s been potential for long-term employment.
Although this is the first contract he’s signed to drive for a Ferrari team, Marcelli is no stranger to Ferrari racing cars. In that telephone chat we had the other day, he told me that his first ride in what is arguably the world’s most famous racing car was arranged by former Formula One star Stefan Johansson.
“This started in 2014,” Marcelli said. “I signed a deal to drive for Starworks Motorsport in the Prototype Challenge class in the IMSA WeatherTech championship and we did Daytona. We went to Sebring (for the 12 Hours), and the sponsorship money didn’t arrive, so the team had to withdraw the entry.
“I was left without a drive that weekend. Fortunately, my manager, Stefan Johansson, was scheduled to drive with Scuderia Corsa in the Ferrari 458. I called him in a panic and told him the situation; he talked to the owner of Scuderia Corsa and said, ‘Pull me out and put Kyle in,’ which is what happened, and that kick-started my driving Ferrari race cars. I still owe Stefan for that one.”
Marcelli met Remo Ferri around the end of the 2014 season but, as the Barrie athlete explained, the time wasn’t right for a deal.
“It’s definitely a sport of right place, right time,” he said. “It’s a very unique sport in that it’s more than getting a result in the car and getting a result out of the car. You have to factor in who you know and being at the right place at the right time — and the stars have to align. I’m 27 now, and I’ve been a professional race driver since I was 20. I’ve been fortunate to be in a car every year. It’s year-to-year, and there’s not a whole lot of stability.
“Now, this deal really does present a great future opportunity. The resources and the tools are there for that. Remo’s been involved in motorsport for 20 years. He’s been partnered with Risi Competizione in the past, and he’s been partnered with Scuderia Corsa. He’s always been involved.
“And Ferrari is supporting the program this year. They’ve supplied the engineers for it, so the right eyeballs are on the program, and now it’s just a matter of doing a good job in the car and sort of seeing where it takes me at the end of the season.”
Team owner Ferri said he was delighted to have Marcelli in an organization that has made its mark in the sport.
“We are excited to have Kyle join our team,” Ferri said. “Being a young Canadian driver, I’ve followed his career closely over the years, and I feel he’s a good fit for our team and that he will work well with Alex (Riberas) at the SprintX races.”
He will, of course, once he figures out which of those %$&ˆ*#* buttons does what. nmcdonald@thestar.ca