David Greenhalgh caught up with John Martin at Bathurst, where Martin was competing in the Australian Carrera Cup.
Is this the first time you’ve raced at Bathurst?
Yes, first laps around here. I came here as a kid and camped here one year for the Bathurst 1000, which was a pretty amazing experience.
It’s a cool track, but you just don’t get many laps. Obviously, it’s quite a difficult circuit to learn, it’s certainly different – certainly rates high on my track list, that’s for sure.
Do you still have some irons in the fire in Europe, or have you turned your back on Europe?
No, I wouldn’t say I’ve turned my back on Europe, I’m still talking to some people over there. If something comes up, then good, I’d love to get back to do WEC, I really enjoy the cars, love the Championship, they go to some really nice race circuits, obviously Le Mans being one of them, but I’m still focussed on trying to do some stuff out here as well.
The main reason for doing the Porsche Carrera Cup was just to do some laps at Bathurst, more than anything, because I haven’t been here, and I’m trying to do the 12 Hours next year.
Do you have anything lined up for the 12 Hours yet?
Not really, I’ve talked to a lot of people, but nothing really solid, so after this weekend I really need to start talking some more and sort something out.
When I was talking to you at Le Mans in 2013, your team-mate was Mike Conway (below), now he’s got a drive in a factory Toyota. How do you feel about that? Is it a case of what might have been?
Yes, it’s a bit annoying, obviously we were talking to them too, so it was close, but for whatever reason, he’s in there and he deserves to be, he’s a good pedaller. It’s not that we weren’t as quick, it’s just the way it goes, just a bit unlucky.
Did you have any connection with Nissan? Obviously you had the Nissan engine in the P2 cars.
A little bit, and that was sort of growing. If the sponsorship stuff hadn’t all fallen through for last year and the team had’ve carried on, we would probably have been even closer. I mean hindsight is a wonderful thing, but if that had’ve happened, potentially we would’ve been in the Nissan P1 programme.
Other people like Pla are in there, it was always him we were battling in P2 so I’d like to at least have had a bit of a look in anyway to get a deal there. But then you look at how their programme’s gone and it’s like, well, it wouldn’t have been a good thing anyway.
Obviously the Toyota thing would’ve been nice. Then there are other people in the Porsches too that have raced all over the place, Tandy and Bamber, it was good to see them get the drive. It was just a bit annoying that I didn’t quite get there.
When you think about it, you were on the podium [at Le Mans] one minute, the next minute you’re disqualified, you had the momentum, and then…
Even towards the end of 2013 we were dominant really, we won the last four rounds. We were going into 2014 with the same car, we did the testing and stuff early on, if anything we’d found even more. We did a lot of tyre testing at Sebring at the start of the year with Dunlop, so we were fully ready for 2014. I don’t think anyone would have touched us, at all.
It was going to be pretty good. We had Olly Turvey as the second driver, and he’s rapid as well, and a nice guy, similar to Conway. It was going to be really good and it all just fell apart. The money never turned up, everything was promised and never happened. The team did a lot of the testing on credit, with all the suppliers, because they really wanted us to run all their gear from the year before when we were so quick, so they were helping us out every way they can, but all of a sudden it has to stop when you can’t pay anyone any more.
You were going so well, and with all the manufacturers coming it, it looked like there would be seats available in P1.
Yes, we thought so too. There are a few people that are there that we know we could battle with like the Sarrazins and the Plas. Having Conway as a team-mate in exactly the same car, sure he’s quick and deserves a P1 drive, but he didn’t blow us out of the water. Some stints he was a little bit better, some we were, swings and roundabouts, some circuits he was better, but it was sort of 50/50 really. It was good, we were pushing each other.
Might we see you over there again?
Yeah, I’m still trying to do some things. The Championship’s great, it’s just getting better and better. Realistically, I don’t know if it will happen, potentially Spa and Le Mans next year, maybe in a P2 car.
