Introducing Chris Atkinson and our CarExpert performance review series!

CarExpert

We have some exciting news to announce today. Rally driver, and a legend of a bloke, Chris Atkinson will be joining the CarExpert team as our performance tester and will host a new series on the CarExpert channel focusing on performance reviews and today I wanted to introduce him to you with an interview, so you could get to know him.  This isn't a try-hard Top Gear knock off, or a Chris Harris session where we go through 20 sets of tyres to film a car review. Chris will be doing technical reviews of cars on a race track and give you his expert opinion on how they drive and what he's feeling behind the wheel.  Why are we not doing a tyre frying session with massively high production values and cinema quality? Firstly, we don't have time...Chris will have access to cars for a couple of hours at the track and despite how it appears, Top Gear episodes and most highly produced cinematic videos take days to produce and require dozens of staff to make happen.  You guys like the laid back, straight to the point, detailed format of Paul's car reviews, so that's how we'll be shooting these. As always, we would love your feedback. Let us know what you love, what you hate and what you want to see more or less of. We will, as always, take your feedback on board.  In the interim, enjoy this interview with Chris Atkinson to get a better idea of who he is and get ready to watch some exciting footage of him behind the wheel of cars on a race track, testing them to their limits.   Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 How Chris' series will work: 00:18 Who is Chris Atkinson?: 02:27 World Rally Championship (WRC): 04:40 Subaru Rally Cross: 06:14  Stockbroker turns race driver: 07:12 Our test track (Queensland Raceway): 07:55 Your questions answered - Q1: 09:30 Question 2: 10:48 Question 3: 12:11 Question 4: 13:50 Question 5: 15:06 Outro: 15:57  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #review #chrisatkinson #carexpert

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. There's something a little bit different today.

00:02 I'm excited to bring you a new video series that we're doing and also introduce you to a brand new host

00:07 that's going to be leading it. His name's Chris Atkinson.

00:09 He's quite an accomplished race driver and I thought today

00:12 I wanted to sit down and have a bit of a chat with him so you guys could get to know him a little bit better.

00:16 So let's get stuck into it.

00:18 Just for a click to put in the video.

00:20 Okay, so, um Atko, you're going to be joining us as our performance editor.

00:25 That effectively means you're going to be producing a series of I guess technical track videos explaining how cars work on the track and

00:32 you know what they're all about on the track as well.

00:34 And I think we want to set up like the premise here that we're not doing Top Gear style stuff.

00:39 We're not doing a Chris Harris session where we're going through 20 sets of tires.

00:43 It's all about you getting involved with a performance car. So tell me,

00:47 what do you do when you're out on a track for us?

00:50 So how do you performance test a car and how do you convey that to the people that are watching?

00:54 Yeah, so it's an awesome new role.

00:56 I'm pretty excited about it and something a bit new for me as well coming from a racing background to hop in road cars.

01:01 They're completely different, but I think my rally background probably as we'll get to

01:05 helps me out in that area.

01:07 So basically I've got four laps to try and figure this out and I go out and just explore the cars, push their limits,

01:13 run off the track, try as hard as I can and then

01:16 see what they do basically in my first impressions and give that feedback back to everyone out there

01:23 looking on Car Expert. So that's the idea.

01:25 I try and sort of learn over those four laps if I can improve at all and

01:29 and then give my understanding of the car, how I got the most out of it, what I learned about it and how it responded.

01:34 So it's something new, but it's good fun.

01:37 And that's the thing, I mean the problem with motoring journalists is, you know, they all think they're great drivers,

01:43 but when it comes to track testing... I've met plenty of them, don't worry.

01:46 I'm the exception to that rule. Of course, of course.

01:49 But yeah, when we go to a racetrack, and I know with me, like I'm still learning the car and I can't be consistent.

01:55 A race driver like you can place a car in the exact same spot every single time and get the most out of it.

02:00 And I think that's what I'm most excited about, that if I'm a customer, like I bought a Supra and

02:05 you've track tested a Supra for us and I was so excited to see when you went out,

02:10 set a time and I was like, holy crap, that thing is actually really fast, especially in the hands of a pro.

02:15 So look, what I wanted to do today was basically

02:18 introduce you to our audience. You're going to be in charge of all this and for the people,

02:22 I think a lot of people know who you are, but for the people that don't,

02:25 I thought this would be a good chance for us to do a bit of a Q&A and to get to know Akko a little bit better.

02:30 So, I want to know, can you quickly run us through your racing career? Where did it start and what are you doing now?

02:36 I was started quite late for racing. I raced a bit of motocross.

02:40 My dad was actually a rally driver in the early 80s, won the New South Wales Championship a few times.

02:45 My brother actually got into racing when I was at university in terms of rally.

02:48 He had an interest, he was a bit older than me and sort of knew what my dad had done, where I was sort of three

02:53 or four years old when my dad was racing, so didn't really remember much.

02:56 I co-drove for a couple of his mates and for my brother as well. I was useless at that, sent them up the wrong roads.

03:03 I have no idea what I was doing.

03:05 Then I went to a rally school with Rick Bates, who's Neil Bates's brother and went up and down the road.

03:09 And

03:11 Rick's like, "Oh, how long have you been rallying for?" I was like, "I've never rallied in my life."

03:16 And he goes, "Oh, you're a fair bit quicker than your brother, who's been racing for a couple of years."

03:21 So, that wasn't great for my brother.

03:24 But it sort of pointed us in that direction and because my dad knew a lot of the people

03:28 from years ago, he sort of started asking questions. Went out and bought an Evo 5 between the three of us.

03:32 We all chipped in 20 grand. The idea was that we'd share different things. My dad would do tarmac rallies.

03:38 So, it was just a family thing. We thought we'd have a crack at it. I'd do some bigger rallies like state championship

03:42 and my brother would do some local rallies.

03:44 First rally went out there and was competitive straight away, was leading the rally.

03:48 And it all just escalated so quickly. I can go on for hours about it, but basically

03:52 like life, right place, right time, timing, taking advantage of opportunities, getting picked up early by manufacturers.

04:00 It's an expensive sport. You can't afford to do it on your own. Got picked up by Suzuki early on by Monster Tajima.

04:06 So, drove for them. Then straight into Subaru in the world championship and that was literally four years after I started rallying.

04:12 Like for the first time. And I was in the world WRC racing for Subaru.

04:16 And then basically I've had a 20-year career now as a racing driver and I was at university

04:21 not even thinking about being a racing driver. So, where life takes you.

04:26 You know what? That's actually really interesting because it shows you that people can change careers on a dime

04:32 and something that you don't know that you're good at until you try it, like racing, just happens out of nowhere.

04:37 And tell us a bit about the world rally championship. Like that is

04:40 and there's some cool cars in the background there. Porsche Cup Day, I think, yeah. Oh, okay. That'll do it.

04:46 Tell us about the WRC.

04:48 I mean that is a high pressure sport and it is bloody dangerous by the looks of it.

04:53 How did you get settled into that atmosphere?

04:55 The good thing was straight away

04:58 I was on the pace. Like I had the speed, although I crashed a lot.

05:02 So, that wouldn't...

05:04 The good thing about that and you'll see it in a young driver is that you've got to be fast.

05:09 First, you've got to be fast. Then, okay, you can sort out the mistakes.

05:12 Because if you're never fast, you're never going to be anywhere.

05:15 So, I showed that potential. I took the risks when I was young. Probably crashed more than I should have.

05:20 But I was just grabbing my opportunities and going flat out as fast as I could and

05:25 ended up with a full-time driving the WRC and those cars are so cool. Like people have no idea.

05:30 I think you put any racing driver from any car in them.

05:33 I know some of the Formula One guys have been in them for rides, other people.

05:37 You're just blowing away what you can do with them.

05:39 How fast they carry speed through the forest. How you're jumping from corner to corner. The braking.

05:44 I don't think there's any other better feeling in motorsport than a WRC car down a road.

05:49 And for me it was about like if I could be the fastest guy down that piece of road in the world.

05:53 Like a 50 kilometer stage. You're hitting every bank, taking trees out. Things like that.

05:57 And you get to the end and you're the fastest guy in the world down that bit of stage.

06:00 That's an epic sort of feeling.

06:02 That is so bloody cool. And what about right now? When you're not performance testing cars for us.

06:07 And we'll get to the track that you're going to be using in a second and a bit of an explainer on that.

06:11 But what are you doing outside of this? Obviously COVID at the moment has put an end to a lot of things.

06:15 But what is your racing career looking like at the moment?

06:18 So for the last few years, I've actually been racing for Subaru USA and

06:22 Subaru Motorsports over there. And we've been doing the Rallycross series, which has been great fun.

06:26 Like those cars are out of control as well. We're like 650 horsepower, 0-100 in 2 seconds.

06:31 You're racing six cars wide, hitting each other.

06:34 It's basically like million dollar dodgem cars.

06:38 It's been good fun. We were second in the championship last year.

06:42 A few wins and just missed out on the title to Tanner Faust.

06:46 So it was a pretty good year. Would have liked to win the championship.

06:49 But this year is a bit of a hold. Like for a lot of things the championship's been put on hold.

06:53 So a bit of free time and it's been great because this has fitted in nicely and

06:58 give me a chance to develop my skills on this side of

07:01 the motorsport world and back into our road cars. And hopefully that

07:06 is advantageous for the viewers as well.

07:08 Oh, absolutely, mate. And one final point here. Someone told me that you're a stockbroker in a previous life. What the hell?

07:15 Yeah, well, it's probably a good thing to learn about finance as young. Not that I maybe made the smartest decisions.

07:22 But when I was racing motocross, I'd broken too many bones and things. My parents were like, you got to focus on your schooling.

07:27 So I cut back on the racing a bit and then

07:30 did reasonably well at school. Got a scholarship to university.

07:33 Did finance accounting majors and then went to work.

07:36 This is about the time I was starting to do a couple of co-driving things and getting into the racing.

07:40 So then I went to work for Morgan Stockbroking in Brisbane and was a year there and basically figured out

07:46 that I was probably better at racing cars and trading stocks.

07:51 And like I said, here we are. It's crazy. I bloody love that. Okay.

07:55 So let me jump over to my next question here for you.

07:58 Our test track, it's not like a Top Gear style aerodrome or something like that. We use a place called Queensland Raceway.

08:06 Can you tell us just sort of basically where it's located for anyone that's watching this in Australia or perhaps

08:11 globally? And just tell us a bit about the track and the format that we use to test cars.

08:15 Yeah, so it's awesome to have this track.

08:18 Queensland Raceways have been fantastic to us to allow us to do this filming and as you know,

08:22 it takes a lot of time to piece all this together.

08:25 So it's in South East Queensland, just west of Brisbane out in a place called Ipswich.

08:29 They run V8 supercar rounds here normally. A lot of track days, a lot of action. There's always people here.

08:35 It's amazing how many people come out for track days, motorbikes.

08:37 If people are getting into motorsport,

08:40 then this is a great place to come out and try and learn some stuff about that.

08:44 And even just 30 minutes on the track can be great fun. So it's great to have this facility.

08:48 The layout that I chose for the track, because it was sort of a bit of an evolution thing, was the best way to test

08:54 these road cars. I didn't want to do the full race track because that's going to be hard on brakes and not all the

08:59 cars we're testing are actually designed to be on track. So I chose what's called the Sprint Circuit.

09:04 It's about 1.9 kilometres and has a mixture of changes of directions, a fast straight, a couple of fast corners.

09:09 A good lap time is under a minute. A really good lap time is low 50s and an okay lap time is in the 60 seconds.

09:15 And it's a fun track.

09:17 It's challenging and it tests each car's sort of different aspects. Some cars will be good in the fast corners,

09:21 some cars will be good off the corners, some cars will be good at braking.

09:24 And I think it's a good balanced track for testing and reviewing cars. Yeah, awesome. Well before we sign off,

09:30 I've got five questions for you that people on Instagram have sent through and there's actually some really cool ones here.

09:37 So I'm keen to get your responses. So here's the first one.

09:39 Do you enjoy driving cars that have lap time speeds not as the priority such as the 86 and the BRZ?

09:46 Or are you a racer at heart? I absolutely 100%

09:49 enjoy driving cars

09:52 just because they're good to drive. Like absolutely. And there's a Supra was a prime example.

09:57 I really came here with the Supra and I didn't think it would be anything special, interesting. No offence, you bought one.

10:06 And even driving on the road here, I was just not, I was like, yeah, I'm not quite sure.

10:12 Yeah, and then I got to the track and it was so engaging, like so fun. And almost the time was irrelevant.

10:19 Getting a time out of it was a challenge,

10:21 but the time was irrelevant because it was so engaging and certain cars are like that and it doesn't matter what time you do.

10:27 It's more about the enjoyment of it and you try and get the best out of what it is.

10:31 I don't have to come out here in a Ferrari and do it. Like that's cool for sure.

10:36 And that's its own challenge, but I can have just as much fun in something that's a lot less powerful,

10:41 but well put together in a package. Okay. So next question here is what was your best hero move/stuff up

10:49 that actually looked cool?

10:51 That's a good question. I've probably had a lot.

10:54 Well, I could actually help answer this one for you. One of the first ones we're about to, the first videos

10:59 we're going to release is of the M8 competition.

11:02 And there's a shot where you get this thing completely sideways and I'm like, oh, he's totally cooked that.

11:08 And then I just see the thing powering out of there like it just never happened and I'm like, that is so awesome.

11:14 I think I wrote in the story that I, lucky that I had 20 years of rally experience

11:19 when I entered that corner because I needed every bit of it coming out.

11:23 I remember a time in rally Japan and I ripped, I went into the bushes

11:29 and I ripped off my rear wing off the WRC car and still did a good time.

11:34 And then, and I didn't even know I'd lost the rear wing at the time because it was only a few corners from the end.

11:39 And the next stage with no rear wing on I still set the second fastest time in the stage with no, no rear wing.

11:45 It turned in nicely. So,

11:47 it's amazing what you get away with it. You gotta, you gotta have, I always took an approach in racing and rally anyway.

11:52 If I didn't have a moment in the first kilometre of a stage, I wasn't pushing hard enough, you know,

11:57 I wasn't taking up risks and we're not going to be competitive enough. So you've got to be able to

12:00 to live on the edge. There's so many moments you have, you forget all of them. It's in the thousands and thousands.

12:07 I love that mantra. That's cool. All right, next question here. Best car you've ever driven and the car that was most surprising?

12:15 Um, best car,

12:18 so I got the chance, we haven't done an official lap time on it yet and it was quite recent, was the Ferrari Pista.

12:24 Um, and talking road cars here, not race cars.

12:27 Um, and I'd driven the

12:30 GT2 RS and that was like right up there. That was pretty cool.

12:34 And remember I haven't driven, this is new to me,

12:36 I haven't driven a lot of these cars and I'm building my knowledge base as I go.

12:39 But, um, for something just resonated with that Pista and even though it wasn't naturally aspirated like a Ferrari should be,

12:45 it, it sort of bridged the gap because every time you hop in a Porsche,

12:49 I don't know what it is and I know so many, like all my

12:52 WRC friends, some of the first cars they bought like Loeb and Solberg and these guys, straight away,

12:56 the first car they buy is a GT3 RS, you know, it's a driver's car.

13:00 It's like, yeah, and, and I sort of, you sort of go towards that and for me the Pista, even though I just did a few

13:05 laps in it, it just started to head the direction of

13:08 a feedback of a Porsche, but with the

13:12 like excitement of the Ferrari and I, and I think it was a nice little blend. I think that's

13:17 my current

13:19 benchmark, especially out here.

13:21 Um, race car wise, our 2007

13:24 Subaru, we had that pretty dialed.

13:27 I got a lot of podiums in that car in the world championship, didn't win any races in it,

13:31 which was annoying, was leading a few times and had some issues, but you know, podiums in Monte Carlo Rally, podium in

13:36 Finland in that car, like two of the greatest rallies out there and to be standing on the podium there, like it's

13:42 you sort of have, obviously have to have a connection with your car. So that was pretty cool.

13:47 Um, well this kind of connects into that, that question. Favorite track, and, and it doesn't have to be a race track,

13:53 it can be a rally track, but what is your favorite track?

13:55 Um, I love Finland for the speed and jumps and everything like that, and same with Sweden on the ice,

14:03 like the, the speed is insane. You have no, you're in sixth gear for kilometer after kilometer.

14:07 There's a corner, there's a corner in Onanpuoja, one of the famous stages, and you literally line up the car on the crest to take

14:14 the corner of the crest, you fly over the field,

14:18 over the corner of the, the farm, land back on the road at like 200km/h and descend through the next one.

14:24 So that's cool, but, but to actually say the favorite rally, and I won it a few times, it's in the North Island of New Zealand,

14:38 it's Rally Whangarei, it was part of the Asia Pacific Championship, but it uses the best roads from the WRC.

14:43 So if I say to anyone, just one rally to go and do, you'll drive the stage,

14:47 you'll get to the end of the stage, and you've just got a smile on your face, and you're just like,

14:51 there is no better roads, you're jumping from corner to corner, they're all banked and

14:56 curbed, and you just launch the car, like you're changing direction in the air, and

15:01 oh, it's so, so much fun. I love that, I love that. Okay, lucky last question.

15:05 What's something you miss about older cars? Is it the mechanical feel? Hearing an Honest V8,

15:11 you know, what is it that is kind of not there in cars today that was in cars maybe a decade or two ago?

15:17 I think it's the challenge, like it's got a lot easier to drive. I think the challenge, I remember doing some ice driving in

15:23 Sweden or Norway, somewhere up there, and we had some old Porsche

15:29 rally cars, and we had a Mark 1 Escort, and I just remember

15:34 revving this thing, like bouncing off the limiter,

15:38 spinning the wheel as hard as I could to get the opposite lock off, and just like, you're not going fast,

15:43 you're going half the speed of a WRC car, but it's such a challenge, and so raw, you know,

15:48 now it's so technical and so detailed, and you're focused on just

15:51 managing the traction and doing that, that's just fun, you know, that's the difference.

15:56 Well, look mate, I am super excited to see how all these videos go, and for everyone watching this,

16:01 you know, we build our channel based on your feedback, so let us know what you're thinking, positive, negative,

16:07 we always try and craft these things around what our viewers want, and we would absolutely love to hear from you guys,

16:14 let us know in the comments below

16:16 what you'd like to see on the track, what you'd love to see Akko doing, and again, if you have any feedback,

16:20 we'd love to hear it. Akko is also a pretty keen sim racer,

16:24 so we'd love to try and organise something where we can maybe

16:26 get you behind the wheel of your sim and get some of you guys watching at home to maybe take Akko on,

16:31 I think that would be really cool to see whether his on-road experience translates to the sim as well.

16:36 I'm definitely better in the real world, I'm learning, it's a new game, but it's good fun, and I'm learning all the time,

16:43 so it'd be great to go up against some people, and hopefully everyone's enjoying what I'm doing out there, and like Paul said, any feedback is

16:50 super welcome.

16:52 Awesome, mate, thank you so much for your time Akko, we really appreciate it.

16:55 Yep, thanks for having me, and great to be a part of the Car Expert team.

16:58 Awesome, well look, guys, check out the rest of our channel if you want to see other car reviews,

17:02 drag parisons, infotainment reviews, the absolute works, you'll see all of these videos rolling out shortly on the channel,

17:08 and we cannot wait to bring them to you. If you haven't done so already, make sure you hit subscribe and also hit the bell icon,

17:12 it's going to tell you every single time we publish something new, but until next time, we will see you guys soon.

Category

Transcript

Recommended