Verizon IndyCar Series driver Oriol Servia shares the story and emotions behind his last-minute efforts to stand in for the late Justin Wilson at Andretti Autosport during the season finale in Sonoma with RACER‘s Marshall Pruett.
At midnight in Donington I get a call from Michael Andretti. It’s Wednesday, on the other side of the planet. The reasons for the call weren’t obvious to me. All I’ve been doing is spending 14 hours a day at the office in England trying to get my head around managing the Dragon Racing Formula E team. I have not been to the gym. I am not in the best shape, and Michael is on the line with a big question.
Our friend Justin Wilson was gone. Justin and I spent many years working very hard trying to be in one of the big teams, and finally I’m getting a call to do a race. For the wrong reasons. Michael wants to know if I can drive Justin’s car in Sonoma. Not next week, but in two days.
As Michael is talking, my head is going 300 miles an hour; I’m only thinking of reasons of why I am going to say no. This isn’t the way I wanted to drive for Michael. I tell myself that I have not driven a road course in a year and a half in IndyCar. I have not driven the new aero kit on a road course. All the teams tested at Sonoma before the race, and most of the guys are fully prepared. Sonoma is a tricky track. I got a little bit in shape for the Indy 500 in May, although that really doesn’t require a lot of physical training – not like a road course – and Sonoma is very taxing.
All those thoughts are coming when Michael is talking, and I’m thinking, yeah, this is not going to be good for any of us, so why do it? I wasn’t even convinced the car should be racing, if I’m honest. I was searching for ways to be brave enough to tell Michael that it doesn’t make any sense and we can’t do it. Then he says Justin’s family has really pushed for me to do it. I had to take some time to consider this new development.
Right after, I get a call from Stefan Wilson (LEFT: with Oriol at Sonoma) telling me the same. And then I realize: Who cares what Oriol thinks, honestly, or how fast I’ll be, or if I can do it physically? This isn’t about me. This is about Justin and using this chance to raise awareness for many positive things. I called Michael and said yes.
Because I was in England with no time to prepare, it became a race to get to California immediately. Can I get a flight? I drove to Heathrow, got there at three in the morning, and was out on a flight at six. Three hours after Michael’s call, I was on a plane to San Francisco, and there were no direct flights, so I had a layover in Chicago and arrived at the track Thursday at 6 p.m.
It knew this is not ideal; it’s not the normal start to a professional race weekend, but whatever. What really wasn’t helping me was I had a single session on Friday, and it was 3.5 hours. That’s not the best way to get up to speed. I was hoping for two or three shorter sessions where we could look at the data between runs and learn progressively. Still, at that point I’m thinking, whatever…I know how to drive this car, the track hasn’t changed since I last drove it, and how physical can it be? I may not win the race, but I will be decent.
After the Andretti crew presented me with my suit and got me fitted to the car, we started the session on Friday and all my fears came true. Actually, it’s worse, worse, worse, WAY worse than I expected.
It’s not about the speed. I just could not turn the steering wheel. After one hour in the car, every time I get to Turn 1, every time I get to Turn 3, every time I get to Turn 6, the limit is far from being reached by my driving ability. The car has so much grip, so much downforce, so much speed; it was more powerful than I am. The limit was my arm strength. I could not keep the steering locked in position in the fast corners – especially when I put on new tires.
We had three sets of new tires, and when I put on new tires, I had to abort the lap with the last two sets. I had to abort. I could not hold the steering through Turn 6 on one lap, and in Turn 3 in the other lap. My concerns now were to another level because, yes, I was two seconds off the pace on the time sheets, which is bad, but it wasn’t the worst case scenario that I was thinking. The problem is bigger. How am I going to be able to do 85 laps? How am I going to A, finish the race, and B, be safe and not put the others at risk? I just could not see how it was possible.
Everyone I was telling thought I was joking. I saw Jimmy Vasser, I saw other friends, and I’m telling them and they think I’m joking about not being able to turn the car in the fast sections.
Friday night, I went to bed really depressed. Before I fell asleep, my parents called and asked how I was doing. I told them about how concerned I was, and my dad says, “Listen, if it is really true that you cannot turn the wheel, you need to just find a way that you can do the race. You start ahead of everyone, do the warm-up laps behind the pace car, then you enter the pits and retire the car.”
When he told me Friday night, I thought there was no way. But Saturday morning when I woke up, I thought about it again and my dad was absolutely right. I never said I was ready to do this, and I knew it wouldn’t look good for my career if I can’t turn the steering wheel… It’s the truth. There’s a reason why these guys train every day in IndyCar; it’s the reason why I worked out all my life when I was driving full-time.
So I wake up and head to the track and I’m thinking, we did three changes to the car overnight; we took out caster, we changed the steering rack, and we put a bigger steering wheel in the car. Basically, it’s the three things that may help you turn the wheel easier. But as I’m heading to the track, I text Honda, I text Michael, and I’m asking them to meet with me when I arrive. Now I feel relieved.
I know that if the changes to make the car easier for me to drive doesn’t work, I’m just going to tell them, sorry, this is not possible. I tried because the family was asking…I knew I wasn’t ready… But we cannot do it. The only way to do something that’s not completely embarrassing for Justin is to do two laps leading the grid and then come in. I didn’t know if it was possible, but I thought there’s no other way. In my head I found a way to not completely embarrass myself and do something reasonable as a tribute to Justin.
Luckily, the changes we did to the car really worked. I started the first session Saturday and OK, I can drive this car now. At least I can turn the wheel. Now it’s a different story. Now it is about, OK, let’s see what I can remember about driving! Can I be competitive? I go into qualifying, and on Firestone blacks, I was 0.2 seconds off my teammate Marco Andretti. OK, I’ve gone from two seconds off on Friday to 0.2 today. Now we are starting to play. Then we put on Firestone reds; it was my first time with them at Sonoma, and I was too conservative. I started 19th, but Ryan Briscoe was 17th and Sebastien Bourdais was 16th…I didn’t feel too bad about the company I was keeping.
In general, I knew my qualifying was not great, but if tomorrow I do a similar improvement that I did from Friday to Saturday, we can play, we can make Justin proud, and I’m trying my hardest to turn this situation in the right direction.
When I woke up Sunday, I obviously still had fears. I knew I could turn the wheel, but I didn’t know if my fitness in terms of cardio would last for 85 laps. Am I going to be out of breath half way through the race? Am I going to lose focus? I mean, I wasn’t worried Friday in terms of safety; I was worried about performance, but when you start getting tired, you only think about only the next corner and braking and you just drive slower. Your vision becomes very small instead of seeing everything like you should.
Somehow, when the race started, I felt good right away. My rhythm on every lap got a little better, a little better, a little better. I kept remembering my footwork, finding finesse, finding what the car needs. I raced with Ryan Briscoe – we had different race strategies, but I thought I had a little bit better car and I was catching him. In the end, the yellows didn’t go our way, and instead of finishing fifth or sixth with Briscoe, we finished 12th.
Of course we wanted more, but I was pleased, I was proud, and the whole team was proud of what we accomplished. We were strangers on Friday, and friends after we met. The success wasn’t me; all the guys just a week before were working with Justin. They just lost him four days before and they all put their best foot forward and everybody tried to focus on what to do. We all knew what Justin would honestly like us to do is our best and I’m very proud of all those guys that I had just met. They made it as easy as possible for me and everybody understood their amazing dedication. They stood by me the whole way, and if Justin could see us from somewhere, I think he was happy with what we did. I really do.
That is the story of the race. And I feel really good about it.
Over the weekend, there was more support you should know about. Stefan Wilson was very, very supportive. And not only him, but Justin’s wife Julia, also. She was so amazing. I mean, she was giving me support. She is so strong.
And then there were all of the fans who made this a very surreal experience. I was just so busy at Sonoma I could not digest all of the things that came in from Twitter, but when I got home, I copied all of the tweets into a document – all of the mentions about Justin and our team, and it was 497 pages!
You don’t understand – I felt…overwhelmed is not the word, because overwhelming is when you can’t take it. And it was actually really lifting me up. Obviously, one feels good when people say nice things about you. I mean, it’s the nature of humankind. I was obviously feeling good because people were saying nice things, but it wasn’t about me. The reason I’m getting all these mentions is not because Oriol Servia was driving the car; it’s because Oriol Servia was driving Justin’s car and what Justin meant to thousands and thousands of people.
If social media is good for something, it’s that a lot of people can reach out – people you don’t even know – and get their message across. It was unbelievable. And the messages were in support of Justin and his family, and the Andretti team, and Honda, and everybody that is part of this family we have in racing.
We all felt connected to Justin because he was that special to everyone. We knew each other for 12 years and it was a relationship that always grew. He was always genuine and driven and passionate. He had the most integrity I’ve ever seen. It is amazing to know that all of Justin’s personality and character inspired so many people through his time in this life. It was my privilege to be even a small part of the tribute to him at Sonoma.
If you’d like to help Justin’s family, please visit www.wilsonchildrensfund.com.
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