By Matt Lamprell

Driving for Team Petronas Syntium Proton, David Leslie took an impressive four podium finishes in the marque's first season in the BTCC last year. In 2003, both Leslie and Team PSP are looking to make further progress. Speaking before qualifying for round three at Brands Hatch, here is what the experienced Scot had to say with regards to targets, team-mates, time-off and much more.

Leslie made his BTCC debut in 1992 with the Ecurie Ecosse Vauxhall team and competed with Mazda, Honda and Nissan during the peak of the 'Supertouring' era. In 1999 he finished second in the championship standings, beaten only by his then team-mate, Laurent Aiello. He still holds becoming champion amongst his ambitions, "I would like to become champion, but I'm realistic about it. I tend to join teams at the very beginning when they start and then do the development work, and we work our way through until we become champions. Some other people are very lucky and always get in to the very best teams at the very best times and therefore go out and score lots of championship points and be in with a chance of the championship. That doesn't worry me. I enjoy what I do - developing cars, moving forwards and getting the best out of them. And yes, a lot of people would like to do what I do. I am very happy with it and working with this team is really good. They all have the same ideas and want to move forward and do a good job."

"it's a close-knit team...we don't have the budget for a lot of people - we have a budget to do the job, with no wastage..."

However, asked if he felt this is a possibility in 2003, he said, "Not at this moment in time. From where started, I think it is too far down to try and win a championship at the end of the season, although we had a very good first race at Mondello and scored some good points. I think the weather flattered us a little bit there, and I think Phil was very unlucky because he did nothing wrong all weekend, was having a fantastic weekend, and then through no fault of his own, it was turned around and that really finished his weekend for him. So, while we have no expectations of going out and winning the Teams championship, we do have expectations of finishing on the top step of the podium."

Having taken four podium finishes for Team PSP in 2003, Leslie feels that the team's first BTCC victory is not too far away, "It will be hard work. It's always hard work, and hard work from everybody within the team - technical director, mechanics, drivers, engineers - everyone in the team. It's a good team though that works very closely and very well together, and all those people putting that effort in, then I'm sure we will improve dramatically from where we are now as the season goes on."

"The team's aims are do to the best we can basically. I'd like to see us improving on what we had last year. Hopefully we can improve on the four podiums we had last year - that's the team's target, and that would be ideal. You have to improve year upon year. You can't just say 'we had a fantastic first year', which we did, coming in as late as we did, to get those podium positions. That exceeded all our expectations so that's moved our expectations as team on. Team PSP, as a team, now want to do better than that. That's our target for this year."

With the Team PSP BTCC entry now in its second year, development on the Proton Impian is still ongoing, however it has come a very long way since the first shakedown test in Norfolk last winter, "When we first started and the car was delivered to the team, we found one or two problems at the beginning of last year and the team have worked very well together to try and iron out those bits & pieces and move forward. You can see that from the results we obtained last year. They were very good results. We were very pleased with the podium finishes, and it probably would have been another podium had we not been in the barrier at Brands last year, as the car was going very well at the time. It's a testament to the boys and the effort they put in last year."

"The testing restrictions are hurting us because we did less testing during the winter than the rest."

At the first meeting of the season at Mondello Park, Ireland, Leslie finished fifth and ninth in the two races. Was this representative of where he feels the team should be this early in the season?

"Unfortunately we don't have all the bits and pieces on the car that we had hoped to have by this stage so we've got to make as good a job as we can with what we have and we feel we are doing well with that at the moment. Hopefully we will start to improve as the season goes on."

Building a racecar capable of winning races at such a high level as the BTCC is a daunting task. For Team PSP, this was made even more difficult given that the team was started from scratch with personnel coming together from around the world to set up a new base for the team. "I don't think it's so much of a disadvantage setting up from scratch. It is expensive to start from scratch though. You have to buy your own trucks and equipment, rather than just paying a team however much to rent their trucks. We've had to set a workshop up; we've had to equip the workshop and everything else. But all that equipment is there now and whatever projects they want to use it for in the future. It was a long-term commitment. It was a three-year commitment at the very beginning. So I believe that what they have done is good for Team PSP and will be good for the future."

"The team is very enthusiastic - everyone is trying hard to do their best, and everyone is putting a lot of effort in to moving forward and getting the right results and it's a very good, close-knit team. We don't have a lot of people - we don't have the budget for a lot of people. But we have a budget to do the job, but with no wastage. Therefore the team gets on very well, works very well together and I think it fantastic that we can take so many people, although we don't have nearly as many people as some of the bigger teams, and work so well together. We manage to pool the resources to get the best out of everything."

"The Regulations had to change for Touring Cars to survive."

Team PSP made the courageous move to enter the BTCC at the start of the second year of the current regulations. Without the manufacturer support from the likes of Proton, Vauxhall, Honda and MG, the series would be unable to grow in the way which we have seen. There are no doubts in Leslie's mind about the route which the BTCC chose to take at the end of the Super Touring era: "Without those new regulations, we wouldn't have a championship, because, the way they were before, the regulations were great when you had a lot of manufacturers with a lot of money, but unfortunately the world doesn't have that amount of money any more and manufacturers started to pull out. The one I was driving for at the time, Nissan, they pulled out after they won the championship, because it was costing millions of pounds to do a national championship and ok, that might be ok when you're doing an international championship, but not for a national one. Regulations had to change for touring cars to survive."

In motorsport terms the BTCC is indeed a national series, with an annual jaunt across the Irish Sea for the rounds at Mondello Park. Being of Scottish roots, how does David feel about not getting the chance to race on 'home' territory at Knockhill in 2003?

"I'm very disappointed. I love going to Knockhill and I'd very much like to be going up there this year, but that's just one of those things that happens. There are certain commercial rules involved with running a championship and I think it's very unfortunate that Knockhill is not part of the BTCC. I think it's very unfortunate that we don't have one in Wales at Pembrey as well, but there are certain criteria to be met in order to get this lot in to a paddock and to run the meetings in the professional manner which they do run, so unfortunately we can't always have everything that we want."

Before leaving David to eat his lunch in peace, and putting him very much on the spot at such an early stage in the season, we asked the Scot who he is tipping to take the title in 2003: “It will be a Vauxhall driver - I’m convinced of that. I believe they still have the upper hand with their car, although they say they don’t. I’m still sceptical of that. So it’s a choice between Yvan and James, and as we know last year, it went right down to the line, and I think it will be the same this year. I think those two will be fighting for the championship. I also think Honda will be very good and I think it will be close all year long, but when it comes down to it, at the last meeting, when the points are added up, you will see other manufacturers towards the top of the championship, but it will still be the two Vauxhall drivers trying to win the championship.”

The above is extracted from an interview with David Leslie at Brands Hatch shortly before the qualifying session for round three of the championship. You can read the full transcript of the interview by clicking here.

Thanks go to David for taking time out of his busy schedule to allow us an insight in to the world of Team Petronas Syntium Proton.

The official Team PSP website can be found at www.teampsp.info.