April 28, 2011
Published on tags: Superleague
After four rounds Joe Consiglio sits 2nd in the Drivers Championship, albeit a substantial 28 points behind rival Lee Morris. The Maltese ace has shown plenty of pace in the early races but a combination of reliability issues and incidents have hindered his points tally so far.

Although it’s still early days in the title fight, the Nordsjoen driver is well aware of the task ahead of him. “We need some strong races to get us back on track in the Championship. The main target is to start winning or at least start finishing ahead of Lee. Lee has had an excellent start to season but it’s fair to say none of his victories have come to him easily. With that in mind we’re hopeful our time will come soon.”

When asked to assess his season, Consiglio was satisfied with his efforts so far. “I’m pretty happy with the way I’ve driven this season, in fact I think I’m driving better now than I did in 2009 when I won my Championship. It’s a shame, we should have more points on the board, I think we’ve been a bit unlucky really. Obviously in Melbourne I was leading before my brakes failed and in Japan there was nothing to choose between myself and Lee. Japan is really ‘the win that got away’ but nevertheless it was a thrilling battle to be involved in.”

Consiglio continued, “I guess the characteristics of Abu Dhabi didn’t really suit our car so 2nd was all I could achieve there, Lee was clearly the quickest at that event. As you know my Chinese race was massively compromised at turn 1 so I was relieved to finish 4th in the end. I could have so easily wound up 6th in China but luckily I managed to keep Mark (Stanton) and David (Jundt) at bay in those last few laps of the race.”

Indeed at China the Renault cars really showed some genuine speed and Consiglio is very conscious of their potential affect on the Championship. “We’re now in a situation were Lee and myself are not going to be the only two drivers fighting for victories. Some teams brought massive updates to China and this really had impact on the pecking order. Unfortunately we weren’t able to put anything new on our car last race and the result was clear to see. Had I had a clean race I think a podium would have been possible but not necessarily a given.”

Looking forward, the 2009 Champion remarked, “We’re optimistic we can have a good race in South Africa. We’ll have an updated car and the nature of the Kyalami circuit should suit our package well. In fact the next few tracks on the calendar should be good for us so with a bit of luck we can take our first victory of the season and build from there.”