RYAN DALZIEL was feeling on top of the world last night after he helped clinch the LMP2 World title at Fuji.
Dalziel, Enzo Potolicchio and Stephane Sarrazin took second place in Japan to secure the championship for their Starworks team with a round to spare.
Hamilton ace Dalziel admitted: “It is an incredible feeling to put your name next to a world championship. I don’t care whether it is an individual title or a team one, we do this as a team.
“The guys at the workshop put it all together and we, as drivers, do the easy part. It is a team world title for a reason and this is very much deserved by our guys.”
Dalziel admitted it will take a while to sink in after a season in which he also came second in the Grand-Am championship in the States, as well as grabbing WEC class wins in Sebring in Florida, the Le Mans 24 Hours and Brazil.
He added: “It has been the best year I have ever had in racing. It is good for me — I had a good reputation in America, but I have been able to come up against someone like Sarrazin and people have seen I can run with him.
“It has been a big eye-opener. We finished second in the Grand-Am championship, we won the North American Endurance Championship, then this. It’s disappointing there isn’t an individual award, but everyone involved deserves to call themselves world champion.”
The Florida-based Starworks team settled for second after surviving a battle out on the Fuji Speedway and Dalziel even had to recover from a collision with fellow-Scot Allan McNish.
The Audi ace said: “I came down into the corner and I thought he had seen me and was letting me go, but obviously he hadn’t. I spoke to him afterwards and he said he thought I wasn’t going. It was basically mis-communication.”
Dumfries star McNish was delighted the incident hadn’t prevented Dalziel swooping to glory.
He added: “Thankfully it didn’t damage their championship run. It was fantastic that they did it.”
But McNish’s own title hopes are hanging by a thread after he and Tom Kristensen could only manage third place in the LMP1 class. They now trail Audi team-mates Andre Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler by 16.5 points with 26 up for grabs in the last round in China later this month.
He said: “We weren’t consistently fast enough. It means Tom and I have an uphill task ahead in Shanghai but we go there with one goal in mind — to win the race.”
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