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Following is a transcript of a recent telephone conference involving Australia’s latest Formula 3000 driver, 21-year-old Robert Nguyen, and various Australian media.

HOST’ S INTRODUCTION: Good morning to everyone on‑line in Australia and good evening to Robert Nguyen in Switzerland. Robert is a new Australian on the international motor sport stage. He is of Vietnamese origin but he has grown up in Australia and he is now based in Switzerland. He is set to make his debut in the International Formula 3000 Championship on Easter Saturday in the first round of that series during the Brazilian Grand Prix weekend. The International Formula 3000 Championship was the category in which fellow Aussie Mark Webber won four races in the past two years and finished runner‑up last season, and of course he has since graduated to Formula 1 with the Minardi team. Robert will be racing for the Astromega team in Formula 3000 and his teammate will be Mario Haberfeld, the Brazilian who was Mark Webber’s teammate last year in the Super Nova team. There will be another Australian in Formula 3000 this year - that’s Ryan Briscoe from Sydney. But for the moment let’s hear Robert’s story, from the man himself. As usual in these conferences, I will invite everyone in turn to ask a question and, time permitting, Robert may be able to take more questions once everyone has had a turn. 

Q. – There is not a great history of Vietnamese in motor sport, so have you been expecting an easy ride, or is it going to be pretty tough for because you are pioneering? 

ROBERT NGUYEN: You can say that I’m pioneering in a way. As we know, Formula 3000 is the last proving ground to Formula One and all the drivers of Formula 3000 are champions from various other categories, so I’m really going to be expecting a really tough ride because it’s very competitive and a lot of the guys are very experienced. 

Q. - Rob, how’s the testing been going?  

A. - The testing in pre‑season, I think F3000 is very similar to F1. When you just look at time sheets you cannot really tell who is going to be the winner, who is going to be the slow guys, because with this car you can run under-weight, run different fuel loads. Same as F1, normally you see the slow teams running under-weight and things like this, just trying to get sponsors and that. During pre-season testing it’s really hard to know exactly where we stand, how competitive we are, so the only real indication is where you are with a teammate and basically I’ve been comparing myself with Mario Haberfeld. He has a quite lot of experience, I’ve learned quite a lot from him, and every test my gap has been improving to Mario, and some tests I’ve actually been quicker than him. So I think the test, even though I’ve only done seven days or so before the first race, very positive and we are looking forward to the first race. 

Q. - Can you explain how you first became interested in motor racing? 

A. - Since childhood I’ve always had a passion for motor sport, and same as many other Australians have the same, but never had the chance to do it, staying late up at night watching the F1 every race we can to midnight, watching all the races, and I spent all my savings going go‑karting and things like that and I just never had the support from my parents; from my parents’ point of view it makes no sense to invest so much money to go go‑karting, so I never really had the chance to do any motor racing in Australia. The idea was I finish high school and I got a chance to go to study in Switzerland. None of this was a plan, just happened to be I got really good grades in my studies in Switzerland and as a present my brother‑in‑law and sister gave me a gift for my results and from there everything went so well and here I am now. But initially there was no intention for me to go racing but personally in my heart the passion has always been there. 

Q. - Could you just give us an idea of your background. Were you born in Australia, were you born in Vietnam and growing up in Brisbane, where you actually lived and what school you went to, that sort of thing? 

A. - I was actually born in Brisbane. I lived all my life in Brisbane, I did high school there, primary school there. My parents actually came over after the Vietnam War with other Vietnamese, I imagine, in Australia in 1975 and I have lived all my live in Brisbane, grew up there, and I actually didn’t leave Brisbane until 2000. That’s when I came to Switzerland to study, so I have been basically a Brisbane boy my whole life. 

Q. - What are your expectations for this year? What do you think you are capable of, considering your experience and so forth? Do you hope for points or wins or what? 

A. - As I said before, the F3000 at the moment I think it’s too early to make predictions or expectations as we’ve only done pre‑season testing and you don’t really know what the teams have been doing. I think after the first few races I would have a better idea how I stand compared to the rest. But like anyone else, I think in F3000 you are not here to make numbers, everyone is trying to get to F1 and trying to win, but for me, for my first season, my experience and that, I hope to be very competitive as soon as possible and get a lot of top 10 finishes and, middle of the season, maybe in the points more often and then end of the season some podium finishes will be very good for me. I also plan for the second year to be very competitive and maybe, like Mark Webber, to aim for the championship in the second year. 

Q. - Obviously motor sport isn’t the cheapest thing to get into and teams always like to have a driver who will bring some money in with him. Sponsorship‑wise, how are you going and who have you got on board? 

A. - At the moment it’s been very difficult, very competitive motor sport, finding sponsors always been very difficult, and at the moment last season I had a few Austrian companies sponsoring me but more for this year I have some people investing in me and with me long‑term. I’m more interested in sponsors than first season and of course throughout the season I’m trying to look for sponsors and it would be very nice to get some support in Australia also.  Very difficult to get, it seems. 

Q. - Have you spoken to anyone in Australia? 

A. - I think not to the extent … I think at the moment we spoke to some in Europe and we spoke to a few people in Australia and the problem is probably most Australians, I don’t know what you call them now but when I was in Australia the V8 Supercars, I think all Australians are more to that and generally not enough support for lower categories than Formula One like 3000, Volkswagen, Renault, more only F1 or the V8, so it’s very difficult to get sponsors, to get drivers in the public eye a lot, and I think it’s very difficult because 3000 and support categories for F1 do not have so much support in the Australian public. 

Q. – Could you give us a little of your family background? Are your parents still in Brisbane? Could you just tell us a bit about your family? 

A. - My parents still live in Brisbane. My whole family still lives in Australia except for one of my brothers, who lives with me in Switzerland. And, from my parents’ side, I think half of the family is in Australia and half is still in Vietnam. Basically my family is still very Australian-based. They travel a lot to come and visit me, but everyone still lives in Brisbane, more or less. 

Q. - Can you explain to us how you can go so quickly in a race car as soon as you get in it? Your speed at your first F3000 test really surprised everyone. Did you have immediate empathy with the car, or did it just feel automatically natural to you or what? 

A. - I had that same feeling because when I first sat in the Formula Volkswagen I was testing with a lot of other guys who had five years’ experience and it was just my first outing. I see them go crazy and I’m saying to myself, ‘What am I doing here?’ You look at these guys, they are able to drive so quick, and then you sleep over it and a few days later, the few next tests you suddenly feel everything is working and feel very comfortable and I think I have been lucky to be able to get a feeling for the car quite quickly and for the F3000 it’s taking me a little bit longer to learn to progress in the car. For me, jumping into the 3000 and using my Volkswagen, the way I approached it, it was always daunting at first, but I think I’m very quickly getting used to it. It’s like watching a movie for the first time - at first you don’t really understand it, you watch it over and over and everything is very clear and slow and you can really feel everything. Speed is not such a big problem, you get used to it. 

Q. - Can you just take us through what racing you have done? You mentioned karting back in your teens, but when you first started out, what you started out in and perhaps just run us through what you did each year? 

A. - The karting I mentioned was just hobby karting that you go to the local karting and you pay. I’ve actually never been in a race kart or racing competition in Australia or anything. My actual first time I sat in a race car was with the Austrian team in the Formula Vauxhall, or some people know it as Opel Lotus. I sat first time in November 2000. That year I did one test with them, and I set really good lap times and the team was very amazed and they re‑invited me for the second test. This time they brought their race driver along and it was in the wet and dry conditions that are quite difficult and I was only one second behind him, so the team was quite amazed. This guy has driven Indy cars also, past Indy car driver, so he knows what he is doing and I was only one second behind him. So that was it for 2000. I was signed up for 2001 to race in the new German Formula Volkswagen series and we initially had a nine-race season and, because I have done no racing, had no licence to compete, so I had to do some Swiss races on a national level to get my racing permit and I did four races in the Opel-Lotus to get my licence and then basically my first race was in Salzburgring and, amazingly,  my first race was in really pouring rain and, to everyone’s surprise again, I qualified fifth and then during the race I had an electrical problem and I finished 11^th, but the good thing was two races later I astonished everyone again, I had pole position in both qualifying sessions, quite a big gap to the rest, and in that race I had a differential problem and I dropped back to second and then immediately backed up my speed again. I qualified third for Zolder, the third race, and throughout this season I had a lot of top 10 finishes, it was quite easy for me, and another podium in the last race. And then because I did so well, they could see my experience, Italian Euro Formula 3000 team called Team Contarni, they invited me for a rookie test at the end of last year. I attended one and a half day testing in Vairano in Italy and there was four drivers present, another Formula Renault drivers, Formula 3 drivers and also their race driver and I was the quickest out of it. I was even seven tenths quicker than the race driver who raced with the same car the whole season and I was one-tenth behind the lap record that they had ever done there. Then from there it was European (F3000) Championship. I surprised people again and my supporters thought why not give the FIA international series a shot and from there we arranged a test with team Astromega in Valencia in January this year and there was Mario (Haberfeld), of course, I think there was Ricardo Sperafico, one of the (Brazilian) twins was there, and (Dane) Nicolas Kiesa was testing and I was the third quickest out of the lot. I did half the amount of laps compared to Mario, and I was only seven tenths behind him, and for this new F3000 car the same boy, the team manager of team Astromega was quite impressed and so that’s my short career to date. 

Q. - One of the big challenges for you this year will be learning new tracks because of your limited experience, but it seems that you haven’t had a great deal of trouble acclimatising. Is that right? 

A. - For testing we have two days and normally it takes me one morning to get up to speed. In that respect it’s not a problem for me to learn the tracks, but the problem is throughout this season we have 12 races and only two of those races where I have been before from the season I did the year before. The problem is with the F3000 event it is not like F1, where you get free practice, then two more free practice sessions, qualifying and then the race. We (F3000) go straight into qualifying - two times 45 minutes - then straight to the race. There is going to be a lot of tracks I’m just going to go straight in qualifying, so I think it’s going to be really daunting for me and it’s going to be a big challenge, but I’m really looking forward to it. 

Q. - Any shortcuts you can take in learning those tracks, through video games or anything like that or getting to the tracks early and walking them, or running around them, or riding push bikes around them or anything? 

A. - Yes, that’s what we always try to do, of course. Wherever I go test or race I play on the computer, the simulator, and before I arrive there I try to do two or three laps for the road car and do a few runs, jog around a couple of times, and it helps you to a certain extent - but once you are in the race car to finding the braking point, to find where you should be in the exit, it’s really totally different. It helps you a little bit, but of course the more you test the more you know the track, you can just start off at such a high level and it makes life so much easier. 

Q. - Yours has been a remarkable assent to this level of motor sport. Have you done this on your own or you have got a bit of crew, some friends around you? 

A. - Actually, the team that I raced for last year in the Formula Volkswagen, his name is Walter Penker and he is the team owner. He has been helping me out quite a lot, but he just gives me some advice, but he is not a race driver himself, he has just been working with a lot of race drivers and sees their mistakes and tries to teach me to avoid them. But, as in people helping me, I think more or less I’ve been working alone. I try to learn as much as I can from other experienced drivers around me and try and do what they do well and try to avoid what they do wrong, that’s what I’ve been doing so far and it’s been working. 

Q. - Are your studies now on hold or are you still opening a book occasionally? 

A. - That’s a good one. It is difficult to keep the motivation there when you have got such an exciting sport, but the perfect thing for me it’s a two-year course and this is my last few months. I think I better manage to get it through, so I’m still opening the occasional book. 

Q. - What is the course that you are doing and where is it at? 

A. - It’s actually in Lausanne, Switzerland, and it’s a BBA course - it’s a Bachelor of Business Administration. Basically a general business course. 

Q. - You were saying that you have some personal backers helping you out with the money side of things. Are you able to say who that might be? Is it family or is it anything like that? 

A. - There’s not so much from my parents, but there’s supporters – but I can’t really mention who they are. I’m sorry for that. 

Q. - You mentioned earlier about how for Australian drivers it’s perhaps easier to get sponsorship for a V8 Supercar because it’s more visible in Australia than something like F3000 or a European junior formula where you are, to a large extent, out of sight. But, because of your heritage, is there any chance with you being on the international scene that you might be able to attract some sponsorship from Vietnam now? 

A. - It’s a possibility but, as you know, Vietnam … I don’t think it’s at a stage where you can say it’s like Europe or Australia, where they have companies where they can spend hundreds and thousands on sponsorship like that. But I think in the future it’s a potential, but I’m trying to portray myself as Australian - but more international. That way I hope to help me to look for international sponsors, multinational international companies, and hopefully to make the image for ‑ I don’t really limit myself to particular countries, to be more suitable for more international companies, that’s what I’m trying to make myself into. 

Q. - There has clearly been a lot of interest and excitement in Australia at the speed at which you’ve come on the international scene. What about internationally? Have you found a lot of interest in you in the last few weeks since you did your first F3000 test? 

A. - I was surprised that the most interest I get, even more than Australia, is probably in England, which is unusual. I think the good thing is a lot of my competitors and people I’m around, they don’t take me as a rookie, which I am, because it’s either they don’t believe me or I’m driving at a stage where I don’t show that I have no experience so the interest is quite ‑ I’m really surprised it’s coming from London, a little bit in Italy and Australia. It’s nice if we can get more Australian supporters and to get them more involved in more support categories of F1 instead of just the majors, like V8 Supercar or the F1. 

Q. - What form is the interest taking? Are people actually getting through to you on the phone or through a web site or is it media coming around knocking on your door for television interviews or magazine interviews? What kind of things are happening? 

A. - Getting a lot of e‑mails and a lot of phone calls and I actually meet most of the journalists that come to the testing, that’s where I meet most of the journalists. It would be interesting if any of you guys can come along to the race, you are welcome to, it would be nice to meet. My website is under development. I hope to get it started just after the Brazilian Grand Prix, so I hopefully I get it up and running in two to three weeks’ time. At the moment I’m using a temporary e‑mail address until my web page is getting started, so I will mention my e‑mail, if you would like more information I can provide it for you. It’s robtbr1@yahoo.com 

Q. - You mentioned the very first test you did back in 2000, which seemed to kick you off. How did you get that with so little racing experience? 

A. - The Italian team was from the European F3000 Championship and we had one supporter for them and he was watching me and I think he was quite impressed with what I did and he said if I’m that quick without experience and if I have some experience I would be very, very competitive. He was actually hoping for me to drive for them this year in the European Championship, but he understands that I want to take another jump ahead of that and do the international series, so basically he invited me for rookie test at the end of the year so I can get some interest and for the team to see me more what I can do in the F3000 car. That’s how it came about. 

Q. - What was the name of that team? 

A. - Ghinzani, it’s an Italian team based just about 20 kilometres from Milan and they compete in the European F3000 Championship. 

Q. - What was your very first competitive drive in a car on a circuit? 

A. - First competitive drive in a car was in June 2001 in Salzburg, my first race. 

Q. - You never actually competed in a race before that? 

A. - No, not in a competitive race. I competed in some national level events to qualify for my licence. You wouldn’t say that it’s competitive at all, so it’s basically like eight months ago was my first competitive race. 

Q. – So the four races you did in Switzerland to get your licence, they were before June last year, were they?

A. - Yeah, they were before my Formula Volkswagen series. 

Q. - And that was in the Formula Opel-Lotus? 

A. – Yes. 

Q. - How did you get into the Formula Opel-Lotus? 

A. - I forgot to mention that the team that I raced for in the Formula Volkswagen, they used a race in the European Championship, in the Formula Vauxhall (Opel-Lotus) I was still running. Now that’s finished and they still have the cars available for test drive, so I was lucky enough for them to provide me that car to use for the licence. 

Q. – So you just rocked up at the team and said, ‘I would like to have a test drive?’ 

A. - No, it was the same team that I would have raced for the Formula Volkswagen team, so the same team that I raced for so they were helping me out also. They let me use that car to get the licence to race for them. 

Q. - Can you just clarify the name of that team for us as well? 

A. - It’s Penker Team and it’s right next to A1-Ring in Austria. 

Q. - You’re jumping very high, very quickly. Where do you see F1 looming? 

A. – Really, for me would be to show because the good thing is that our (F3000) races are supportive (F1 supports), we are always in the F1 eye, and I hope that I can be competitive and maybe some teams would invite me for rookie tests in the F1 car end of the season. That’s what I would really like. And, furthermore, maybe to do what Mark Webber did, for 2003 to race in the F3000 Championship at the same time to have a full‑time testing seat at a top-running F1 team. 

Q. - Just as a matter of interest, which of the other Australians who are in the international racing scene now do you know? Obviously there is Ryan Briscoe, who will be in the same series as you. There is Webber, there is James Courtney in England and a couple of other guys around perhaps a little bit further down the track. Which of these guys, if any, do you know and do you have anything to do with? 

A. - Actually, I didn’t know that there are Australians in the racing, but all these guys you mentioned I have no contacts or that I know. Sometimes I see Ryan, we say hello to each other and that’s about it, but none of these guys ‑ like James Courtney I hear a lot about and I’ve met, but I’ve never met these guys.  Mark Webber I have never met also. The only really Australian that I bump into a lot is Ryan Briscoe, because he is always in the F3000 with me. 

Q. - Can you tell us a little more about your family in terms of how many children there are? Presumably the family have a business or something like that? Where they are in Brisbane, which school you went to, and just a bit of that kind of detail? 

A. - I grew up in Mararee, went to primary school in Kennan Hills and Oliver Plunkett and then high school in Villa Nova ‑ I can’t remember what suburb it is. I have two brothers and a sister, the third brother is the brother‑in‑law, and my father and mother. When they first came from Vietnam, you can imagine, in ’75, very poor back then and we got lucky enough to get some Australian sponsors to help us to come over and then my father got into the bakery industry and he learned how to bake, and from there he started a bakery himself and then from that bakery his children, like my older sister and brother, they also made their own bakeries so at one stage we had quite a chain of bakeries running in Brisbane. My parents had enough and we sold pretty much all our bakeries and my parents are retired now and my sister and my brothers are doing business overseas. 

Q. - Of the children, are you the youngest, the oldest, in the middle? 

A. - I’m the youngest. I was the only one born in Australia, the rest of my brothers and sister were born in Vietnam. 

Q. - Your new team, you have joined them rather suddenly and everything is happening very fast.  How are you getting on with them, are you enjoying their company and they are all excited about your prospects for the year? 

A. - The team, Astromega, is based in Belgium but it’s actually an English team because all the employees are English. The team is fantastic. I think they understand my situation and they are making it very comfortable for me to get comfortable into the car and comfortable with the team to show and make me learn as quick as possible how the F3000 works, and they made a remarkable job preparing the car and the team is very professional and they are making things in life a lot easier. It’s an English team and always a lot of fun to be around, so it’s great. It’s great to be with them and looking forward to working with them during the season. 

Q. - How are you going on the technical side? Obviously with your limited experience it’s a big learning curve there. Are you still relying on Mario Haberfeld’s input or are you starting to get a handle on the way the F3000 works? 

A. - Actually, I’ve been a very technical person since when I was a teenager. I always liked to modify cars and play with things like that and I don’t just read Motor Sport News, I read magazines like Race Car Engineering, things like that. So I am very heavily interested in the technical side. That was one of the surprises of the teams, the Volkswagen team also, that they could not believe how much knowledge I knew the set-up of the car. And towards one stage, like in the middle of the season, there was no engineer, I was driver/engineer also, setting up my own race car, and just setting up all the gear ratios, I actually did all that in the first year. And the same with Team Astromega now. We have got very good engineers there but he was also very astonished with my feedback, he said what he liked very much, he makes a little change and you could see it straight on lap time straightaway and my feedback is always consistent. So I don’t think the technical side is a problem at all and, with regarding to Mario, we always go to two different directions because of the new car and we’re working very well together and sometimes I go to his direction and he finds the set‑up and even sometimes he goes to my direction because I find a better set-up, so it works both ways. 

Q. - Can you just enlighten us on how you came to come into contact with Astromega? It is a well established name, they have been in the F3000 series for quite some years, but how did you first come to rub shoulders with them? 

A. - Basically we decided we want to look for a team to test with and they will look for potential teams I would like to race for, so the strategy for my first year, and we had to look for a good team, a team that has good potential for winning and a team that wants to win, not just a team that makes up the numbers, and at the same time I don’t want to go to a team that has a driver like Tomas Enge (Czech driver, who finished equal runner-up in the International F3000 Championship last year and drove in three F1 GPs) to be second driver. I think it would be too much of a difference to go to a championship-winning team and me as such (little) experience. Astromega was a very good choice for me because they have actually won quite a few races, they have potential, they won the last race last year in Monza (with Italian driver Giorgio Pantano), so basically we looked at all the options and we thought that Astromega was the best option for me because they are a motivated team, potential to win and, more importantly, they really liked the challenge ahead working with me and they made everything feel comfortable. 

Q. - Just to clarify a couple of little things … you did no serious racing at all in Australia? 

A. - No, no serious racing. Probably the most serious racing I got in Australia was to be able to race with the mechanics at a go‑kart track, the ones where you hire. 

Q. - And then you left Australia to go overseas in 2000? 

A. - Yes, 2000. 

Q. - So in the space of less than two years you’ve gone from no real racing at all to F3000? 

A. - Even less than two years. 

Q. - How do you get your head around that; it’s a remarkable rise. 

A. - Actually, it hasn’t really sunken in. It’s probably, in a different ways, like winning the (F1) world championship or something, and hasn’t sunken in to you. For me it’s like that way also. Everyone says it’s such a big step, this and that, but for me I take one thing at a time and it hasn’t really sunken into me; I just take each challenge at a time and try to make the most out of it and we will see where we go from here. 

Q. - How did you actually learn to drive - or to race? Were you taught in any way? 

A. - No. A lot of things I watched on TV and I always like to watch ‑ when I get to F1 races I never go to the grandstand, I like to go to the corners where it’s technical and watch how the drivers do it. I really like to see how different drivers race cars and I really learn a lot from watching other people. I really self taught myself. 

Q. - Have you ever had a crash? 

A. - That’s another good thing, that’s the Volkswagen team and Astromega, throughout the whole season in the race I think I had two spins in the Formula Volkswagen and I’ve only broken one front wing and no crash or anything, and the same with Team Astromega (in testing). They’re really comfortable working with me without the fear of me crashing their car all the time. Basically that was an issue because everyone was asking if I could handle F3000 in the Valencia test and I showed (I was) fine. I lapped really quick, quite early also, and I showed I can drive in a way with no risks and no risk to myself and no risk to the car. And I have shown that through testing and I never go off and I rarely have a spin and I’m quite forgiving with the machinery and the teams really appreciate it. 

Q. - Do you recall the name of the kart track where you first drove in Brisbane? 

A. - It’s Archerfield Speed Karts. I think they know me quite well there. I held the lap record for a few years. 

Q. - How much languages do you speak?A. - I speak English fluently and Vietnamese fluently and I’m presently learning French in Switzerland. 

Q. - How is your licence going? Have you got the right licence to race in F3000? 

A. - No problem because the FIA could see that during my tests, in the last eight tests, we did quite a lot of testing and I showed no complaints for any other drivers and my behaviour on track was fine and that got the pass through no problems. 

HOST’S CONCLUSION  - We have had a very entertaining half hour or so speaking to Rob and we thank him very much for joining us today. 

ROBERT NGUYEN – It’s a great pleasure and a lot of fun talking to you guys back in Australia. I haven’t heard an Australian accent for so long! 

HOST - We wish you all the best this year, Rob, for what must be a fairly daunting prospect of going into F3000. And, again, thanks for your time today and thanks to everyone for participating. 

RN - I would like to thank everyone also and I hope to see as many of you as possible, if you can attend the GPs. Thank you very much.