Yvan Muller: “We shouldn’t pull the rope too much”

First, is everyone well in Alsace?

We were pretty lucky in terms of health, for myself, family and loved ones. We did what was necessary to avoid the risks but we were not safe, given that the region was on the front line of the epidemic. I naturally had fears for my father who is elderly. But everything went well.

How will the gradual resumption of activities take place for Yvan Muller Racing?

We came out of confinement on May 11 and the Magny-Cours track will reopen next Monday, but that does not mean the full resumption of activity for us. My customers don't live within a 100 km radius of the circuit, so it's going to be a bit problematic for the next day of testing which is scheduled for May 27. We can always try to circumvent the rules, but that's not the basic idea... Like most companies in the technology park, we have not yet returned to the workshop. I'm going to have my colleagues come back on May 22, not before because I wouldn't know what to have them do, other than renovating an old car that I'm going to bring to them next week. During confinement, those who had a little ants in their legs still came to maintain the equipment, but now everything is shiny, there is nothing more to do!

How do you see the resumption of the championships, and in particular the FFSA-GT who announced their new schedule on Monday?

I want to be optimistic but I'm not really. Some series have announced schedules with resumptions in mid-July, it seems complicated to me: will the hotels be open, will foreign nationals be authorized? I don't think that a championship, international or national, will be able to start again before the end of August-beginning of September. And even at that time, we don't know what could happen, we have to see how the deconfinement will go.

Is the period we have just experienced likely to endanger the team?

Of course. Even if, this year, fortunately, I made the decision not to return to P3, nor to do TCR again. No “expensive” program, in short. Maybe I didn't feel it. These disciplines were a little too expensive and it became a little too complicated to amortize our investments and find customers ready to follow us. We therefore reoriented ourselves towards slightly less expensive disciplines (successfully, witness the victory over the Andros Trophy 2019-2020 by Yann Ehrlacher. Editor's note) while diversifying the team's activity, moving towards the renovation of production and competition cars. I'm happy to have made this decision because it would be more complicated if we were in the situation of last year. Despite everything, I have staff and they have to be paid. Clearly today, I maintain the stable with my own funds, even if we have of course taken the steps to obtain government aid, such as partial unemployment and the deferral of expenses. But as a good Alsatian, I had already paid my charges for the month of March, before they announced that it would be postponed... Well, we shouldn't pull too much on the rope either!

Is the detection operation for an LM P3 driver launched at the end of last year on standby?

Yes, and in any case I think we launched it a little too late. At the end of winter, we made the decision to postpone this operation until next year, to be able to do things less urgently.

Let's talk from the pilot's perspective now. Do you have a more or less clear vision of the WTCR calendar, which Eurosport Events has not yet revealed?

We have become aware of a calendar which must still receive the approval of the FIA. Intelligently, they decided not to do a restart until the summer, and it will start again in September. This is the time of the season when overseas rounds are traditionally planned, but this option has been abandoned, it is complicated to go to Asia today. Economically, the teams will suffer anyway: there are no races but salaries still have to be paid. Generally speaking – this is my point of view as a business leader – everyone will have to put their fist in their pocket because everyone will lose their feathers in this affair. We will have to make efforts and show solidarity, otherwise we will all close.