Exclusive Interview with Roger Feghali – Part 2

In part one yesterday we spoke with Roger about the 2011 season so far, in depth. Today we concentrate more on his famous tuning garage, MotorTune. Roger speaks about his garage, and the history behind it. He also explains about the the driver development program and the future.

In third part tomorrow we get more personal with Roger were we ask him about his career his ambitions and some other things you fans would love to know about the Lebanese champion.

PART II

When did you start MotorTune and why, especially that it has become one of the leading garages in tuning rally cars in Lebanon?

I started to work under the name of MotorTune in 1996. The garage started to work with ordinary cars and tuning regular cars. In 1997 MotorTune prepared its first ever rally car, which was my Renault Clio Williams. My first customer was Nadim Abboud, which is now one of my best friends. So we started in 1997 and we progressed year after year.

To explain why we started MotorTune, I have to tell you that it was my father’s profession in the first place, and I studied to be here with him, but I didn’t want to stay with normal cars, and keep working in tuning normal cars, my only target was to rally. Later on it sounded like a good idea to do some publicity for my own work, and the idea started to evolve gradually.

Relative to winning and to the accomplishments we started to do, MotorTune’s name started to evolve. Our participation in rallies and Hill climbs made the name more popular, especially with me and Abdo, and other drivers from Syria, Jordan, Qatar and other countries. Where ever we go MotorTune has been achieving.

Our target would be to always do the maximum we can and be competitive, with everything I can work on where every day and wherever I am.

Some claim that our only target is to win, in motorsports we can’t say that our target is to win. Take the spring rally for example, people would come and say to me that you will win the rally before you start, but in rallies you never know what happens. You can get a driver’s mistake or a mechanical failure or 100 other things.

We always try to be maximum competitive but trust me small things will do the difference.

-The name MotorTune is easy and creative. How did you come out with it? Was it your idea or somebody else’s?-

In 1995 or 1996 we started searching, many names were suggested, until we chose MotorTune and continued with it.

To add to our previous conversation MotorTune is not only a car preparation and tuning garage, but we also have driver development programs. We work completely as a team. We saw the driver’s development program for the first time with Nick Georgiou, when he started with us in 2006, where he was 5 seconds per Km off the pace and he was really far away. Year after year we worked on the onboards, on the notes, and the data, he used to sit next me in the car and I would also do the same thing. So we worked a lot with Nick and he increased his pace as well as his level and he benefitted a lot. Our work with Nick took him to the Pirelli Star team where he participated in 8 WRC events last year.

Take Nicolas Amiouni for example, last year he was very far in the spring rally and look now at his pace and his improvement. In the spring rally his pace was amazing over the course of the whole rally. In Jordan rally he won the group N, and his improvement is fabulous. All this is coming from our driver development program. It’s not like they come here to prepare their cars, sit for 5 minutes on data work and then leave. It’s a program with a lot of work and effort. Due to this, drivers are feeling the difference with their improvement. I am very happy to be able to give my experience and technical feedback to both, Nick and Nicolas as well as, Tamer and Chafic, and all the guys. I don’t have a preferred driver. Everybody can talk and say whatever they want on this matter, I really don’t care. Ask my drivers one by one about their treatment and they will tell you.

Our drivers have also improved through the driver’s development program. Tamer developed a lot as well as Chafic and we expect a lot from them in the future. We have Ammar Hijazi too. His move from group N cars to a Skoda Fabia S2000 car was also very smooth.

Nicolas is still very young, Nick has improved a lot as you just mentioned, Tamer and Chafic improved too.  How do you see the future of these MotorTune drivers especially if we put the sponsor problem into perspective?

The main problem is sponsoring. Take Nick for example, all the support comes from his father Tony Georgiou (Tony Georgiou is a Former Rally of Lebanon Champion) and their company, NTC. The company was handing all the financial support, and was backing Nick year after year to reach this level. I am confident that the situation in the region affected all the work but this is the case so what can we do.

I believe after 4 years Nick has learned a lot. I believe that this year he should have been participating in the PWRC program. Last year he was with the Pirelli Star team. He participated in 8 WRC events. He gained a lot of experience outside, and he should have found the sponsor to back him up for a PWRC campaign this year. He is still working on it and we hope that next year he will find the right financial support so he can show what he learned in a PWRC program. He is still young and if he keeps his focus and will to improve he will certainly succeed.

Nicolas Amiouni is very young and very motivated, but we can also see, Amiouni Trading, his father’s company, with brands such as Liqui Moli, are backing him up for rallying. We saw his improvement last year, so we put a big program for this year. We have several events in Lebanon, in Europe, and in the region. We are working on Nicolas as much as possible. Our target is to reach a reliable pace with no ups and downs. He hopes to be in the Pirelli

program next year, or the WRC academy, we will see. We need to work more on sponsors so he can do things like PWRC. If he didn’t participate in big competitions like this it’s not worth it. Four or five events with Pirelli or the Academy are not enough, especially on a 140 Hp car. He should have a parallel program. If he stops next year, the money that was invested before would have been a waste.

Nicolas is improving a lot. We are witnessing a lot of maturity in his head, and he knows what he wants. He will commit a lot of mistakes, and will face a lot of difficulties but he will learn and he is learning already. He is very motivated and I really hope he will have a bright future.

The biggest problem with Tamer and Chafic is the lack of Sponsors. Tamer’s results last year were very good. His pace was very good, and his championship position at the end of the season was amazing. This year’s car needed some push and some upgrades. He should be able to test more since all our competitors are having full participation, and are preparing top cars. We can say that Tamer and Chafic are relatively lacking in terms of material they have in hand, but all this usually depends on the financial back up and support. We hope that we see some solutions any time soon.

We are seeing you with driver development programs and technical support all over the Middle East. You are with Ammar Hijazi in the MERC championship as well as local rallies in the region.  Are you looking to do the same work with European drivers, and to become an international team such as Autoteck or are concentrating on the Middle East?

The whole story relies on the drivers that come to us and their budget. If we get somebody coming from the moon with the right budget and intention to rally, we will be ready whatever his nationality, brand backing and car is. We are not concentrating intentionally on the Middle East but we are in this area and we have a good reputation here, and people know us very well. If one of our drivers will be doing a PWRC program next year we will be there with him as MotorTune support team.

Do you consider MotorTune as “Number 1” in the Middle East in this Field?

I consider ourselves doing the maximum we can. Every day we are learning new things. I hope we stay focused and motivated, starting from the management reaching the mechanics. We hope to stay like this so we can learn new things. We don’t know everything and we should keep an eye on what other teams, and especially European ones, are doing to improve ourselves and take new ideas. I would tell you that we will keep doing our best and this is the most important.

to be continued …

Photos used in the Interview are the property of the following parties:

Akl Yazbeck

Khaled Karam and www.biser3a.com

I like rally Facebook fan Page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Like-Rally/116170635087705)