There are certain ways of going about winning a championship in motorsport. One is to patiently bank points and profit from the misfortune of others, mounting a challenge based on consistency. Then there’s the approach taken by Giedo van der Garde on his way to the 2008 Formula Renault 3.5 title, breaking the back of the opposition with morale-crushing victories early doors.
The Dutchman’s three wins from the opening four races with the Renault World Series’ new-for-2008 Dallara T08 established him in a clear lead that he never relinquished for the remainder of the campaign. After taking additional wins at Hungary and Le Mans, as well as runner-up finishes at Monaco, Silverstone and the Nurburgring, van der Garde wrapped up the title with a round to spare at Estoril.
A machine that the LMP2 gun-for-hire today describes as “just unbelievable” is an automatic choice for his favourite car above Formula 1 equipment he tested for Super Aguri, Spyker/Force India, Renault and Sauber, as well as the 2013 Caterham CT03 he twice managed to haul into Q2. The “most enjoyable car” of the 38-year-old’s career to date also usurps the “spectacular” ORECA-Gibson 07 LMP2, when run in high-downforce spec prior to its V8 engine being detuned for 2021 upon the introduction of Hypercars to the World Endurance Championship.
Such was his appreciation for the T08 that van der Garde even cut short his first weekend of GP2 Asia with iSport in Shanghai to take a red-eye flight back to Barcelona for the final round of the FR3.5 season, after he’d skipped the opener.
Having raced the season prior in World Series with the highly evolved T05 that made its debut in 2005 and the year after in the second-generation GP2/08 chassis that was also built by Dallara, van der Garde has a good point of reference from which to judge when he says, “the only thing where GP2 was a little bit quicker was engine power”. The GP2/08 used the same four-litre V8 as its 2005 predecessor with 612 horsepower, while the T08’s 3.5-litre V6 weighed in with 500 when filled up with E85 biofuel.
“But drivability, the World Series car was better,” the 38-year-old continues, “because they also had the Michelin tyres which were very good [compared to the Bridgestone-shod GP2]. It had more downforce in 2008 too. It was a very enjoyable car to drive.”
Clearly it also helps that van der Garde was in a winning environment at P1 Motorsport, as Roly Vincini’s Norfolk equipe pursued a set-up philosophy that “really suited my driving style”.
“They really trusted my ability and we found a super-good set-up on that year,” he says. “We were having a very good car straight on the beginning of the season.”
Van der Garde hadn’t managed a podium during a 2007 rookie season spent with the Carlin-run Victory Engineering squad, when “some races we were okay, some races we were not so good”. But buoyed with confidence after promising showings with P1 in testing, he quickly set that to rights in the Monza season-opener as “everything went to the correct way”.
Fastest in qualifying on his 23rd birthday, he defied a cracked driveshaft to charge from seventh to victory in the reversed grid opener, then converted pole in the second race as pursuing rivals tripped over each other.
"The way we started off that year was spectacular and it came all together. It took a few years, but I knew once I was in the right car and I had the right team around me that it will come" Giedo van der Garde
“The whole weekend was just perfect,” he reflects. “To start a season like this was just wonderful and I think that’s why also I won the championship. Everywhere I raced, every track I was always one of the fastest. So that’s why I think we could be consistently there.”
Sure enough, van der Garde was first or second in qualifying at all but three meetings, and twice that was down to extenuating factors. Vincini skipped Estoril, where van der Garde struggled to a gripless 13th on the grid but still sealed the title with a brace of eighth places, while he started the final round in Barcelona from the pits after missing qualifying on GP2 Asia duty. An unexplained car failure pitched him off the road on the opening lap.
“At least we got to have a beer afterwards,” he quipped to Autosport’s correspondent Peter Mills.
That was one of few ultimately inconsequential hiccups which included a rare driver error while running fourth in Hungary, a slow tyre change that cost a possible victory at the Nurburgring and a clutch sensor failure that put him out before the start of the reversed grid race at Le Mans. Arguably the highest profile came in round two at Spa, when a clash while disputing third with Julien Jousse at Blanchimont put both out.
“It was a pity because I was so quick that I would have won also that as well,” van der Garde says of a race which eventually went to Bertrand Baguette, who had been running behind him at the time of the incident. “It would have been crazy to have two weekends in a row to have two wins, to have four wins.
“But the way we started off that year was spectacular and it came all together. It took a few years, but I knew once I was in the right car and I had the right team around me that it will come.”
Van der Garde made amends in the second Spa race after a bad start dropped him to third behind Mikhail Aleshin. He soon recovered past the Russian before pulling an identical move on poleman Marco Bonanomi at Les Combes. Profiting from a jump-start by Alexandre Marsoin in Hungary to take reversed grid spoils, he beat Esteban Guerrieri off the line at Le Mans and would likely have won at Silverstone too had it not been for getting caught in traffic after his early stop which allowed Robert Wickens to overcut him.
But as with Alvaro Parente the year before, van der Garde’s World Series title wasn’t the hoped-for immediate springboard to F1 and he had to follow the Portuguese into GP2. He paid his dues in the second string for four years before his F1 shot finally arrived in 2013 and fared well alongside sophomore Charles Pic, who had beaten him to victory at a soggy Monaco in 2008.
But van der Garde’s true F1 potential was never realised as a planned move to Sauber for 2015 went awry. Despite his valid race contract, he was jettisoned when the cash-strapped Swiss squad signed Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson.
After a year on the sidelines, he underlined his worth upon switching to sportscars and claimed the 2016 European Le Mans Series title with Jota Sport before becoming the regular co-driver of Dutch supermarket entrepreneur Frits van Eerd. Their five-year partnership was capped by van Eerd’s successful 2021 WEC LMP2 pro-am title bid.
Now a regular in IMSA, van der Garde made a winning return to the WEC in a cameo outing with United Autosports at Portimao last month.
