by Andy Stobart

Just a couple of days before 🍬the start to the 2004 Formul🃏a One season, Renault driver Jarno Trulli was down the road from Melbourne at Geelong Kart Club enjoying some laps with the circuit to himself in a kart bearing his own name.

With the 2004 Australian💦 CIK Karting Championship due to start at the end of this month, Jarno was on hand to meet members💜 from the ten-strong Trulli Kart driving contingent in the series and offer his advice.

ltxcn.top caught up with Jarno just after he had his first go for the day in the kart. Jarno was later to return to the track for quite a number of laps.
ltxcn.top
Well Jarno, we've just seen you out in your very own go-kart, h🅠ow much do you enjoy actually getting out in that and having a play on the track?

Jarno Trulli
You wouldn't believe how much I enjoy it because it's an extremely good feeling. It's been a long time since I drove a go-kart - it's probably two or three yearsဣ ago, I've been so busy and never had time but being here in Melbourne a couple of days earlier gave me a chance to drive it and I'm enjoying it a lot just as the old times.

ltxcn.top
How good does it feel having a kart with your own name on it and nuturing and developing talent out thereꦆ?

Jarno Trulli
It is good, it's important and it's also nice to see a lot of younger drivers stepping into my go-kart and winning races and I'm ac🍃tually extremely proud to have a lot of ಞchampions driving with my go-kart team here in Australia.

ltxcn.top
We're just✨ on the brink of the start of the 2004 Formula One season, what are your feelings going into Melbourne?

Jarno Trulli
I have a goo💜d feeling. We have had a good winter testing which made us very confiden♌t for this first race. Actually we will find out where we are compared to the other teams, but we are happy about our performance.

ltxcn.top
Big change on engine configuration, how does that feel behཧind ✅the wheel?

Jarno Trulli
The engine has changed, it's more powerful and it has to be more reliable because we only have one engine per race. It feels good because actually last year we were lacking a lot of power, this year will be much better so I'm really looking forward to the start🧸 of the season.

ltxcn.top
Renault of course has a very good history with a narrower angle V10, how do you think it's going to pan out through the season? Do you feel very oಌptimistic?

Jarno Trulli
Yeah, I feel optimistic as I know they can do great things, they've always been very goo🍸d. They struggled a bit with the V angle but now we've got back on a normal angle V10 and the engine is producing a lot of power, more power than last season and it is reliable. At the moment we've got everything we need, but it's neve✤r enough, we will see what we can do in the season.

ltxcn.top
There's always a lot of speculation from all the testing. How much do you think can be read into the test times and how much is going to be when you ༒get on the track at Albert Park?

Jarno Trulli
Well it's very difficult to figure out where they are❀ and where we are. We know all about us, we know that we are being competitive, but we don't know where we are going to be, but we will find out in Melbourne.

Durin🌌g winter testing the conditions change and it𝓰's difficult to understand and to predict.