Pirelli Paddock Pass: Daniel Morad

Daniel Morad’s strong start to the season has the Canadian sitting third in the Pirelli World Challenge overall GT championship standings.

This week in the Pirelli Paddock Pass, Morad updates us on his impressive start to the season and what his expectations are in the races to come.

How valuable has your familiarity with CRP Racing from last year been to your strong start to this season?

“It’s like any job. Knowing your coworkers has a huge impact on how quickly you can just get to work and get into the flow.

“Last year, I only just met the team for the first time on Monday of race week leading into my first gig at the SprintX race at VIR, which we actually won.

“That was a great way to start and to continue with podium finishes like we have this season is awesome.”

What do you think are the strengths of the Mercedes-AMG GT3 relative to your competition?

“The Mercedes-AMG GT3 is a great platform for a GT3 car. It’ arguably one of the best out there. Hats off to the Mercedes-AMG team who designed and built it.

“It was so quick out of the box that it got a bunch of weight added to it and a small restrictor, which hurts us down the straights a lot.

“It makes racing against other cars very difficult as we can never get close enough down the straights to attack and are always left vulnerable with our consistently low top end speed.

“It does have a lot of downforce and the brakes are extremely good for how heavy our car is mandated to be.

“We struggle in situations where we have light braking zones and slow speed corners because of the weight. Fast sweeping corners and big brake zones are our friends.”

Does your strong pace at St. Pete give you confidence the car will be competitive once again on the streets of Long Beach?

“Long Beach is a tricky weekend with limited track time. I believe it will be all about who can get to grips with the track the quickest and it’s a big track position race.

“If last year’s results tell you anything, where you start is more or less where you finish. Qualifying is the key so we’ll have to see. That was also a pretty solid rhyme.”

How impressed were you with your co-driver at Circuit of The Americas Fabian Schiller?

“Fabian did a solid job. It was a big struggle for him to even get to America. It was his first time in the United States and he only got the call on Tuesday evening to fly over.

“He couldn’t get his visa sorted in time to catch the Wednesday flight over so he flew over Thursday, missed the test day and had limited tire allocation to learn the track and the way our Mercedes-AMG GT3 drives.

“All in all, solid job when it came down to push and shove. Looking forward to having him back.”

Between you and Scott Hargrove, there are two Canadians in the top three in overall points. How special is it to have Canada so well represented?

“Canadians are in the top three spots if you count a Canadian race team [R. Ferri Motorsports].

“It’s great to have Canada so well represented, but I’d like to take this opportunity to give my condolences to the families of the Humboldt Broncos players and [team] members for their tragic loss.”