Gil de Ferran achieved what many athletes aspire to
but few accomplish: he went out on top
source: champcarworldseries.com In his final season as a race driver he won the Indianapolis 500, nearly won a series championship and did win the final race of his career at Texas Motor Speedway. Indeed, that swan song of a season capped a hugely successful four year run with Marlboro Team Penske that saw de Ferran win back-to-back Champ Car World Series titles in 2000 and 2001, then challenge for IRL titles in both 2002 and 2003. During that span, indeed, throughout his career, de Ferran was known as a driver who focused intensely on one job and one job only, be it winning a dozen Champ Car and IRL races, the '92 British Formula 3 title or a trio of wins in the FIA International Formula 3000 races. Since retiring, however, he has let himself go. Let himself go in the sense that his focus has expanded exponentially, from television commentator and magazine columnist to guest speaker and consultant, all the while managing his own investment portfolio from an office in a nondescript building near his home in Ft. Lauderdale. "When I was racing I only had one thing to think about," says de Ferran. "Now I've got ten balls in the air at one time. And that's really been a big change for me. Working on TV for ESPN, writing a recommendation for a consultancy job; the next moment I'm writing an article for "Racer" magazine and then I'm putting together a speech for a university in Brazil and the next moment I'm putting in a personal appearance for one of my sponsors. So it's been ten million different jobs. The next moment I'm calculating some things about my business interests and investments all over the globe." The complete article at champcarworldseries.com
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