6 Hours of Shanghai: GTE Am teams news round up
8Star Motorsports - No.81 1st
8Star Motorsports put itself firmly back into title contention in the FIA World Endurance Championship by taking a commanding victory in the 6 Hours of Shanghai. Team principal Enzo Potolicchio joined Portuguese ace Rui Aguas and Ferrari Formula 1 test driver Davide Rigon on the top step of the LM GTE-AM podium Saturday in Shanghai, marking the team’s second victory of the season.
Having started from third on the grid for the second-to-last race of the FIA WEC season, 8Star’s Venezuelan-backed Ferrari 458 Italia showed immediate pace from the onset. Solid opening stints by all three drivers, along with quick pit stops, helped elevate the orange-colored car to second place in the competitive GT division.
"I think Enzo and Davide did an amazing job,” Aguas said. “I'm really happy to be a part of the 8Star team. The crew had fantastic pit stops. Everything worked really well. So I'm looking forward to the next race. I hope Bahrain will be a new story and we can fight for the championship."
"I was a bit disappointed the No. 95 car stopped because all three of us had very good pace to fight for the win,” said Rigon, who scored his first FIA WEC victory. “I'm very happy because the team didn't make any mistakes. My teammates also drove a great race. I'm really happy for this victory.”
With 8Star now back in title contention, the focus shifts to the 6 Hours of Bahrain on Nov. 28-30, the eighth and final round of this year’s FIA WEC. Potolicchio will be looking to become the first-ever two-time drivers’ champion, while history could also be made with the teams' championship.
From 8Star Motorsports press release
Photo: SHANGHAI INTERNATIONAL CIRCUIT (SHANGHAI, CHINA), 6 HOURS OF SHANGHAI, SATURDAY 9TH NOVEMBER 2013, RACE.
Aston Martin Racing - No.96 3rd, No.95 DNF
In the GTE Am class the #96 Vantage GTE of Campbell-Walter and Hall, joined for a second time by fellow Briton Jonny Adam, finished in third place having started sixth. The result maintains the team’s lead of the Trophy for GTE Am Drivers and Trophy for GTE Am Teams.
“That was a really tough race,” comments Campbell-Walter. “Qualifying didn’t go well, but the team managed to sort the issues before the race. Jonny started and was unlucky to have a slight off after he was forced off the track by another competitor, but he fought back well. Stuart took over and, despite a few unavoidable incidents, managed to get us back up to fifth. Jonny took over and put in some cracking laps before I did the final stint and finished in third. It’s great to get another podium, but we still have work to do in Bahrain to win the GTE Am championships.”
The #95 Vantage GTE of Danes Christoffer Nygaard, Nicki Thiim and Kristian Poulsen was denied its third race win of the season. The team qualified on pole and led the race by a convincing margin for the first 100 laps, even matching the pace of the GTE Pro runners, before it was forced to retire with a yet undiagnosed electrical fault.
From Aston Martin Racing press release
Photo: SHANGHAI INTERNATIONAL CIRCUIT (SHANGHAI, CHINA), 6 HOURS OF SHANGHAI, SATURDAY 9TH NOVEMBER 2013, RACE.
Krohn Racing - No.57 DNF
Round Seven of the 2013 FIA World Endurance Series at the 6 Hours of Shanghai did not bring the result the Krohn Racing Team sought. Team owner/driver Tracy W. Krohn and co-drivers Nic Jönsson and Maurizio Mediani struggled with puzzling tire problems all weekend. The Krohn Team started seventh and finished seventh in the GTE-Am class in the penultimate round of the FIA WEC season.
Although many teams complained about tire issues at the dusty circuit, it seemed the No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 suffered with extensive grip issues. After trying numerous compounds, combinations and tire pressures, the team ultimately fell back several laps and decided to use the race as a tire test session to gain valuable data for future races.
Jönsson started the Ferrari in the seventh position in the GTE-Am class and lost time as other team’s tires seemed to come up, while the Krohn Ferrari tires struggled with no grip. Jönsson was finally able to close a little gap as his competitors tires went off towards the end of the stint and he was able to maintain the same times.
Krohn was the second driver in rotation and also suffered with grip issues and had to constantly work to get heat in the tires. He turned the car over to Mediani, who was able to post some fast times after team engineers and the previous drivers worked to overcome some of the tire issues.
The drivers cycled through another stint each with limited issues and manageable lap times until Mediani’s final stint. Three laps into his last stint, an apparent stuck throttle forced him off track, where he skilfully managed to get the car stopped before hitting the wall.
TRACY W. KROHN, Krohn Racing Team Owner/Driver, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am:
“The tires sucked but we made them better. We changed compounds, we changed combinations, we changed pressures and the car got better. We had some unfortunate events out there. I went out on another set of compounds and they were fantastic. Unfortunately, the Corvette moved in front of me at the hairpin going down the back straightaway and took away my air and I ran right up the back of him and shoved him off the track and I got in the marbles and knackered the tires up. We also had a jack problem with the car, which put us further behind.
We were running on pace and found some of the same compound tires and although they weren’t warm enough when we put them on, the car just kept getting better and better so we just used it as a test session. I think we learned a heck of a lot this weekend. I’m disappointed but I’m not discouraged, so we’ll go to Bahrain and do better.”
NIC JONSSON, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am:
“My second stint was much better than the first. The only thing we changed between the stints was tires. It’s a very confusing situation because we also ran the same type of tires in qualifying and we were struggling in comparison to the other guys and also in comparison to practice. Then in the second stint for me the car was almost two seconds faster and we were turning laps out there with the leading GTE-Am #81 car. We were the two quickest Am cars on the track the whole stint, after being the slowest car on track two hours earlier. It’s a very puzzling scenario and although I’ve been doing this for a long time, I don’t really know why. It’s not very often you are this confused about what’s really going on. It’s not just this weekend; it’s been going on for several races now. We just don’t seem to be able to find a solution to figure it out. Hopefully we’ll discover something more between now and Bahrain, or at least when we get to Bahrain we are lucky to have five or six sets of good tires down there, if that’s the difference between being competitive or not and be able to finish off the season in a good way.”
MAURIZIO MEDIANI, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am
“We finished really sad yesterday with a bad qualifying and we are sad now because we don’t understand why we did so well in the race. Part of the race our lap times were close to the leader or even faster. At the start we had a change but the feeling we had from the car was not a big change. The problem of the balance was there but the grip was better. I’m confident these next two weeks before the race in Bahrain we can discover why and we can have a better confidence in the car for the last race.”
MARK SCHOMANN, Krohn Racing Race Engineer:
“This was one of the more interesting races we’ve done, but not as bad as the result shows. Basically, we struggled all weekend, more with tires than the car, and we decided to basically use this race as a test to try to be ready for Bahrain and that worked out really well. We really did get a lot out of this race as far as a test. The thing that really hurt us was a race we decided to change tires a lot and experiment, we broke an air jack, which made it extremely difficult. But it was a very good test session for us. If that was all we were going to get out of the day rather than points, it was well worth it. I feel a lot more confident, and so do the drivers, in our tires and how we react to the tires for Bahrain.”
From Krohn Racing press release
Photo: SHANGHAI INTERNATIONAL CIRCUIT (SHANGHAI, CHINA), 6 HOURS OF SHANGHAI, FRIDAY 8TH NOVEMBER 2013, FREE PRACTICE 2.