Following the disappointment on Friday when ‘Kevin’ Pu Jun Jin lost control of the #33 Oreca Nissan, practice and qualifying today (27 August, 2016) for the hard-working for LeSports by Eurasia Motorsport squad proved to be a mixed affair as the team took eighth position on the grid for Sunday’s fourth round of the European Le Mans Series race at Circuit Paul Ricard.
The team rebuilt the damaged Oreca overnight and quickly got down to business Saturday morning with Tristan Gommendy posting the second fastest time in practice. Playing catch-up somewhat, the team headed into qualifying having made setup changes that they had not had a chance to try earlier in the weekend.
“The car was very good in practice – we were P2 in the repaired car,” Tristan Gommendy explained. “We tried a few things as the weather is so hot – with the geometry – so we start a little further back than planned. The race is long, so it’s not a problem.”
Eurasia Motorsport Team Principal, Mark Goddard was none-the-less relatively content as the practice pace is more indicative of what to expect Sunday afternoon.
“We were on the back foot a little with yesterday’s crash and we still had a programme we wanted to run through,” he said. “We had to try these changes as we knew we knew we had a good race pace from practice, but we hadn’t had a chance to try a quali-setup. It’s clear we missed it a little but equally we can now prepare for Sunday knowing we have a good race car and we just need to stay out of trouble and avoid incidents at the start of the race.”
The 4 Hours of Le Castellet gets underway Sunday afternoon at 14.00 CET.
