At the end of the long winter break, KSM is happy to announce the new line-up for 2009. The team that is based in Siegburg, Germany, enters its 2nd LMS season with great enthusiasm. The KSM driver team has 2 new members: Matthew Marsh and Francesco Sini.
Italian driver Francesco Sini, born in 1980 in Fano, started his motorsport career already at the age of 9 when he entered a mini-kart series. Later on he won 8 regional kart championships and numerous national trophies. Other steps were the Formula Renault and the Radical Euro Cup where he drove a Radical SR8 LM. Then last year Francesco won the Radical European Masters Series with Solaris Motorsport Radical Italy, achieving 12 victories and 6 podiums in the class.
Born in 1968 in England and being a resident in Hong Kong since 1990, Matthew Marsh is one of Asia’s best known motorsport personalities in various roles as a racing driver, motorsport journalist, celebrity speaker and driver coach. In 2008 he became the only Hong Kong driver to have scored an FIA World Championship point by finishing eighth in the final round of the World Touring Car Championship at the Macau Grand Prix. Prior to that he became the only driver to have represented Hong Kong at the Le Mans 24 hours race where he drove a Ferrari 430 in 2007.
Japanese driver Hideki Noda, born in 1969 in Osaka, is an old hand in motor racing. Having raced Formula 1 in 1994 he later continued his career in the Indy Lights series, Formula Nippon, the Japanese GT Championship, the Indy Racing League, A1GP, and the Japanese Le Mans Challenge – where he won the title in 2007. He joined KSM last year and decided to stay with the team for 2009. This will give the drivers’ crew a good deal of continuity as Hideki will share the valuable experience he gained in 2008 with the Lola Mazda with his new teammates Francesco and Matthew.
The team will enter its Lola B07/46 with the latest aerodynamic upgrades to meet the 2009 specification set by the ACO. An initially planned upgrade to a coupe had to be postponed. Once again Mazda will supply the engines, a co-operation which started last year. The tyres will be supplied by Dunlop. Last week, Tuesday and Wednesday saw an intensive test of KSM at Magny Cours, France, with the 2 new drivers Matthew Marsh and Francesco Sini. Francesco, who had already tested the car last year in August at the Lausitzring, set some very speedy lap times and was happy to be back in the Lola Mazda again. Matthew had his first experience behind the wheel of an LMP2 race car and adapted to it well during the test.
Hardy Schiller: “An Italian, a Hong Kong-based British driver and Hideki from Osaka driving a British-built Lola chassis with a Japanese Mazda engine for a German team – we are probably one of the most international crews on the grid. Together with new partners like Flex-Box, Pantalone, Cisco, Neutral, CMTI and many others we are confident to have a good package together for this year. The last season was definitely beyond our expectations, for this year we expect to progress.”
Kai Kruse: “I’m very pleased to announce our line-up today, something which can’t be taken for granted in these times of financial turmoil and the world economic crisis. Continuity is one of our key values and so I’m happy that many of our team of mechanics and engineers and also our driver Hideki will continue to work with us in 2009. A warm welcome to our new team members Matthew, Francesco, our new race engineer Gavin Wills and all others. The long winter break has come to an end now, the first LMS round is ahead of us, so let’s race!”
Hideki Noda: “I’m very much looking forward to my 2nd season in the Le Mans Series which is without doubt one of the best and most challenging sports car race series in the world. With all the experience we gained last year we expect improvements and a good performance for 2009. I’m very happy about my new team mates Francesco and Matthew who both have a strong record in motor racing.”
Francesco Sini: “I’m really happy about this outstanding opportunity to drive the whole Le Mans Series 2009 with KSM. Hardy Schiller and Kai Kruse have done everything to get me on board. During the long winter break I already had the opportunity to do a 24h indoor kart race together with Hardy and Kai, something which was very nice and also very important for our team-building process. I’m sure we will have fun and success in the new season.”
Matthew Marsh: “At the test drive in Magny Cours I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the German KSM team. They know what they are doing and go about their business without drama. The 30 laps which I did with the KSM Lola Mazda were something special. After years of experiencing about 1.5 g-force in a Porsche and other GT cars I found 2.4 g quite exciting!”
Source : KSM