As he now prepares to head Stateside for next weekend’s 10 Hour Petit Le Mans, Pasin Lathouras has ended his first season racing in Europe in some style with a trip to the podium during the seventh round of the International GT Open Championship which was held at Monza, Italy, last weekend.
Sharing the #80 AF Corse Ferrari 458 GT3 with teammate Richard Lyons, the Thai youngster ran a fast pace all weekend as the pair capably built on their sensational debut win in the pan-European sportscar series at Spa-Francorchamps just three weeks ago.
Third position at Monza last Saturday afternoon was a superb result at what is one of the world’s most famous and demanding racetracks, while the duo also added a blistering pole position on Sunday to the weekend’s impressive tally of results.
Pasin’s primary focus this season has been the British GT Championship, which wrapped up at Donington Park a fortnight ago. Straddling that final race of the year in the UK, the Thai driver has also undertaken a short, two-event programme in International GT Open, also with AF Corse. The totted up results have quite simply been impressive: one win, one third place and one pole position, and that’s all been achieved at two of the most daunting tracks on the motorsport calendar: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps and Autodromo Nazionale Monza.
While every track Pasin has raced on in Europe this season so far has been a new experience, Monza actually wasn’t as the Thai driver contested a one off event here last year in the Superstars GTSprint Series. That event was also his first ever race in a FIA GT3 spec car and it resulted in two trips to the podium from the two races.
Monza is a special racetrack, one of the most motorsport’s most historic and iconic tests, it’s ultra high speed and very, very challenging, so it was a ringing endorsement for the 20-year-old that on his two trips here and he has been on the podium both times. In fact he’s now walked out to collect a trophy on the famous jutting podium three times.
Pasin and Richard demonstrated that they would be in the reckoning right from the start of the International GT Open weekend as they planted the #80 Ferrari into P5 and P2 in GTS (GT3) during last Friday’s first and second free practice sessions, respectively. (International GT Open has two categories; the ‘GTS’ class is reserved for FIA GT3 spec cars while there is also a higher performance level, dubbed the ‘GT Super’ class).
The weekend’s format would see the Q1 and Q2 qualifying sessions taking place in the early morning of Saturday and Sunday, respectively, before Race 1 (70 minutes) and Race 2 (60 minutes) were contested during the corresponding afternoons. Each driver would undertake one qualifying session and then start that race, handing over to their teammate during the pit window that straddled the middle of the race.
Pasin was on cockpit duty for last Saturday’s Q1 session and he posted a very solid P5 in GTS which would set the #80 car up perfectly for the first race. At the green lights he got a very good getaway during the bunched up rolling start and was able to maintain his position as the big field streamed into Rettifilio for the first time.
As the first half of the race started to unfold Pasin reported some issues with the brakes and that meant that he had to push hard – but with great care while entering the turns. However he continued to set a fast pace, successfully building up his track position and the handover to Richard was clean and smooth. In for the final half hour, the Northern Irish driver was able to also build on the track position that Pasin handed over and keep the #80 car closely focused on the podium positions, eventually passing a rival Ferrari to move into P3. To the flag he was able to defend that advantage with a second’s cushion over the car behind.
That meant a very well deserved trip to the unique Monza podium for Pasin after what had been a real fighting drive by the Thai youngster and his teammate Richard over the whole of the 70-minute race. With a car that wasn’t perfect it was an extra special drive by Pasin, demonstrated by the fact the #80 car’s best race lap was a 1:50.226 while most of the other similar GTS class cars were able to dip into the 1:49s. It also meant they contributed to a dominant 1-2-3 finish in GTS for AF Corse in the Italian team’s ‘home’ International GT Open race.
For Sunday’s second race Richard was in the cockpit for qualifying duties and he was in fine form, his best lap in 1:47.866 was good enough for GTS pole as he edged out Tomáš Enge by 0.169 seconds, the Czech driver benefitting from the huge grunt of the Chevrolet Camaro around the high-speed characteristics of Monza. In fact the time was faster than all bar two of the GT Super cars so the #80 car would line up on Row 2 of the grid overall.
From the green lights Richard was able to settle into a steady pace and after the frenetic opening laps shook out he was in P3 and it clearly looked like the #80 car could fight its way to a second podium finish of the weekend. However a problem at the mid race pitstop cost around half a minute and dumped Pasin down into P8 when he took the car back out onto he track.
The Thai driver started making a fast pace and was able to chip a couple of places away to climb up to P6 but with a more than 10 second gap to the car in front and rival drivers close behind he had to focus on defending his position, which he did successfully all the way to the checkered flag. The youngster had thus salvaged a very respectable result that looked to be much further away half an hour before.
There is no time to rest now for Pasin as his intensive end to the racing season continues. Last night he flew back to London from Italy and tomorrow he will leave for America where he will drive for AF Corse in Saturday’s 10-hour Petit Le Mans.
Pasin Lathouras: “In the first race I had a good start so I kept position in the jostling to the first chicane and I didn’t lost any positions. I was struggling a little bit with the brakes as the race got going so I lost a lot of confidence braking for each chicane. After a couple of laps, the order started to settle down and I didn’t get that much action until the drivers’ change. I was really just pushing as much as I could, albeit with the braking situation, to improve our position in the race. After the changeover, again Richard did a superb job to maintain our position and getting us on the podium. In the second race we looked to have found more speed from the car and were hopeful that we could get on the podium again but the problem we had at the pitstop cost us a lot of time and then in my stint I just pushed as hard as I could to get some positions back which I was able to do. Over the closing laps I had to manage the tyres and defend my place, which I was able to do okay. So it was all in all a very good weekend for us, I think Richard and I showed very good pace all weekend and to get onto the podium at Monza is something really special.”