Having wrapped up his first European racing season with trips to the podium at Spa-Francorchamps and Monza last month, 20-year-old Pasin Lathouras is now ready for the biggest test of his career so far – Petit Le Mans. He will become the first Thai driver to ever take part in this prestigious race.
Pasin arrives at Road Atlanta off the back of a very strong end to the season, his first year outside his native Asia where he was the 2013 Ferrari Challenge Asia Pacific Champion.
Taking in a late season two round programme in the pan-European International GT Open Championship last month his results and performances have been very rewarding. He kicked off with a debut win at Spa-Francorchamps three and a half weeks ago and followed that up with a podium at Monza last weekend. That was the icing on a season that has seen Pasin racing in the British GT Championship for the first time.
His full 2014 track programme has been undertaken with AF Corse and the late announced drive at Petit Le Mans was quite a surprise for the youngster. It will mark Pasin’s first ever race in America and he’s looking forward to what will be the biggest race of his career so far. It will in fact be just his second endurance race, the 20-year-old having competed in the 2013 MMER Sepang 12 Hours, again with AF Corse, where he finished on the podium.
Pasin will drive the #51 AF Corse run Ferrari 458 GT3 in the GTD (‘GT Daytona’) class entered under the ‘Spirit of Race’. The GTD class is packed with competitive racecars and drivers – in fact nearly half the entries in the race (23 of the 56 cars) come from this class. There is a diverse mix of front running cars in GTD including Audi, Aston Martin, Viper, Porsche and BMW. There are 5 classes in total.
Teammates for Pasin will be Matt Griffin (Ireland) and Michele Rugolo (Italy).
Petit Le Mans is one of the world’s leading sportscar endurance races. First run in 1998, it is of 10 hours or 1,000 miles (1,600 km) duration – whichever comes up first. That equates to 394 laps of the 4.088 km, 12 turn Road Atlanta Circuit. This year Petit Le Mans forms the final round of the inaugural IMSA Tudor United SportsCar Championship.
Track action at Road Atlanta gets underway tomorrow (Thursday 1 October) with 1 hour of free practice starting at 1010 ET (US Eastern Time, all times are local) which is followed by a second hour of practicing that starts at 1410. The opening day concludes with an hour and a half of mandatory night practice (1930-2100). Friday (3 October) sees the 15 minute official qualifying commence at 1620 while Saturday (4 October) will see the field take the green lights at 1115. The race is scheduled to last for 10 hours.
Pasin Lathouras: “Well, driving in races like Petit Le Mans is what I have been aiming for every since I started racing in karts years ago, so it’s a big step to have got here and also thanks to all the support I have had over the years, especially my family who have been behind me all the way and NaRaYa and Tourism Authority of Thailand. I’m really pleased that AF Corse called me up for this race, it was pretty unexpected, but it’s been great to race with them this year, they have taught me so much and pushed me hard to progress. I feel the team has really helped me progress as a driver. I hope to repay that and have a strong race and help to deliver a good result.”