Strakka Racing’s Honda Performance Development ARX-03a will start tomorrow’s 6 Hours of São Paulo 2nd in the Privateers’ category and 5th position overall (out of a field of 28 cars) after a nail-biting qualifying session at Interlagos today.

 In an effort to secure good track position the team chose to send Danny Watts out of the pits as soon as the 20-minute qualifying session went live at 14.30 local time. With a window of just four flying laps Danny set a stunning 1.24.181 on his first attempt, the team’s time quickest of the weekend so far. His second lap then had to be aborted due to traffic but a clear track on his third saw him better his time to set a 1.24.089 securing 3rd fastest time behind the two Audi works cars. From then on it was just a waiting game as the team pitted to watch as the other privateers completed their laps.

Just six minutes before the end of the session the #12 Rebellion Racing car driven by Neel Jani pipped Danny to the Privateers’ pole by just 0.127secs

The Michelin-shod 3.4-litre normally aspirated V8 engined HPD ARX-03a has performed faultlessly throughout all practice sessions and all three drivers Danny, Nick Leventis and Jonny Kane, are satisfied they have a good race-ready car heading into tomorrow’s race.

Danny: “We chose to go out early to try and get as good a track position as possible. My first flying lap was good although I made a couple of small mistakes that cost me a bit of time. Then as I attempted my second I got caught up behind a LMP2 car and had no choice to abort the lap. Luckily I managed to find a bit of space for my third and final flying lap and managed to go one better. I was a little bit unlucky as I didn’t manage to get the best out of the tyres at the right time but it’s encouraging that we were only one and a half tenths off the Privateers’ pole. The most important thing is that the car’s looking good and we’re happy that we’ve got a really strong package for the race tomorrow.”

Source : Strakka Racing