It turned out to be something of a mixed debut for Pasin Lathouras in Blancpain GT Endurance Cup last weekend as the 22-year-old Thai driver kicked off his 2016 racing season at Italy’s Monza Circuit.
Very promising pace from the crew in the brand new #50 Ferrari 488 GT3 throughout the practice and qualifying sessions didn’t quite translate into a result in the 3-hour race as incidents out of their control put paid to all the hard work as the car retired before half distance.
Pasin had arrived at Italy’s legendary Autodromo Monza ready to take a huge step up for his fifth season in sportscar racing. Lining up once again for AF Corse, the young Thai would be teamed up with two professional Italian drivers Michele Rugolo (his 2015 teammate in International GT Open) and Alessandro Pier Guidi.
Blancpain GT Endurance Cup is the world’s leading championship reserved exclusively for FIA GT3 cars and Pasin was facing off against the best factory-supported teams and top professional drivers in sportscar racing. The series always features packed grids and this year is no different as fifty-seven cars from eleven brands arrived in Monza, with seven of those being the new Ferrari 488 GT3. For Pasin the car switch for 2016 meant he also had to get to grips with a totally new engine configuration, a 3.9-litre twin turbo, and so another steep learning curve lay ahead for the young Thai driver.
However Pasin and his teammates quickly got down to work in the bright yellow-liveried #50 Ferrari, which this year is being supported by NaRaYa, LaLaMa, NaRa by NaRaYa, Tourism Authority of Thailand and Sport Authority of Thailand.
After setting a very strong pace during practice and qualifying when the car was swapping times at the top of the classification, the trio all got the job done in qualifying to bag a spot on the fifth row of the grid and were thus perfectly placed to chase a strong result in the overall PRO class in the 3-hour race.
However 57 cars heading into Turn 1 at Monza together is a challenging experience and Pasin, who started the race, suffered rear end damage, which significantly affected the car’s aerodynamics and grip and entailed a length pitstop to replace the diffuser. Back in the race Pasin dug in and battled hard to chip away places on the leaderboard but growing engine problems curtailed the #50 car’s race.
It clearly wasn’t the result the crew had wanted beforehand but the weekend showed that the pace is there and that’s a very strong plus factor as the standard in Blancpain GT is world class, the first task of the year has been completed as the young driver can hold his own in this most professional of series.
Pasin won’t have long to wait to get back on track either as the second round of the year comes up on 14-15 May at Silverstone Circuit in the UK and it’s another venue that he knows well so drivers and team will be looking to bounce back quickly and secure a strong result.
Pasin Lathouras: “The first corner of the race was very chaotic. There was very little room to go anywhere and I ended up getting hit from behind which broke the rear diffuser, thus compromising my downforce and it was hard to brake late. There was debris everywhere, just by the sheer number of cars on the track and I always had to fight for position. I came in to change the rear diffuser and that cost us a couple of laps. And as I went back out, we had some problems with the engine, which reduced our performance and so we had to retire. I’m now looking forward to Silverstone, the car showed good potential, and we believe we can be competitive in the rounds ahead.”