The first round of the European Le Mans Series took place on the Paul Ricard circuit at Le Castellet. Among the 21 cars taking part, Suisse Race Performance finished fifth overall. A result that should not discount the work done by the whole Swiss team on the Oreca 03 LMP2 since the start of the weekend.
The free practice sessions allowed the new engineer, Paul Thomas, to get his bearings and to study the new 2012 configuration allowed for the LMP2 cars. “We started with our new engineer on the first weekend of the season. We started from zero in terms of the set-up of the car, but thanks to Paul’s experience, we were able to find a good solution for the race,” explained Jonathan Hirschi. However, various electrical failures disturbed the smooth running of the free practice sessions. At the end, the team was 8th overall after the two sessions.
Michel qualified the car in 8th position, and started the race on Sunday afternoon. Having overtaken Nicolas Minassian at the start, he was able to keep his lead and to bring the car to the pits in seventh position for the first driver changeover. First Ralph and then Jonathan took over, lapping the circuit and overtaking their rivals one by one, until they finally crossed the finish line in 5th position. “We had quite a difficult race weekend,” commented Michel Frey. « Various problems with the car prevented us from finding a good setup early in the weekend. That is why our 5th place is a very positive result. We still have a lot of work in order to improve our handling, but we will be able to analyse all the data from the weekend, which will be a good basis for the next races. We need to prepare for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which is why, further to the cancellation of the 6 Hours of Zolder, we will go to Belgium for the 6 Hours of Spa, if the FIA allows us to enter. »
The team will therefore be back on track on May 5th & 6th, in order to take part in the 6 Hours of Spa- Francorchamps, a round which is part of the World Endurance Championship.
Source : Race Performance