After a mixed weekend in Silverstone, IMSA Performance Matmut was eager to catch up on the Belgium’s Ardennes cir- cuit. Everything was going wrong even before the beginning of the meeting, Christophe Bourret being forced to throw the towel because of health concerns.
At the end of the qualifying practice, the grimaces could be seen on the face of the team, unable to face the concurrence, the Porsche 997 RSR only qualified 7th.
In the beginning of the race, after just one hour, the car number 76 was holding the 8th position. The Porsche was definitively slower than the other competitors. Strategy of the team has been complicated by the emergence of the safety car after the crash of a LMP2 prototype in the Raidillon curve. The new regulations prohibit the entrance to the pits during the first three laps except in case of running out of fuel or a flat tire. In that case, you can refuel for 5 seconds or change your tire. Unfortunately the car was planned to stop during those three laps. This means that the car had to stop once during this period for a fast refuel, and realized another full pit stop just after the three latency laps. Precious time has been lost.
Face to the others gentlemen drivers, Raymond Narac started a great comeback to the 6th position. Unfortunately, the team got two stop and go penalty, and all the benefits were lost. Everything had to be rebuilt on the track. Jean-Karl Vernay did a double stint and drove the car to the 6th position again, before giving back his seat to the Rouennese. Raymond Narac has got up a place again, to temporarily take fifth place at 15 minutes to go, he had to make one last quick visit to the pits to put a few liters of fuel to reach the end of the race.
After having won this race in 2012 without any doubt for his first apparition in world championship, the team was again rejected from the podium. All the team is already working to prepare as best as possible the 24 hours of Le Mans.
Jean-Karl Vernay ■ “Arriving at Spa, I was hoping for a much better result, it is obvious. Given our potential glimpsed at Silverstone, the podium was clearly the objective. Alas, it did not go as planned and we had to adapt. Physically, doing a double stint has not been a problem for me; I’m ready at this level for Le Mans.”
Raymond Narac ■ “We suffered this weekend. It is frustrating to finish so far while we were first last year. We must quickly get back on track, we’ve got the capacities for that, we already shown it in the past. The potential is there, it must happen”.
Franck Rava ■ “After Silverstone, it was another difficult weekend. The Porsche had a lack of performance compared to the others on this track. Once again, race incidents have handicapped the team, with a Safety Car intervening at the worst time for us. Le Mans is coming very fast, and this is important to come prepared. We have got good setup bases on both cars for this track. We have always been performant, we will do everything for that.”
Source : IMSA Performance Matmut