The G.A.C Racing Team tacked the Algarve 1000kms in a very determined state of mind. It was the third round of the 2009 Le Mans Series and was run almost entirely at night. Both in qualifying and the race, the Swiss team demonstrated its true level of performance and the result was a third-place finish in LM P2. This superb achievement was a great team effort, which did what it needed to do to bounce back after Le Mans and assume its rightful place.
The engineering squad and the G.A.C Racing Team drivers had three sessions, including one at nighttime, to get to grips with the Portuguese circuit of Portimao and set up the car. The first session on Thursday morning served as a shakedown for the Zytek S07 that had just come back from Great Britain after its post Le Mans 24-Hours checkup. It enabled Karim Ojjeh, Philipp Peter and Claude-Yves Gosselin to familiarise themselves with this atypical up-and-down layout, which requires a lot of grunt out of the corners. The team used the 2-hour night session to adjust the headlights and the trajectories in the corners. “The visibility on the track isn’t great because of the absence of lighting. The apexes of the corners aren’t easy to see. Physically, it’s particularly demanding as there’s no time to rest between two corners. We set the third-quickest time in LM P2, and that’s very encouraging,” said Karim Ojjeh. The third session was used to validate the technical choices for the race, in particular the tyre selection.
Qualifying took place on Friday evening. During the 20-minute session Philipp Peter dialed in a perfect lap in 1m 34.752s, putting the Zytek in third place on the grid in the LM P2 category. The car moved up to second after the RML Lola was put back 10 places because of an engine change.
The start was given on Saturday evening at 19h15, a little over an hour before sunset. Philipp at the wheel of the no.41 Zytek made a perfect getaway and passed through the first corner without problems. The Austrian driver did his double stint and consolidated his second place. Karim then took over and drove a 66-lap stint punctuated by a routine refuelling stop. Claudr-Yves very sportingly gave his double sting to Philipp Peter to keep the team’s hard-won second place. Unfortunately, during a driver change precious seconds were lost when the belts of the harness got stuck under the seat. This incident dropped no. 41 back to third place in the LM P2 category.
The last 2 hours of the race went off without incident, and just after 01h00 on Sunday morning the Zytek S07 crossed the finishing line to score a great third place in LM P2. “Above all, I’m really delighted for the team who needed a good result to boost their morale. We were quick all weekend both in practice and in the race. We’re finally where we should be, in the place that reflects our true potential. In addition, achieving such a result at night wasn’t easy,” laughed a delighted Renate Ojjeh, the G.A.C Racing Team Manager.
The G.A.C Racing Team is determined to repeat this excellent performance in the fourth round of the 2009 Le Mans Series, the Nürburgring 1000kms in Germany on 22nd-23rd August.
Source : G.A.C Racing Team