After 10 hours and 375 hard fought laps of Georgia’s Road Atlanta Circuit, Pasin Lathouras was finally able to enjoy a very successful debut in Petit Le Mans, one of the world’s most famous sportscar endurance races, claiming an excellent sixth position after a race that had seen the young Thai driver and his team mates battling their way into contention at the front of the bumper pack.

Petit Le Mans is a huge test of any driver at anytime, for Pasin it was also his first ever race in America, a somewhat unexpected late season drive that only came about a few weeks ago. Driving for Spirit of Race, he shared the #51 Ferrari 458 Italia entry with Italian Michele Rugolo and Irishman Matt Griffin.

When the lights went green late last Saturday morning Pasin also became the first Thai driver to ever take part in the iconic Petit Le Mans which runs for 10 hours or 1,000 miles (1,600 km) – whichever comes up first.

Pasin came to Road Atlanta straight off the back of a late end of season programme in International GT Open that saw him bag a debut win at Spa-Francorchamps last month and a podium at Monza just the weekend before. And after another successful weekend’s racing his highly demanding end to the year continues to reap rewards.

Practice & Qualifying

This was a race where Pasin would have to work extra hard as he had to learn the track from scratch and get used to all the different requirements of U.S. sportscar racing. That learning curve kicked in quickly during the free practice sessions.

However with the fourth and final free practice session washed out, Pasin had to rely on the first three runs to get used to the demands of Road Atlanta – while sharing cockpit time with with his two team mates, Michele and Griffin. That kept track time a bit limited but Pasin has made progress with each session and the 10-hour race would continue his education.

Pasin instantly enjoyed the track, which is regarded by most as being one of the bigger challenges on the American permanent course racing calendar. It would be the first time the youngster had been in action in a race where ‘prototype’ racecars were on the grid – machines that lap much faster than the GT-D (‘GT Daytona’) level cars and thus pose an extra layer of awareness requirements.

The #51 Spirit of Race Ferrari got safety through the short, 20-minute qualifying session on Friday afternoon and the drivers – Pasin, Michele and Matt – were then able to look forward to the race, albeit down in P16 they would have to work really hard to turn it around in the race. But with 10 hours of action to come they would have time on their side to pull up the order and aim for a top-ten result.

Pasin Lathouras: “The track is really interesting, it took some time to learn and I need more time to gain confidence as in a couple corners you are coming up blind at a high speed as it is up and down hill here. The biggest thing I need to get used to is the Daytona prototypes and the LMP2 cars, they are really fast and the speed they catch up to our car is unreal,” the 20-year-old said. “You always have to be aware of your surroundings, but thanks to great reactions from the track marshals who show the flags very quickly, the faster cars don’t creep up unnoticed. And also the experience and professionalism of all the drivers makes it easier to adapt to here.”

Race

The race strategy was simple, run as fast as possible for 10 hours, keep out of trouble and look to work up the leaderboard. For Pasin it would be a case of continuing to learn about the track and quickly adapt to his first race under new conditions.

Matt, the only one of the trio who had raced here before, was in the car for the first stint and from the sixth row of the grid he got through the rolling start safely to maintain track position. Pasin took over for the second stint and he knuckled down to the race pace and kept forcing the #51 car up the leaderboard. The efforts of the drivers was equally matched by the team which carried out slick pitwork and excellent strategy to ensure they weren’t caught out by the flurry of full course cautions that can break a car’s race.

And over the whole 10 hours as late morning turned into afternoon, afternoon to evening, and evening to night, the #51 car pushed and pushed, climbing up the leaderboard place by place. Into the final hours Pasin, Matt and Michele went all the way to P1 for long chunks of time and slotted in to run around the podium positions.

A final splash and dash required during the closing minutes of the race, in fact coming just a lap before a final Safety Car period, threw the team’s strategy on its head, but slick work got the car back in the race in P4. However on the final restart contact and a resulting spin turned that place into P6.

That position was a very good result that was much better than had been expected 10 hours before and a superb finish to his first Petit Le Mans for the 20 year old Thai driver after stints where he was able to run at the top of the ultra competitive GT-D class. They were also the first Ferrari home in the GT-D results.

All in all it was a fantastic all round team effort while for Pasin it was also an excellent result with which to open his racing account in the United States.

Pasin Lathouras: “The race went really well for us for the whole 10 hours and on track it was smooth as we didn’t have any big contact with any other cars and we made progress all race. The whole team did a very good job and the driver changes went well. It was an amazing race to be able to participate in and the number of spectators around the track was hard to believe. The only issue we had was in the last three stints as while Matt was driving the left rear view mirror fell off so it was a bit more of a challenge to finish the race without an important tool to help to be aware of oncoming traffic but Andrea (team engineer) always alerted the drivers of who was approaching.”