ELMS, 6 Hours Of Le Castellet - First Practice, Post-Session Quotes

Murphy Prototypes

“All in all, we’re really happy withWarren’s time from that first session. He was very impressive. We were working on the downforce settings for most of the time – the car was still a bit ‘pointy’ at the front end – but all three drivers had a stint in the car. Now we’re just looking forward to the other two setting some quicker times this afternoon.”

Greaves Motorsport

“The quick time came right at the end of that session for us,” admitted Tom Kimber-Smith. “The handling wasn’t perfect at the start, but the car was getting better and better each time we went out. The track didn’t help, though. It’s very dirty, and that’s not helped by only having 20 cars out there and just a single support race to clean it up. Even so, we’re moving forwards and the progress is good, but we know we can go a lot quicker. We did a 1:46 here in the test the other week, and we’re well shy of that at the moment – but so is everyone else. Hopefully the conditions will be better this afternoon.”

“It’s very tight out there, and any one of the top ten could go for the win. In fact, I believe we have a far superior field here than there is in the WEC, and I’d really like to see the two grids go head-to-head, perhaps combined at Spa. That would allow us to see the true pecking order ahead of Le Mans.”

Jota

“There was a minor “racing contretemps,” admitted Sam Hignett, in reference to the contact between the Jota Zytek and the Gulf Racing Aston Martin Vantage. “I think it would be fair to say it was six of one and half a dozen of the other, and neither car was exactly where it should have been. A shame, but nothing that a good tube of epoxy can’t fix.”

The team arrived here having had very little time to do anything with the car. “The chassis had covered just 96 kilometres before the start of practice. The fact we ran fault-free for the full hour and a half, straight out of the truck, is all credit to Zytek and the crew at Jota.” Simon Dolan is new to prototype racing, so Sam Hancock did just two or three laps before handing over to Dolan. “It’s the first time Simon’s ever driven a car like this, but he’ll soon be on the pace. He’s very quick,” insists Hignett, who’s delighted to be back and working with Zytek again. “I was thinking, as we drove the truck up the hill here to the circuit, that it’s the fifth time I’ve come to Paul Ricard to race a Zytek. We have a long history.” More on that later.

Gulf Racing

“The Zytek looked to make half a move and then hesitate. Roald (Goethe) didn’t quite know where Dolan was, and started to move across, to turn in, and there was contact. There wasn’t much damage – just one of those things,” suggested Stuart Hall, who seemed to be more concerned that a date hasn’t yet been set for a Dailysportscar cricket match this year.

Curtis Racing Technologies

“Everything has come together very late in the day, and we were still working on the car into the night, having to sort out some fundamental issues,” said Mike Sweeney, team principal. “We needed to make sure everything was in order before allowing Alex to push the pace this morning,” All three drivers had time in the car, although the transponder seemed to be stuck on Alex Kapadia. “We have a lot to catch up with, but I’m just glad to see some laps completed and to know we’re making progress.”