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Scrutineering Conversations – Part 2 Endurance Racing Asia Explained
This team was something of a mystery on the Le Mans 24 Hours entry, with some details emerging that made clearer the involvement of Thierry Perrier’s Perspective Racing team as the power behind the entry.
Thierry himself was waiting by the car in the Places des Jacobins as the rain finally stopped; and with proceedings running very, very late, was happy to explain how all of this came about.
“Of course you know that there are two races due in Asia later this year. The ACO were very keen for a local entry, but with none available some Chinese contacts came to me to see whether it might be possible to put something together. Working together with Philippe (Hesnault) we came up with something that looked good and gave us some opportunities to build perhaps some good links in Asia.
“That’s why we are here, and why we will be taking the car to the final races.
“I’m delighted to have Darryl O Young in the car; he is only the second ever Chinese driver to compete here. We also have four Chinese mechanics on the team and the team is currently split four Chinese and 15 French. I hope to change that around completely by next year with 15 Chinese and just a few French – that would be a real success story.”
Plamen Kralev is the team’s third driver; with the ex FIA GT3 driver looking set to be the first ever Bulgarian driver at Le Mans.
The car itself looks splendid, a dragon motif picked out in phosphorescent paint; one of the best Porsche liveries at Le Mans for several years.
Le Mans is special for several people involved in the effort.
Darryl O Young has tried to get here before, of course, back in 2005 in the GruppeM run, Noble Group sponsored Porsche, alongside Matthew Marsh; but the effort didn’t get the nod from the ACO.
Darryl was, though, “delighted to be here this time, the car looks fantastic and it looks like a better effort than I had expected.
“We need to set our own goals here, make no mistakes and get to the finish – If we can do that then I think we’ll get a good result.
“The effort is raising plenty of awareness in China. Of course it would have been more ideal to have a full Chinese team with an all-Chinese driver line-up but at the moment that’s just not possible. If we can do well here, though, that could change quite quickly.”
Standing by and watching closely as the team made their way through scrutineering was Francois (father of Philippe) Hesnault. There’s a strong Le Mans link there too between Perrier and the ex-Ligier, Brabham and Renault F1 racer:
“Francois and I both won our classes in 1980 here; Francois in the 2 litre class (in a Chevron B36) and myself in a Group 4 Porsche.
“We were both sponsored by Yacco Oil and met at a celebration dinner – We got talking there and have worked together ever since.”
“The effort is raising plenty of awareness in China. Of course it would have been more ideal to have a full Chinese team with an all-Chinese driver line-up but at the moment that’s just not possible. If we can do well here, though, that could change quite quickly.”
