FIA WEC, 6 Hours of Sao Paulo - Friday Paddock Notes 2

The pole position from Alex Wurz today for the Toyota TS030 is the first for a factory entered Toyota sportscar in and international race for almost 13 years, the last being for a singleton Toyota TS020 back in November 1999 – Toyota will be hoping that the result in tomorrow’s race doesn’t repeat the history of that race, or of the pole earlier in the year for the same car at Le Mans, both saw the Toyota finish second!

“We have only one tactic available to us,” said Wurz, “We have to go like hell and try to get a gap to the Audis, we have to be fast over the full stints, in traffic and make no mistakes in the pits if we have a chance of making up the time we will lose with more stops – The upside is that should make them (Audi) push hard too becau8se they can’t afford to let us get too far away.”

Wurz received warm applause at the Qualifying press conference after dedicating the pole position to Professor Sid Watkins memory, the beloved FIA Medical Delegate died yesterday at the all too young age of 84 – “He worked tirelessly to improve safety in the sport, he was a very great man, a real professional and not a politician in any way – It was always a reassuring thing to see him next to the car after a crash, he did that several times in my career.  He was very special and I, and a great many others will miss him dearly, Rest in Peace.”  Amen to that Alex

Vitantonio Liuzzi meanwhile was rather less impressed with the contribution of his team after qualifying – “We sat and planned not to rush at this and then they panicked and sent me straight away, there were more frustrating mistakes, they fuelled the car for 13 laps and not for a quick qualifying run so the tyres were gone too soon.  The Judd engine was reliable and strong, a big step forward but probably a little down against the (HPD) turbo here at altitude – the team though need to do a better job to get the best from this car.  I wanted to do better than this at my first qualifying run in sportscars and they could have done better to help me do that.”

Enrique Bernoldi set pole in his last race here in FIA GT1 and did the same in the #61 AF Waltrip GTE Am Ferrari “It means a lot to me here of course, I was happy to get amongst the Pro cars for a time and it was good to remember that in GT1 I beat (GTE Pro poleman) Darren (Turner) to pole!

Turner meanwhile was delighted to deliver a first WEC pole for Aston Martin racing – in fact all four pole setting teams scored their first pole of the WEC season here. “It took a bit of time for us to find our feet but it’s great to follow up the pole we had earlier in the year at Laguna Seca in the ALMS with our first in the WEC – The point will help too!”

Also happy with the point, and the team’s first [pole position, was Stephane Sarrrazin as Starworks look to fend off the challenge of the chasing pack: “We are looking to try to win here, not to conserve points, but of course anything can happen.”

Tracy Krohn’s plan to get additional circuit time here at Interlagos by competing in the Brazil Porsche GT3 Challenge ended badly when his #76 car suffered a substantial off in this afternoon’s qualifying session – The Krohn Racing team owner emerged unscathed but his Porsche was badly damaged after impacting the tyre wall at Turn One backwards, the car out of shape very early into the braking zone, with Tracy taking a good look under the car after getting out, did something break?  Apparently not, a following competitor observing that Tracy had got into the dirty part of the track under braking.