Le Mans Series: Harold Primat, Spa 1000 Kms Preview
May 08, 2008
A superb podium finish for Harold Primat and Christophe Tinseau in the last round of the Le Mans Series at Monza has left the Pescarolo Sport duo lying fourth overall in the championship and the best-placed petrol-powered car heading to round 3 at Spa-Francorchamps this weekend. With confidence already high, the pair’s Pescarolo 01-Judd gets a new aero package for the trip to Belgium, leaving the Geneva-based Primat hopeful of another strong result.
Harold on the season so far – “We are delighted with the start we have made and sixth place in Barcelona followed by a podium at Monza have left us very well placed in the championship. I don’t think even Christophe and I imagined we would be the best-placed petrol-powered car after two rounds of the season. The standard of competition in the Le Mans Series has improved so much in 2008 that everyone is pushing really hard, and that’s causing mistakes from drivers and mechanical problems for the teams. Pescarolo Sport has given us a very reliable car so far and we haven’t made any errors, but now is not the time to relax, we must push on and try to maintain the considerable progress we’ve made.”
…on the Pescarolo 01-Judd’s new aero package – “The big news for Spa is that we’ll have the new 2008 aero package, which the #16 car has been running at the first two races of the season, on our car. We’re excited about it because the team feel there is a significant downforce advantage in running the new splitter. It means we have a lot of work ahead of us this weekend to configure the set up and make sure we get a feel for it, as it’s quite different from the ’07 spec. It’s also our last chance to get it perfected in race conditions before the Le Mans 24 Hours.”
…on racing at Spa – “I’ve always done well at Spa in the past. Early in my career in British F3 and the VdeV championship I had wins and pole positions, and in the past two seasons have scored LMS podiums with Pescarolo Sport and Swiss Spirit. Hopefully we can keep that record going this year! It is another fantastic circuit with a huge, illustrious history. One of the most attractive things about the Le Mans Series for a driver is the magnificent tracks we visit. Corners such as Blanchimont and Eau Rouge are a tremendously thrilling challenge and it’s a great circuit for a driver. The track is quite long, which means traffic isn’t as much of a problem as somewhere like Barcelona, nevertheless, some corners only have one line so you need to be careful when lapping the GT cars.”
…on the target for the race – “We need to score points and to do that we must make sure the car is reliable and we are mistake free. Everyone is well aware of the importance of improving from race to race this season as the competition is so great. Anyone who stands still in terms of development or performance will end up going backwards. It’s already clear that there are a lot of quick LMP1 cars out there, so we have to step up our performance and not rely on our rivals suffering problems with reliability.”
