Krohn Racing Thursday Qualifying Notes from Le Mans‏

The No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari GTE-Am team completed the required paces on Wednesday and Thursday, June 11-12, at the Circuit de la Sarthe in preparation for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Team owner/driver Tracy W. Krohn, Nic Jonsson and Ben Collins all completed their required three night laps.

The green-and-blue liveried Ferrari F458 had a combined qualifying position of 16th of 19 GTE-Am cars in the 55-car field while the team continued to work on set-up of the car.

Sessions on both days were filled with red flag stoppages due to numerous accidents and off-track incidents with cars from all classes.

TRACY W. KROHN, Krohn Racing Team Owner/Driver, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am:

"The first session we didn't quite get the set up right, it was a little too soft. We stiffened it up for the later session and the car was much better, it was like night and day. After coming out of Turn 1, I felt we had different tires on the car. It was much better after we started running a different set up. However, there was a lot going on, I couldn't get a clean lap with all the yellows and the cars in the wall but clearly the handling was better. It felt good to get out there. We have a race car and we're here."

NIC JONSSON, driver, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari 458 GTE-Am:

"We've obviously been working on the setup, trying different spring setups and bars and shocks and so forth, and I think we have found a pretty good balanced car. We're not the quickest car out here but I think we're going to be very consistent and a good race car for all three of us. The key is to have a car that stays consistent throughout the run, and we tried to double and even triple stint the tires. You need to have a good balance and not get caught up in the other cars trying to go really fast because we've seen people here who have done that and made mistakes and gone off. To do the times some of these guys did in qualifying, you definitely have to drive on the edge, and I don't think anybody is going to try and do that during the race or they won't have a car for the whole race. We feel like we're in good shape; the team has done a phenomenal job to put this car together since we got the green light two weeks ago. The guys flew out to Michelotto and we couldn't be happier to be back here at Le Mans for the ninth consecutive year with Tracy and Krohn Racing. Adding Ben Collins to the lineup has been a great thing, we're adding some experience and he's a very level headed guy. He's not here to prove anything, he's here to be a team player and he's done a great job so far. I feel very confident going into Saturday to just be consistent, stay out of trouble, and be there when the sun comes up on Sunday morning and then see where we're at."

BEN COLLINS, driver, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am:

"We missed a lot of running yesterday with the red flags so I got to do a nice 10 laps in the first qualifying session today. It was very comfortable, the car felt great. It felt it's best at that point and that's probably how we'll race the car. Everyone else was doing their qualifying runs, which we didn't really seem to get too involved with. Some people were hitting a lot of kerbs and taking a lot of track and hitting the wall to do their times and we just got set with what we needed to do. Nic did a great job and Tracy did some consistent laps as will so I think we're pretty well set."

HAYDEN BURVILL, Krohn Racing Race Engineer:

"With the limited amount of run time, missing a test day, means that we had to rely on a lot of data from other people, and some of it was not on the same trajectory of the car that we've been running this year. I don't think it was disadvantageous at all. The people who helped us were well qualified to give us good data, and we've had help form our technical partners like Risi Competizione and Michelotto. We've had trouble free running in the sessions. We've not been able to use all the track time available to us, because there's been a lot of red flags, but we've done our best to make the most of it. We haven't had any incidents on the track or any problems with the car in terms of durability or preparation, which is great given the compressed timeframe we were in. Working with Ben for the first time, we've discovered what he needs and Tracy and Nic have fallen into their routine. It's their ninth time here, and it's not surprising that a lot of the things that would probably distract less experienced Le Mans drivers, they're comfortable with, and that makes my job easier. We're satisfied with the race condition of the car. We haven't used any of our pressure soft tires; we know some of the people we're racing against have. So we're in good shape, we've got all our soft tires. We've got a car that we know is stable under a whole variety of conditions for all three drivers, and of course, if we had had more time, we always think we could do a better job, but we're ready to race."


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