Strongest race pace this season highlights progress made for Strakka Racing
In challenging and mixed conditions Strakka Racing finished the Japanese round of the FIA World Endurance Championship confident and pleased it had made progress and another step forward with the Gibson 015S.
Starting on intermediates under the safety car, Jonny Kane battled increasingly slippery conditions to move up to fifth in class. With just over two hours completed, Kane handed the Gibson 015S to Danny Watts. With the SARD Morand Morgan going off at Turn One, Watts was able very quickly to seize fourth place as rain continued to fall intermittently.
After passing the half-way mark, an electrical issue causing the car to misfire under hard throttle, initially led the team to change the steering wheel but the misfiring persisted requiring another stop. The issue was then traced to the wiring loom in the steering column and after a further stop to change the ECU, reprogrammed to ignore the spurious messages coming from the wheel, the problem was resolved. With a drying line, Danny Watts was routinely the fastest car in the class. “Once we sorted that, the car was flying and we were the quickest car out there,” adds Watts. “It felt really good to be able to show what the car and team is capable of.”
Danny then handed the car to Nick Leventis. Bristling with confidence and feeling more comfortable than ever with the latest Gibson chassis, Leventis was able to make a series of substantial lap time improvements, racing competitively his rivals in the P2 class to bring the car home sixth in class. “Though our headline result might not initially suggest it, this was a good weekend for the team,” adds team principal Dan Walmsley. “We had a very tough start to the weekend but we all got our heads down and showed we can run at the class pace in the race. We were unlucky to have lost time with the electrical issues. We are very quick on the used rubber so it’s an area where we can find further improvements for next time. We are very pleased that for really the first time this season Nick was more at ease with the car, pushed hard and really enjoyed his time in the car. Sixth place doesn’t reflect the progress made but we go home happy and in a much better frame of mind for Shanghai.”
Strakka’s Fan Tyre, enthusiastically signed by Japanese fans on Saturday was used extensively on the car during the race. “Huge thanks to all our fans around the world that get involved with Strakka Racing,” adds Nick Leventis. “We are delighted this time you were literally part of our race!”
Strakka Racing will now ship the car straight to China ahead of the seventh round of the World Endurance Championship in Shanghai on the 1stNovember. Before that event, Strakka Racing will be highlighting the innovations it is making in additive manufacturing and engineering when its S103 car will be on display at the iconic Louvre Museum next Friday in Paris. The LMP2 car that Strakka raced at Le Mans in 2015 will be on display at the 3D Print Show.
