Defending LMP2 champions focus on race set-up during rain-affected qualifying sessionsTeam also demonstrated strong pace on the wet track
KC Motogroup (KCMG) placed their #47 ORECA-05 Nissan in ninth place on the grid for the 84th running of the Le Mans 24 Hours (June 18/19), with the conditions proving tricky throughout the three qualifying sessions.
The Hong Kong-based team switched their focus to the race set-up, having demonstrated their potential earlier on Wednesday (June 15) where Britons Richard Bradley and Matt Howson, who were part of the winning crew last year, as well as Japanese pilot Tsugio Matsuda put in the fastest time during practice.
On an incident packed Wednesday night, only Matsuda and Bradley could take to the wheel of the #47 machine in the first two hours of qualifying, with Howson completing his mandatory five night laps around the 13.629 kilometre circuit on Thursday (June 16).
Bradley set a banker lap in Q1, with a time of 3:39.436 on old tyres, but the outfit knew that there was room for improvement. There were more signs that the car had good pace as they went second quickest in the early stages of Q2, but with the rain coming down half an hour into the session, none of the top ten cars in the LMP2 class were able to improve their lap times.
As night fell the weather got even worse, bringing out the red flag within the opening 20 minutes. With no more dry running it meant that KCMG’s challenger had to settle for ninth place in La Sarthe.
The team managed to see a lot of track time during the 10 hours of action in the build up to the race, allowing them to collect vital information from all of the Dunlop tyre compounds. There were no mechanical gremlins, demonstrating that the #47 ORECA-05 Nissan has good reliability, which bodes wells for the twice-around-the-clock event.
On Friday (June 17) afternoon KCMG will head to the city centre of Le Mans to take part in the Drivers’ Parade. The 84th running of the Le Mans 24 Hours, which will be the squad’s first official outing since the end of the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship, gets underway on Saturday (18 June) at 15:00.
Tsugio Matsuda: "It was not easy to get better times because of the ever-changing weather conditions. Despite these circumstances, the car has shown its strength in terms of pace. I was a bit disappointed because it was not possible to get a clear lap in due to the conditions. However, this is a 24-hour race and we have ample opportunity to move up the field and hopefully finish with a positive result on Sunday.”
Matt Howson: “So far we have just had bad luck really, but we are very confident about the pace of the car. We’ve had it prepared in quali trim, and in that last session in particular we focused on getting it ready for Saturday. This race is going to be all about the weather, it’s been so temperamental throughout the week; it’s like being at Spa. We have got to make sure we stay clever and make it through until the Sunday morning, that’s the goal at the moment.”
Richard Bradley: “I’m very pleased with how the car’s feeling, but it’s unfortunate that we didn’t qualify higher up. One of our earlier laps would have been well into the 3min38s and put us into the top four, however someone went off in front of us bringing out the yellow flags. The car has a good set-up for the race, so we are positive that we can go well this weekend.”
Le Mans 24 Hour calendar of events*
Friday 17th June: Drivers’ Parade from 17:30 to 19:00Saturday 18th June: Warm up at 09:00, start of 84th Le Mans 24 Hours at 15:00, local timeSunday 19th June: Finish of 84th Le Mans 24 Hours, podium celebrations
*All times are local
