There were a few raised eyebrows to be seen at the Attempto Team at the 24 hours of Spa: During the highlight of the Blancpain GT Series at the famous track in the Belgian Ardennes the team never managed to get back to the form it hat shown during official testing four weeks before. Already during the free practice and qualifying sessions it was obvious that the two Lamborghini Huracán of the Hannover-based squad were lacking a bit more speed than expected. So the aim for the race had to be to not encounter any problems, to show mainly reliability and consistency and not to take to many unnecessary risks. Part of it was to always have an eye on the rear-view mirror to get out of the way of faster cars as soon as possible, which of course bears the disadvantage of having to leave the racing line quite often and so to collect a lot of pick up, which tends to make the car rather unstable and mire difficult to drive.
The approach of getting through the 24 hours without any incidents was successfully completed at least with one car: The number 67 with Giorgio Maggi (CH), Sarah Bovy (BEL), Clement Mateu (F) und Jürgen Krebs (GER) reached the finish line in P6 in the AM category, in P31 in the general classification. The number 66 with the two Dutch drivers Jaap van Lagen and Max van Splunteren as well as the Canadian Mikael Grenier, who competed in the PRO category, had to retire with four laps to go after having made contact earlier on and further technical problems to follow.
Team manager Nancy Kahnt: « Our 66 car had a good pace until Grenier had a crash with a Mercedes and we had to change the steering gear when we were in P23. That cost us 13 laps and from then on it was not possible any more to reach the Top 15 position we had been aiming for. With four hours to go Jaap van Laagen noticed some strange and loud noises in the car, which did not improve. Taking into consideration our 32nd position we decided to retire the cat to avoid further damages and related additional costs.
The other car, the number 67, at least saw the chequered flag. I am definitely proud of Giorgio Maggi, who was very well organized in his first 24 hour race at all and showed a lot of stamina till the end. Sarah Bovy is a good professional, but it was not easy for her as she only joined our team during the race week and did not know the car at all before. Clement Mateu and Jürgen Krebs once more proved to be competitive gentlemen drivers, who also had a lot of fun and really enjoyed the weekend. In general the team did a great job, it´s only a pity that we did not get a real reward for it. »
Max van Splunteren (car #66): « Spa hasn’t been nice to us, we had to retire the car after 20 hours of racing. The first two hours looked so promising with a brilliant strategy call that propelled us to 22nd position after starting 57th. Thanks to the team and my fellow drivers for the massive effort, too bad this was not rewarded! »
Giorgio Maggi (car #67): « Well, I am happy that we saw the chequered flag in the end, but still our speed was just not there. From the first practice onwards the cart felt completely different to the official test at the beginning of July. We tried a lot of set-up changes, but never reached the times we aimed for, were significantly slower than in testing. All my teammates did a good job, the car reached the finish line without any damage. The strategy of the team also worked very well and the pitstops were always fast enough. It is a nice feeling that I was able to finish the first 24 hour race of my career, but still I wish we could have been a little bit faster. »
Press release Attempto Racing ; picture Jean-Baptiste Lassaux/Sport-Auto.ch
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