It was not the greatest weekend for Attempto Racing at the 6 Hours of Paul Ricard, the sixth race of the Blancpain GT Series 2017. The team had to fight different smaller and larger problems over the whole course of the weekend, as did most of the Lamborghini teams in the south of France. Both cars, the number 66 with Lamborghini factory driver Marco Mapelli , Giovanni Venturini and Bertrand Baguette as well as the number 67 with Swiss Giorgio Maggi , Dutchmen Max van Splunteren and Clément Mateu from France never were really competitive in the huge field of 58 starters.
Some of the problems like a lack of engine reliability and difficulties with the fuel system were not completely new: For example, a problem with the fuel system already stopped the Attempto car #66 at the start of the season at Misano, when it had claimed Pole Position…
Now at Paul Ricard the result of all the troubles were rather disappointing qualifiying positions with P37 for car number 66 an P50 for car number 67 and an early retirement for both due to technical reasons.
Team manager Nancy Kahnt: « It looks like the devil lies in the detail. It was really a very bad weekend for us, not getting to grips with the car and then being hit by even more bad luck during the race. Losing the number 66 due to an engine failure in lap 66, while the number 67 already had to retire at lap 26 due to electronic problems after having to deal with a broken radiator already before was quite harsh. It ended the weekend in a bitter way, a weekend in which we actually had started rather hopeful. Now we have to work hard together with Lamborghini to do some fine tuning towards the set-up and to find out the reason for the engine problems until the Spa test day next week so we can be back at the season highlight, the 24 hours of Spa, in full strength. »
Giorgio Maggi (Lamborghini Huracan GT3 #67): « We tried a lot of different set-ups with the engineers, adapted our tyre pressures, worked with an updated software – but nothing really helped. We were actually getting nowhere. Something was just wrong… In general it did not seem to be the weekend of Lamborghini, out of 15 GT3 Huracáns only five finished the race after six hours., I really tried everything to improve our times, but there was just nothing I could do. The team put in a lot of effort, but everybody was just puzzled what was going on. We still believe that the reasons for all the problems might be only small details with rather big efects, so we hope Lamborghini can sort them out until the official test day for the 24 hours of Spa at 4th of July. »
Giovanni Venturini (Lamborghini Huracan GT3 #66): « We did not really expect to have to leave Paul Ricad with such an unsatisfying result, but these things happen in racing. We have to live with it, but we will come back stronger than before! »
Press release Attempto Racing
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