An almost perfect weekend for Speedy Team Sebah
Saturday, September 19, 2009
The weather was mild all weekend long in England for the last round of the 2009 Le
Mans Series at Silverstone, and even though clouds appeared in the sky on Sunday
morning, they didn’t prevent SPEEDY RACING TEAM SEBAH from standing on the
podium for both of their cars.
The first free practice session started smoothly for the #13 Lola-Aston Martin LMP1,
driven by Andrea Belicchi, Marcel Fässler and Nicolas Prost, even though a broken
damper interrupted their set-up work schedule. After the team quickly changed the
faulty part, the beautiful British car was soon back on track to find the best race setup.
Andrea Belicchi set the fourth fastest time in qualifying, which demonstrated that
SPEEDY RACING TEAM SEBAH worked in the right way for the race. Moreover, the
crew posted the second fastest lap during the warm-up, and confirmed the car’s
potential.
Andrea Belicchi had a good start to the race and fought for the lead with two of the
works Lola-Aston Martins, as well as the pole-sitting Oreca car. These four cars took
turns in the lead one after the other, depending on the pit-stops. Nicolas Prost then
took over in the #13 and drove a faultless double-stint. He took the lead when he
boldly passed the #007 Lola-Aston Martin into Stowe Corner. Emerging from the
pitlane in fourth place after a pit-stop to hand over to Marcel Fässler, it was not long
before the #13 car was back in the lead of the race. Marcel consolidated the lead
with his fast pace, but unfortunately the team were instructed by the race officials to
make an unscheduled pit-stop to replace a damaged bodywork louver a few laps
before crossing the finish line. Despite a short pit-stop to carry out the repair, the car
finished second, whereas a great victory had been within reach.
Andrea Belicchi: “We could finish the race and we would have won it without this
small problem. We have been fast all along the season. Second place is a good
result, and I am happy.”
Marcel Fässler: “I am disappointed because I think that we could have won this race,
but second place is still a good result. We demonstrated that, had the car been
reliable, we would have clinched a good result at each race. I would have settled for
second place at the beginning of the weekend, but as a race driver, I always want
more! Especially because the victory was so close.”
Nicolas Prost: “We had a great race with a strong performance from all the drivers
and we lose the race because of a technicality. This is life, but it is hard to swallow at
the moment. The car and the Michelin tires were great, as well as our strategy. We
did better than we were expecting because our pace during the free practice and
qualifying sessions has not been good. We were there at the end.”
sebah-racing.com
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