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Monday, 02 September 2013 08:36

Krohn Racing Places in Top Five in GTE-Am Class at WEC 6 Hours of Sao Paulo

The 6 Hours of Sao Paulo race brought a fifth place finish to the No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 of Tracy W. Krohn, Nic Jönsson and Maurizio Mediani. An early stop-and-go penalty of three minutes was assessed to the Krohn Team for an engine change after qualifying, which spoiled their attempt for a podium finish.

Jönsson and Mediani's combined qualifying time earned them the sixth starting position, although they dropped as low as eighth following the penalty. As with most WEC races this season, the race was filled with plenty of on-track action

Maurizio started the race and drove two full stints, much under caution before turning the popular green-and-blue Ferrari over to team owner/driver Krohn just before the two hour mark. Tracy rotated stints in the cockpit with Nic, who brought the car to the checkered flag. The fifth in class position was also 18th overall.

QUOTES:
TRACY W. KROHN, Krohn Racing Team Owner/Driver, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am:
"It was nice to finish. We were very disappointed at the start of the race to get a penalty. I wasn't aware of that in the rules book. Our engine tuner, Michelotto, decided that we needed to change engines because we had an issue. The one we were using was the one I crashed with in practice at Le Mans. After we had an extremely long parque ferme last night, they were running the engine and noticed a very pronounced noise coming out of the top of the engine. Michelotto told us we needed to change the engine, which we did, based on their recommendation. I guess that wasn't a good enough explanation for the FIA. The rules are that if you change engines you have a three minute penalty stop-and-go, however there is some language for force majeure that provides for things you can't forsee. This was an engine that was involved in a wreck before and we kept it. Probably in retrospect we should have changed it then but we'll get to the bottom of that later on. I'm not quite sure how to manage this going forward but I can tell you that we've got to run it for the rest of the season.

Having said all that, I feel like everyone else drove really well. I drove well. I had a little ergonomic issue early on in the race which caused me to spin. Other than that we ran very well and the race was pretty non-eventful for us, except for the stop-and-go penalty. Nic and Maurizio did their normal stellar job driving the car and I felt like I was reasonably competitive with the other Am drivers. We look forward to hopefully coming back here next year."

NIC JONSSON, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am:
"My stints were alright. I was really just out there making sure I was taking care of the equipment and the car because we were already three laps down because of the penalty we got after changing the engine after qualifying, which nobody knew last night. It was a big disappointment to be assessed a penalty after the green flag. Otherwise, the Krohn guys have done a phenomenal job again and gave us a good, solid car. We struggled a bit through practice and qualifying but the car was quite good in the race. I think we definitely had the pace for a podium today. I think the Aston Martin was a little bit in a class of his own but other than them, I think we had the pace to be there with everyone else.

We are really looking forward to coming back home to Austin, which we are considering our home track. I feel we should have a really good shot. We are going to have high temperatures there, which I think a lot of these guys are going to struggle with. Hopefully we're a little better conditioned for that and we can get a little bit of an advantage, especially since we've run at that track before. Tracy and I did a Grand-Am race there earlier in the year in the Daytona Prototype and I did a World Challenge race later on so we have plenty of time on the track and we plan to take advantage of that when we get to Austin and get a victory this year."

MAURIZIO MEDIANI, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am:
"The plan was for me to do a double stint. That's why at the beginning of the race I saved a bit of myself and the car to be balanced from the beginning to the end of my stint. But the safety car came out and I had to slow down for much of my stint but it was not a problem. I finally had the opportunity to push three or four laps from the end of my stint and the lap times were quite good and I had a good pace."

DAVID BROWN, Krohn Racing Team Manager/Race Engineer:
"The race started in an unorthodox fashion with a three minute stop-and-go penalty which we incurred due to the fact that last night the engine was making strange noises and after much investigation between ourselves and our engine and chassis supplier, Michelotto, we decided to change it because we thought it was a source of unreliability for the race. We really did not think it would make it through the six hour race. Unfortunately, the penalty for doing that is a three-minute stop-and-go penalty. The only caveat to that is if the engine was damaged during an accident rather than being removed for the sake of reliability. We took our penalty, lost two and a half laps and set about trying to get back into the race. We had a strategy mapped out for an orthodox race but we abandoned that in order to try to regain track positions, particularly with the safety car sessions. We finished fifth in the end."

The next event for the Krohn Racing team will be Round Five of the 2013World Endurance Championship (WEC) at the 6 Hours of Austin, Austin, Texas, USA on September 19-21, 2013.

For more information, please go to www.fiawec.com or www.krohnracing.net. Follow us on Facebook/Krohn Racing or Twitter @KrohnRacing.