Sunday, 14 April 2013 09:24

Krohn Racing Takes Sixth Place in GTE-Am Class in Round One of WEC at Silverstone

The No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 started the 6 Hours of Silverstone, Round One of the 2013 FIA World Endurance Championship, from the seventh position in class. Although the popular green-and-blue liveried car ran as high as third, they had to settle for a sixth place finish in the GTE-Am class.

New Krohn driver, Italian Maurizio Mediani, started the Ferrari and rotated with team owner/driver Tracy W. Krohn for the first four stints. Nic Jönsson took the Prancing Horse to the checkered flag for the final double stint.
Contact between Tracy and another Ferrari caused some left front damage just before the four-hour mark, which resulted in longer pit stops and the lesser desired sixth place finish.

QUOTES:
TRACY W. KROHN, Krohn Racing Team Owner/Driver, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am:
"Clearly finishing sixth wasn't where we were expecting to be. It's a very disappointing race for us. The good thing is that we finished and we did get some points. We finished eighth last year and finished sixth this year. In two more years we're going to win the thing if you believe in the math.

There were odd things on the track today with the full course yellows and no safety cars. I thought that was very interesting. We had no clue about that. The Race Director, Eduardo Freitas, said he certainly didn't want to call yellows unless he didn't need to but I didn't realize that would be full course yellows without safety cars. I thought that was very odd. Some cars slowed down, some didn't. It just depended on where you were as to what was going to happen. If you were stuck behind the leader of the race, it appeared to be a disadvantage. People would just run on ahead and we saw that with some of the cars in our class. It was disappointing. I was disappointed to take some of the contact we had today. The first race is now behind us and we'll come back and do better next time."

NIC JONSSON, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am:
"It's a little disappointing to have a sixth place finish here at Silverstone today. We should have had a top four car. I think we ran fourth much of the day but unfortunately we had to stop much longer the last two pit stops to repair the front bumper that got damaged with a couple of hours to go in the race. That took us a couple of extra minutes in the pits and the loss of a position. We're disappointed in the start of the season, but we have the team, we have the Michelin tires and the car with the Ferrari 458 to definitely be running out front when we go to Spa in a month or so and we'll put this behind us. Although we finished eighth here last year, we were still third in the championship so we have to keep plugging away and hopefully we'll have a better end result when we go to Spa next month."

MAURIZIO MEDIANI, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am:
"Finishing P6 was not what I expected when I started the race today. Honestly, P6 is not a position that satisfied me. There are many reasons but it means we have to really work together because this season there are a lot of cars compared to last year with good drivers. We have to give everything from our experience and do good jobs to finish with a minimum of the podium. That is what I expect for the future."

DAVID BROWN, Krohn Racing Team Manager/Race Engineer:
"It was an eventful race. It was warmer than it had been in practice but very windy and the grip level went down quite a lot during the length of the race as the track cooled. Tracy got hit a couple of times in the race. The second time resulted in considerable damage to the car, which made all of our subsequent pit stops longer because we had to keep re-repairing the car every time it came in.

There were a couple of unusual yellow situations whereby the entire track went yellow without the intervention of the safety car. This was an entirely unheralded practice by the organizers and it caused us to lose a great deal of time. This certainly was the case on the first yellow because the car we were racing with was on one side of the slow car and we were behind the slow car and we had to slow down because you're not allowed to overtake. Unfortunately, the car that we were racing against was ahead of the slow car and drove off into the distance. That caused us some consternation and also the fact that we didn't realize they were going to do this so it caused some confusion. Certainly around the circuit it seemed to cause some confusion because there were safety car boards shown in some places and not others while they sorted out this very new procedure. It certainly needs looking at.

We finished sixth and we probably had a fourth place paced car. That means we have to do better with a better car and do a better job of our race when we go to Spa in three weeks time, which we will."

The next event for the Krohn Racing team will be Round Two of the 2013World Endurance Championship (WEC) at the 6 Hours of Spa, Belgium on May 2-4, 2013. For more information, please go to www.fiawec.com.

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