In just his third FIA World Endurance Championship appearance, Finn Gehrsitz cemented his status as a star of the future at Spa-Francorchamps yesterday, by claiming an historic pole position in the LMGT3 category.
Having finished fourth in the Qatari curtain-raiser and third last time out at Imola, Gehrsitz arrived in Belgium sitting second in the standings alongside Akkodis ASP Team stablemate Arnold Robin. Maintaining that stellar momentum, the young German built upon a solid qualifying performance by Robin – fifth-fastest in the opening part of the session – to outpace all of his rivals in Hyperpole by almost three tenths-of-a-second.
In so doing, Gehrsitz not only secured his own first pole in FIA WEC, but also the first for Akkodis and Lexus as a brand.
“From a young age already, it was my biggest dream to compete one day in FIA WEC,” the 20-year-old reflected. “From karting, it was already clear that I wanted to become one day an FIA WEC driver, but it has been a long road to get here, coming from the Le Mans Cup and European Le Mans Series into the highest level of endurance racing.
“For me as a young driver, it’s a really tough championship and it’s a hard fight out there, but I think through this, I just learn and grow. We can already see the progress we’ve made since Qatar as we get better and better from session to session.
“The pressure was definitely on in Hyperpole, because tyre degradation was really high. The key was to prepare the tyre well to get it into the right window for the one ‘push’ lap that we had because there was immediately a drop. We had only one lap where we could show the full performance of the tyre and car, and I’m super-happy that it worked out.”
Although Clemens Schmid in the sister car was unable to take to the track in Hyperpole due to an issue, Akkodis Team Principal Jérôme Policand – who prides himself on discovering and nurturing young talent – was nonetheless delighted with the squad’s performance, as the Lexus RC F LMGT3 continues to go from strength-to-strength in its sophomore season in the series.
“Last year was a bit a dream to reach such a championship as FIA WEC,” reflected the Frenchman, a former podium-finisher in-class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. “It was a goal of the team for 25 years, and then also a bit of a nightmare, because we started last in our first few races but we never gave up, and that’s part of racing.
“It is a team effort, for sure. It was the first time we have received support from a manufacturer – thanks to TOYOTA GAZOO Racing for helping us to develop this car. The aero map is different to the IMSA car, so we have had to re-learn everything.
“Then we had some flashes of speed at the end of last year. No-one noticed really, but we knew we were close. Then over the winter, we tried to improve every weak point we had, and now that’s paying off.”
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