Photo: Strakka Racing
The FIA Endurance Trophy for Private LMP1 Teams may have already been awarded to Rebellion Racing, but this fact won’t deter the British Strakka Racing team in its quest to finish its debut season in the FIA World Endurance Championship with a victory.
The No.21 HPD ARX-03a with the distinctive British flag on its fin will be hoping to clinch a class victory in the forthcoming 6 Hours of Shanghai, emulating its success in the Middle East a month ago where it not only achieved this goal but also finished third overall in the final classification. The team has an impressive record in the 2012 season of finishing on the podium in all seven of the FIA WEC races to date.
The all-British line up of Nick Leventis, Jonny Kane and Danny Watts have had a busy time since the 6 Hours of Fuji and have been scattered around the globe. Irish driver Jonny Kane, a former British F3 Champion, returned to the UK to see his young family, Nick Leventis went to a Strakka Performance training camp in Phuket, Thailand, while Danny Watts travelled to Hong Kong and Macau for media commitments in preparation for November’s Macau Grand Prix event.
Danny Watts, No.21 Strakka Racing HPD ARX 03a: “After my single seater career came to an end, I did a huge amount of racing in China. I’ve got a lot of friends over there; in fact, one of my best friends lives in Hong Kong and he always organises my trip to Macau each year. I’ve raced in Shanghai before; I did the Aston Martin Asian Series race there when it was a support race to the Formula 1 Grand Prix in 2008, and I finished second. I enjoyed the circuit a lot because it has a good mix of everything. It’s got a seriously long straight and plenty of slow speed corners, some of which are hairpins and others that seem to go on forever. Aerodynamic set-up is going to be very important, and that’s going to be the technical challenge we face in getting the best out of our car. We may even have to have a different set-up in qualifying to what we have in the race, which will make the work we do in the free practice sessions all the more important.”
Dan Walmsley, Strakka Racing’s Team Manager: “Shanghai is a fitting end to our first World Endurance Championship year as it epitomises the calendar – it’s got a bit of everything! Another huge straight means we need good speed, but the mix of tightening radius corners and high-speed turns means we need an efficient set-up. That’s the challenge our engineering team faces and I’m sure we’ll make the right call. We are also trying some developments for 2013 in this final weekend as we continue to push the performance window of the car. I’m delighted with the team’s effort this year and although we didn’t win the championship it was never likely with the points system favouring two car teams over single entrants like Strakka, and so we’ve done the best we could and are very proud. Next year the points system changes to bring equality to all privateer entrants and so we expect to challenge for the title next year.”
Fiona Miller (quotes from Strakka Racing press release)
Photo: OYAMA-CHO (SHIZUOKA PREFECTURE, JAPAN), FUJI INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY, 6 HOURS OF FUJI, SUNDAY 14TH OCTOBER 2012, RACE.
