3 days ago
- Automotive
- Belfast Telegraph
We've made huge strides as a team to be in contention at 24 Hours of Le Mans: Charlie Eastwood
Preparations for the Fourth Round of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) will get under way on Sunday, with all teams taking part in two three-hour practice sessions.
It is the only extended non-timed running they can take advantage of around the famous Circuit de la Sarthe before free practice on Wednesday and then qualifying later that day.
After the 2024 edition, Eastwood said he was 'super proud' of his team's efforts despite a chronic lack of straight-line performance starving them of real LMGT3 action. At the end of almost 270 laps and 2,260 competitive miles, they crossed the line 15th in class.
However, considerable work has been going on behind the scenes since then to hone and improve Corvette Racing's TF-Sport-run LMGT3 challenger – the Z06 GT3.R – with most of the engineers' focus centring on Le Mans, the blue-riband meeting on the WEC calendar.
Eastwood – a class winner at the Le Mans when he was part of the Aston Martin Racing family back in 2020 – continues his partnership with Rui Andrade and Tom Van Rompuy.
'Both Rui and Tom are driving incredibly well,' said Eastwood. 'We love the car, and we are able to extract speed out of it.
'So, from our side, when you look at the line-up, we are pretty strong in that regard.
'We didn't have a great race at Le Mans last year, but as a team and a car, we have made huge strides in lots of areas so, hopefully, it can play into our favour.
'We haven't had the performance or results on our side, but the thing I am really hopeful about is that as a crew, as a team and as a Corvette programme, we're executing some really good races.
'With the energy side of things, we will probably have 27 pit-stops. Our guys have become super quick at tyre changes and the strategy has been very good in the last few events.
'When you add that up across 26 or 27 pit-stops, versus just four during the course of a race, it can really make a massive difference in the pitlane.'
The LMGT3 grid is growing for Le Mans from 18 to 24, with a third Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG and a third Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R just two of the extra cars joining the permanent FIA WEC line-up.
