for wins at the end of the year.
You also reignited that partnership with OAK Racing last year, racing in their famed pink and black colours that they are known for. We had also had the stunning debut of the new Onroak Automotive Ligier JSP2 that debuted at Le Mans with yourself, Jann and Mark Shulzhitskiy behind the wheel, with the new car being on the pace from the very start.
What was the feeling in the paddock when this LMP2 leviathan came onto the scene, especially with the amount of time that you have personally spent helping to develop that car?
We were kind of on the inside, when it came to the team. You can only get a feeling, as a few heads were turned. Everyone on pit lane are pretty confident in the packages they bring to the track, and are kind of doing their own thing.
That was pretty much the same for us, so we don’t worry too much about what other people were saying. But we had good speed, which was the same for all three of us, with Jann and Mark keeping the car safe throughout the night and not putting it into the wall, which is no mean feat.
We arrived at the front with around four hours to go, then unfortunately had the engine gremlins that cost us the win, but I think that we showed what the car can really do and it was tremendously satisfying. This was even considering the amount of development time that no one had seen, whereas everyone had just seen the car pounding round Le Mans lap after lap.
It was a really enjoyable thing for me and the guys worked tremendously hard on the program itself, as the engineers didn’t really go home, as they were going from circuit to circuit, with a lot of testing taking place. Those guys put in the hard graft and it was snatched away from us at Le Mans, but we all left quietly satisfied, but ultimately disappointed with the result.
You’ve also been dovetailing a couple of campaigns this season, which includes the North American Endurance Championship, as well as racing the McLaren 12C GT3 car with ART in the European Le Mans Series. Just give us an insight on how difficult it is, when it comes to managing this type of schedule where you’re flying to multiple destinations. You must also be racking up a few frequent flier miles, when everyone is noticing what a great job you are doing at the moment.