An early morning pre-qualifying catch up with JMW Ferrari driver Daniel McKenzie was an interesting way to start race day here at Imola. The 25 year old shares the 458 Italia with Daniel Zampieiri and George Richardson this season and has fitted in to endurance racing quickly after just a handful of races with the Beechdean Aston last season.
The JMW trio will line up 8th in the LMGTE class for this afternoons 4 hour race after a fraught qualifying session saw Zampieiri finish the session off the circuit after excessive use of the kerbs at Variante Alta (see below, lovingly captured by Pedro!)
A solid 5th place in the LMGTE class at Silverstone last time out saw the three drivers bond well together and after a promising free practice session on Saturday afternoon there is plenty of optimism in the team for a strong result this afternoon
“We are quietly confident, yes,” says McKenzie, whose career is overseen by 1992 Le Mans winner, Mark Blundell. “It’s really difficult to tell where you are after Free Practice really. Teams are trying lots of different things tyre wise, different compounds and combinations, new and old rubber but ultimately we were satisfied with our overall programme yesterday.”
Tyres are going to be a critical issue at Imola today. JMW are starting their second event on Michelin rubber after years with Dunlop. How does McKenzie feel the tyres will perform for the rest of the meeting?
“We used one set of tyres in the morning yesterday and one in the afternoon so considering that we were fairly happy with the way things went for us”, he said. “We are in the ballpark pace wise. It is quite a challenge for George (team mate – Richardson) and me as we haven’t been to Imola before but we both seemed to get in to the groove fairly well.
“With there being only one real line here at Imola it is going to be critical on how you manage these situations because you don’t want to impact upon your own race or destroy your tyres too much on the marbles.
“We should get two or three laps out of the rubber. We have medium and medium hard tyres from Michelin here so they should last slightly longer but there will still be a peak. The big question here is traffic. Even though the sessions are split there will still be 28 GT’s on the track in quali.
“In the race I think tyre management will be critical. I see a lot of people taking too much out of the tyres early on and then suffering. The drop off comes quickly but on the first stints they are super consistent. We’ll see how it goes but I think there will be lots.”
There has been a lot of discussion in the paddock about the sheer speed of the Ferraris and how difficult it is for the LMP2 cars to make clean passes.
“Straightline wise we are very strong. The LMP2’s get a good traction and slingshot out of the slow and medium speed corners but by the end of the straight their terminal velocity is less than ours. In a way it is a bit annoying because ultimately you want to let them passed and get on with your race but at the braking zones they are usually not close enough to execute a clean move. So I can see a lot of late dives down the inside going on which is of course something you ultimately don’t really want.”
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Sam Smith
