As the World Endurance Championship heads to America to kick off the fly-away stretch, it’s important to sit back and reflect on the season so far. For Jonny Kane and Strakka Racing 2015 has been an exciting but trying year. Successfully rolling out the DOME S103 chassis after an extended period of development, only to push it aside after three races as part of the backlash from the 2017 LMP2 regs has left the team playing catch-up since its cruel exit late in the race at Le Mans.
Nevertheless, Kane, Danny Watts and Nick Leventis have shown on numerous occasions that combined they are capable of winning races, especially after going quickest at the WEC Test at the Nürburgring and then setting the fastest LMP2 time of the weekend during the race weekend a month later. Going forward they should be a force to be reckoned with and going into 2016 they’ll be looking to make a run at the WEC LMP2 title as well as a victory in June.
But Kane knows more than most that winning at the Le Mans 24 Hours is no easy feat. Since his debut in 2001 the Comber native has been back to La Sarthe 11 times, finishing only four times, taking a sole victory back in 2010 during his first season with Strakka Racing. Yet he keeps coming back for more, and in the coming years hopes to achieve further success with Strakka when its LMP1 car hits the track in 2017.
“I didn’t really know what to expect when I went to Le Mans for the first time,” Kane laughed when speaking about his time with MG Sport. “But I was blown away, I remember that just the drive to the circuit was special being an MG driver and seeing hundreds of them pass me on the way. I think over 700 MG owners took their cars that week!
“I remember feeling exhausted before the race even started both years,” he chuckles. “As I spent so much time trying to soak it up, I should have sat back and relaxed when I wasn’t driving. It was worth it though and the MG was the most sophisticated 675 car at that time. It was easier for me because it drove like the Indy Lights I’d been in just before the move, but really, just being able to say I was a part of a British manufacturer’s effort at Le Mans was special.”
His two-year stint with MG didn’t quite go to plan though, as Kane retired in both appearances at Le Mans; with the car suffering from oil-pressure and exhaust issues in 2001 and a gearbox failure in 2002. He would have to wait until 2009, after spending a lot of time across the pond running in the ALMS for the likes of Audi UK, Nighthawk, Aston Martin Racing and Team LNT, to finally cross the line as a classified finisher when he drove with Speedy Racing Team Sebah in its LMP2 Lola.
Racing in America has always been used as a foundation for success at Le Mans. Back when Kane raced at Sebring in the early 00s there were no stable or consistent ACO-sanctioned prototype series in Europe, making IMSA’s American Le Mans Series and its extensions abroad the premier sportscar formula.
While the current situation with the Tudor United Sports Car Championship has reduced the appeal and value of racing at Daytona, Sebring and Road Atlanta each year for the bigger endurance races, there’s still something about racing in The States that excites drivers. Good results over there can can propel careers like it did Kane’s.
“I qualified third on the grid at Sebring when I went for the first time with Nighthawk behind two Audis and that put me on their radar a little. Then Audi Sport UK entered an R8 at Sebring and Le Mans in 2003, so I moved from MG to Audi pretty seamlessly. They had a seat available at Sebring and got the gig,” he explains.
“And that led to me getting a phone call from Dr Ullrich, who asked me if I wanted to be a reserve driver for Bentley’s Speed 8 programme. I would say that other than Le Mans, racing in America, especially at Sebring, is where the best sportscar racing is in the world.
“In America the fans turn up, it’s a real party atmosphere, and at a place like Sebring, the track is so enjoyable. It’s an event teams used to prepare themselves, and for a few of them it still is. It’s a really physical, bumpy circuit to drive. We all really love that event, America is a fun place to be, I’ve been lucky.”
While the WEC doesn’t make the trip to Sebring anymore, the circus still travels to America. Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas is still a pretty new circuit and for Kane and the team it’ll be a real test to see how they adapt quickly to new surroundings. Neither he nor Danny Watts and Nick Leventis have raced there before.
The advantage they have though is continuity, their perfect run at Le Mans five years ago seems like a distant memory now, they know how to get the most out of each other and the car as time has passed.
“We’re a family, we do everything together,” stresses Kane. “We’ve done LMP1 together, we’ve done LMP2, and now we’re looking to the future again with our own car. It’s why I’m staying put, because they make racing so enjoyable. We’ve been through so much, good and bad.”
Strakka always seem to straddle the line between a professional racing team and a close-knit family racing team. From hanging a disco ball in its garage ceiling during Le Mans each year, to running decals on the Gibson out of respect for Justin Wilson following his passing, Kane doesn’t take his position at such a respected team up and down the paddock for granted. It’s been quite stint since 2010, that race laid the foundations for the second half of a lengthy career in sportscars.
“Our first trip to Le Mans was magical, we had the perfect run,” he said when asked about the 2010 LMP2 victory. “We had tough competition from Highcroft that year who had the same HPD ARX-01c as us, but we won because we poured everything into every lap and because we didn’t have any of the usual niggles you have during the race. It was a real testament to our guys, who prepared the car so well that at the end it was still running like a dream.
“I’ve done Le Mans 11 times and somehow only finished as a classified runner in four,” he revealed. “It’s hard to think about because it’s really that tough. So to go out and get a result like that was just spectacular, and it really brought myself, Danny (Watts) and Nick (Leventis) together as a trio. We’ve been through so much since then, we know that having the continuity we do is valuable and rare.”
Prior to the trip to the US, Kane and his teammates have been working hard on Strakka’s in-house simulator to learn the layout of the tricky Lone Star State circuit. The team are serious about scoring good results in the remaining races this year and next with it’s Gibson, so much so that Nick Leventis flew out to the circuit in advance to get some track time before the rest of the series arrives.
It seems that in some ways the season starts now for Strakka Racing, and that a race weekend in America is still seen as a potential catalyst for success.
“Going to a race meeting with the same people over and over again means you know how you all work and it makes learning easier,” concludes Kane. “I’ve seen the track on TV and it looks incredibly fun and challenging, it should suit our car too.
“I can’t wait to hit the track at COTA.”
Stephen Kilbey
