The Schumacher CLRT team presented a spectacular picture for trackside watchers and paddock dwellers at Macau with their pair of chrome-finished Porsches for Porsche factory drivers Laurin Heinrich (#22) and Ayunchen Guven (#11).
DSC caught up with ex-racer, team founder and Principal Côme Ledogar in the paddock to talk about the look and the ambitions for his team, already flying high in one-make Porsche racing.
What are the plans moving forward with the team? It looks fantastic here. The cars look magnificent.
“We are lucky to run with this amazing brand, Porsche, and after our start in Porsche Carrera Cup and Super Cup, it was a step for us, a logical step in a way, to move to GT3 and now to stabilize and to now win races, because that’s the next step.
“I think we are doing an okay job, and we need to step up our game to make sure we are now established as a winning team, which we have not managed yet, but we are really working hard on it.”
What is the plan at the moment? You can tell us for 2026 and beyond: where are the ambitions?
“It’s quite simple, as all ACO championship are quite full, and as SRO, for me, is amazing to work with, even if I do not know ACO exactly, but I believe they are also really nice to work with, but it’s a lot more close world, and I’m very happy with SRO and I have no real reason to move from that.
“And the thing is that we did not win yet. So before we think about anything else, we need to finalize these goals, these subjective targets, and, of course, our main goal is Spa!”
You are developing a reputation for producing cars that arrive and look fantastic. These two cars look magnificent out there. And the cars you’re putting out in Europe too are looking really very good.
“Thank you very much. Let’s say it’s always a compromise. And in Macau, you don’t need to make any compromise.
“And, being the year of the Snake here in Asia, it was quite logical to have a snake on the car. And I think chrome too was a great move for Macao, because we initially planned to run one car, which was the gold one.
“And when the project of shipping another car with Ayunchen came up, we had to do a kind of a sister car, not a European car. So I couldn’t run this one in black European livery, and this one in full Macao livery. So we had to do it quite fast.
“And I have to say, our guys did an amazing job, because I attach a lot of importance of how good, how clean our cars look, because we represent sponsors and a manufacturer. So that was the logic of having a silver chrome car and a gold chrome car.
I hear what you say about the ACO races and their full entry lists, but there are other major endurance races around the world. There’s Bathurst, Suzuka. Are these also something you’d like to target as a team? How tough is it to take those steps?
“As I said, whatever we do, whatever series, it is always our goal to win and to perform. This is why we focus on a small number of cars, to make sure we always optimize our package and every time we leave the workshop, every time we turn the key, we want to make sure that we can win.”
You look happy with this phase of your career?
“It’s amazing. I do not feel I work; we enjoy, we develop, we push hard, we close up the trucks and the workshop, and we go, as a group, to fight for something. And that’s exactly what I want to be doing at this point of my life and my career.”
