Donington Park Post-Qualifying Press Conference

PRESS INFORMATION 

Post Qualifying Press Conference 

Tom Kristensen – Audi R8 – Pole Position
Oliver Gavin – Saleen S7R – Pole Position GTS Class
Fredrik Ekblom  - BMW M3 GTR – Pole Position GT Class 

Tom congratulations.  What are your thoughts on the circuit?  

Tom Kristensen – “The circuit is great, I all ready knew that last year when I  had the priveledge to drive here in touring cars, so I know the circuit, it’s great.  Last year I came away not happy and the pole the journalist here are telling me is my first in sportscars, which I very happy with.  It’s nice to get another one for Audi.” 

Is the car 100%, or is there more to be found? 

TK – “The car was 100%, maybe not exactly me.  This morning I was a second quicker than the opposition and I was quite confident going into this one, but maybe a little too much.  I tried to make sure I got enough heat into the tyres because the worse thing you can do on cold tyres is to lock the front wheels going into the hairpins and you don’t want to do that on tyres you are going to race on tomorrow.  I was a little bit too calm at the beginning to make sure that had the brake and tyre pressures to push for it, but the first lap was a twenty-one four and I did a twenty-one zero this morning so you can understand I wasn’t quite happy with that, I was a bit off line in turn one.  I made a slow lap trying to decide if I should save the tyres and at the same time Frank (Biela) goes quicker, so I pushed again and I made pole.  I did one more lap to make sure I had taken the best of the tyres because you just want to make sure you have got the best out of it.  Out of the chicane on the back I’m three tenths quicker than my pole lap, but I’ve already taken the best out of the tyres and I lost four tenths in the last two hairpins.  I had a little bit of a scare from Frank, so I wont say everything was perfect with me, but the car was.” 

Your thoughts on driving the race with the GT and GTS crowd.  Is it going to be difficult passing here? 

TK - Yes, you have this nice, picturesque circuit.  You have from turn one all the way down the back straight down to McLeans.  The circuit is curvy and is really nice, with beautiful landscape.  A GT car is constantly on the limit is the smallest kinks, where the prototypes aren’t, which gives us more options but it is still very difficult to pass.  If you are unlucky you’ll be sitting behind someone from Craner Curves until McLeans.  It can take a lot of time out of a prototype lap. 

Oliver Gavin, what is it like driving against someone in an identical machine, which is probably the factory car.  Is that a challenge at all? 

Oliver Gavin – “You could say the RML car is seen as a factory car, but I don’t think they have had a lot of time with the car, they only shook it down on Wednesday so they are having a couple of teething problems.  They are also on different tyres to us, we’re on Goodyear’s and they’re on Dunlop’s and I think that’s a little unproven.  Today I wanted to see how quickly the car would go around here, I haven’t actually raced here in quite some time.  I thought this car would be extremely good around here and I just wanted to see how fast I could go for a couple of laps and got the time down to twenty-eight zero.  I think there was a twenty-seven and a half maybe in the car if I hadn’t made a mistake and got held up, but I was pleased.  It is a shame there isn’t a little more competition here with the Corvettes, that would have been very good to compare ourselves against them again before Le Mans, but unfortunately they haven’t come over here and it would have been nice if there had been a good Viper here.  They’re going to field a very strong car at Le Mans as well and it would have been nice to get a comparison against them.  Konrad Saleen had done a really good job with the car and we’re all very happy.  Qualifying was a bit of a formality and is no way as important as the race because we could have only been first or second in the GTS class.” 

Is the Konrad Team surprised how bullet proof the cars have been with the 12 hour race at Sebring? 

OG – “Well yes and no.  The car was designed to be a sportscar and with the chassis designed and made at RML, they knew the chassis was going to be strong and all the other parts come from around the world and the car is finally constructed in Southern California.  This is the point that Steve (Saleen) wants to put across to people that the car is actually not an RML, it is a Saleen S7 and is built and finally constructed in Southern California.  So it actually an American car, it’s not an RML it’s a Saleen.” 

Congratulations Oliver on your Pole Position in GTS and thank you.  Turning to Fredrik Ekblom, congratulations on the pole.  We haven’t had time to welcome you to the European slash American Le Mans Series, but it’s a great way to come to Britain. 

Fredrik Ekblom – “Thanks a lot, it was a great start for us, we need some points as we didn’t do the race in Texas and then we had an engine problem in Sebring, so for sure this is a good start for us here.” 

As far as that engine problem, it came back to haunt the other half of the team.  Was it disappointing to run your qualifying without your teammates to run against? 

FE – “Yes it was a little bit actually.  It would have been nicer to have the pole if they could have run also, it would have been harder for sure.  But I’m sure they will come back and be really strong tomorrow, even though they will start at the back of the grid.  JJ (Lehto) and Jorg (Muller) are very good drivers so it will be nice to see how well they do tomorrow.  It’s better to start up front than at the back that’s for sure.” 

Will you give any thought to the fact that you are going to have to watch for the other BMW in your mirror eventually over the course of the day? 

FE – “I hope not.  We will see, they are quick but we are quite quick also, so they will have to do a really good job if they are going to catch us.  Maybe they will, maybe they won't, we will see tomorrow.” 

The Porsches had an excellent qualifying session and they seemed to get a little bit closer every session during the course of the weekend.  How big of a challenge will the Porsches be and they seem to have better fuel economy than BMW.  Is that going to be a fact in our two hour, forty five minute race? 

FE – “ They do a really good job with that car and the are very strong competition.  They’re strong point is obviously they’re fuel consumption and I think that is our weak point, so even though we have been quicker in all the practice sessions so far, I think it is going to be really tough for us in the race because maybe we will have to do one more pitstop than they have to.  And then we’re not that much quicker than them, so it’s going to be tough.” 

The BMW M3 is a really  wonderful car to watch out on the race track, how much of a treat is it to drive? 

FE – “It’s really, really fast and it is great fun to drive.  I like to drive sideways a little bit and you can do that with this car.  It has the power and the handling so it is fantastic to drive.”