Photo : Jean-Pierre Espitalier - www.Spitoo-photos.com

 

The Test Day was very important for the team since it reached La Sarthe this year with a brand new driving line-up. Christian Klien (Austria, b. 1983) has three Le Mans starts, Romain Brandela (France, b. 1973) only one and Gary Hirsch (Switzerland, b. 1987) had to complete the rookies’ ten mandatory laps.

As he did in the first two rounds of the European Le Mans Series at Silverstone (Great Britain) and Imola (Italy), Klien was the driver in charge of setting good time laps, which he did well, clinching the 4th position in the LMP2 class in the morning session. In the very last minutes of the afternoon session, he was in a flying lap when the Test Day was red-flagged further to a runoff, and his first sectors were faster than the leading car in the class. The good pace combined with the experience gained from the first Le Mans start in 2013 also was helpful for the team to rapidly in the good direction.

The Test Day will also be a weekend to be remembered for Christian Klien, who won the go-kart event on Saturday May 31, competed with driving pairs including a racing driver and a journalist.

Benoît Morand (team owner): “The goal was to do better than the previous year and do find a suitable setup for the car. We scored the fourth time and we would probably have finished in the top 3 without the red flag. Le Mans always is a difficult thing. We learned a lot from the 2013 24 Hours and I am happy with the performance of the car.”

Gary Hirsch: “For me, the most important thing today was to complete my ten mandatory laps and we made it in the morning. We did a big job on the setup to have a stable car which handled well with a good top speed. We did it the right way but at the end of the day, Christian was stopped by the red flag. As far as I am concerned, I learned the trace track, we finished in one piece and the performance is here. All this is very positive.”

Romain Brandela: “This was a great change for me, the Morgan-Judd was fine compared to the car I drove in 2013. This is good for confidence so I can be quicker than the best lap I completed at the end of the race last year. The objective is to improve step by step, not to get confident too rapidly in order to avoid mistakes, because we saw many runoffs during this 2014 Test Day. You have to stay on the track and to be consistent.”

Christian Klien: “This was a busy day, and also a very important day to set up the car on this track. We had lower downforce so we had to change this. The track is improving a lot from the morning to the night so we had to adapt to this. The goal was to gain speed because Gary is new at Le Mans and Romain is competing here for the second time. I think we prepared well for the forthcoming race week.”

The next stage will be the scrutineering in the heart of the city of Le Mans of Sunday June 8. This will be a new chapter in the history of NewBlood by Morand Racing with some surprises to come. “On Sunday we will make an important and interesting announcement,” says Benoit Morand. If you would like to know more, stay tuned until June 8 !

NewBlood by Morand Racing press release

PHOTO: LE MANS (SARTHE, FRANCE), CIRCUIT DES 24 HEURES, 24 HOURS OF LE MANS, SUNDAY JUNE 1ST 2014, TEST DAY.