24h Le Mans
With United Autosports amassing victories in LMP2 and McLaren making a comeback on the Formula One scene, the American manager of the British firm and co-founder of this year’s Le Mans team is having a good season. And he’s holding out for a win on Sunday.
Zak Brown came over from Woking, the UK town where McLaren is based, on Thursday, just a few hours before the qualifying sessions. He couldn’t miss the chance to watch the two Oreca 07-Gibsons perform for United Autosports, the team he cofounded in 2009 with former race driver Richard Dean. Neither car has been beaten this year, be it in the World Endurance Championship (WEC) or the European Le Mans Series (ELMS). Now they’re on a mission to scoop United’s first victory at Le Mans.
“Those six consecutive wins are the result of a great team effort, as is always the case in motorsport,” explained Zak Brown. “It’s having the right mix of skill and people who do the best job they can. My partner Richard Dean has put together a fantastic team and combine their energy. But you can’t have a great team without great drivers, and again, Richard did an excellent job of forming the crews. It isn’t enough to have good drivers; they need to be in the right place. And they are. A teammember can be a weak link in endurance racing. The trio has to be consistent, fast and reliable. In terms of engineering, we’re pretty much faultless this season and I hope it will be so over the weekend. May the good times last!”
“We’re happy in LMP2, and we’re aiming for a class win,” he said. “I’m not saying we’re not interested in an overall win, but if we’re going to be in with a chance of that, it’s more likely to be next year. Who will enter? How reliable will the Hypercars be the first year? You never know, but not this year. Again, we’re happy in LMP2 and LMP3, and we’ve just bought equipment from the Strakka team because we have big plans for the sports car class, in both Sport Prototype and GT.”
While the McLaren 720S seems the likely choice for United Autosports’ return to GT3, the Woking boss isn’t about to side line the Mercedes-AMG GT3. “My day job is running McLaren, but Mercedes will be our partner in F1 as of next year, so I can now say that we’ll be entering McLarens or Mercedes,” he grins.
But that’s all in the future, because this weekend he’s not looking any further than the end of the Mulsanne Straight. “The Hyperpole was really exciting this morning,” he said. “It’s a good idea and should be repeated, and what a lap from Paul [di Resta]. Amazing! But we all know that pole position doesn’t really matter at Le Mans!”
