“Everything went well”, smiled Mathéo Tuscher after completing his first stint at the wheel on Test Day. "I think I got more than ten in". Obviously pleased to have crossed the first hurdle, the Swiss single-seater driver confided: “It was the first time I had driven at over 320kph. The aim was to get used to the circuit and knock off a few tenths here and there. I tried to improve with each lap. I realised that you can better your time on a certain sector and then a slight error can cost several tenths further on. But that doesn’t matter. You can make up for that. A small error doesn’t cost you the whole lap like it does on a shorter circuit." With 60 cars on the 13.629-kilometre circuit, Le Mans is a challenging track and it is difficult to do a completely clean lap.
"The circuit is just as I imagined it. In fact I thought it would be scarier. I really enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to getting back in the car." Tuscher was first in the car on Test Day and therefore had to deal with the public road part of the circuit being dirty. "There was a lot of dust flying up when you were following others. In the Porsche corners there’s a lot of sand. After five laps, there was so much dust on the windscreen, I had to stop to have it cleaned.And I wear contact lenses, so sand flying around doesn’t make things easy!"
Photo: Rookie Mathéo Tuscher will be competing in LM P1 at the 24 Hours of Le Mans on 18–19 June.