24h Le Mans
In the 12th FIA World Endurance Championship podcast called WEC Talk, the mic was given to driver Robin Frijns, LMP2 class winner at this year's 24 Hours of Le Mans with Team WRT.
Team WRT driver Robin Frijns sat down with WEC Talk host Martin Haven about his rookie 24 Hours this year, his auto racing journey and his hopes for the Bapco 8 Hours of Bahrain season finale. Joining him was Team WRT owner Vincent Vosse who shared his thoughts on their bittersweet Le Mans win and his extremely diverse career in sports cars.
The battle in LMP2 at the 89th 24 Hours of Le Mans will remain seared in the memories of all who watched as one of the most exciting finishes in the history of the race. Only seven-tenths of a second separated winner Team WRT from JOTA who ended up taking second place. There was also a huge sense of disappointment for Team WRT's other car on its way to victory in the class before stopping at the edge of the track in the final lap.
When asked about his rookie participation in the 24 Hours, 30-year-old Dutch driver Robin Frijns said: "We were leading overnight and then in the final three hours everything started to go wrong. We had an air jack issue so we were losing time in the pits. Then we had a tire failure too. I was feeling stressed towards the end, the car had some issues and I was losing around four seconds each lap. I was desperately holding onto P2 and then I remember hearing on the radio that the sister car had stopped. I saw it then myself and I was heartbroken for the guys, but I tried to keep it together for that final lap knowing (Tom, Ed.) Blomqvist was just behind me on better tires and closing the gap massively."
Team WRT owner Vincent Vosse: "In motorsport they always say that the race is not over until you cross the finish line, but at Le Mans this year, everything was running perfectly for our #41 car. We had no warning of what was to come. It was mixed feelings to see half of my team go to heaven and the other half having a nightmare. But we should not underestimate what it takes to bring two cars to Le Mans for the first time and for them to be in 1-2 coming into the final lap."
Team WRT trails JOTA by only one point in the championship LMP2 teams classification, quite an impressive achievement for a team competing in its very first FIA WEC season.
Frijns shared his intentions for the last two rounds of the year: "I know Bahrain pretty well, I did GP2 and a Formula 1 test there, so I know what to expect. If nothing major goes wrong, I think we will have a really good chance of securing the title. It would be amazing for WRT jumping into the WEC for the first time to take the LMP2 world championship title. That’s definitely our goal.”
The 12th WEC Talk podcast is available here.
