Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Motorsport prime

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Edition

Global
Race report

Krohn Racing endures many challenges for 7th place finish in GTE-Am at Spa

Although Krohn Racing drivers were able to finish the race and achieve collecting points, it was not as many as they had hoped with only a seventh-place finish.

#57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 Italia: Tracy Krohn, Nic Jonsson, Maurizio Mediani

#57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 Italia: Tracy Krohn, Nic Jonsson, Maurizio Mediani

Lucien Harmegnies

Krohn Racing arrived at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps seeking valuable points in their quest for the GTE-Am championship in the 2013 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC). Although they were able to finish the race and achieve collecting points, it was not as many as they had hoped with only a seventh-place finish.

The 6 Hours of Spa was Round Two of the 2013 FIA WEC eight-race season. The No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458, with drivers Nic Jönsson, Maurizio Mediani and team owner/driver Tracy W. Krohn, started from the eighth position but only managed to climb one position as they overcame numerous obstacles during the six hours.

Davis Brown, Krohn Racing Team Manager/Race Engineer: “It would be an understatement to say it was an eventful race. It was a race where there was a bit of contact, a bit of drama on the track, in the pit lane and behind the garage. We learned quite a lot about the tires during the race, which is very useful information for Le Mans and the future.

#57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 Italia: Tracy Krohn, Nic Jonsson, Maurizio Mediani
#57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 Italia: Tracy Krohn, Nic Jonsson, Maurizio Mediani

Photo by: Lucien Harmegnies

Even though we didn’t really have the pace to fight for the lead of the race, we still learned something from the experience, which is the important thing. We had a few incidents: We had a tire go down immediately after we put it on the car, which made us have to come back into the pits; We had a problem with the seat adjuster, which took a lot of time to resolve in pit lane.

We really don’t know what that is yet but it prevented us from adjusting the seat which did not permit us to be able to fit the different size drivers we have. We got hit by a Prototype when Tracy was in the car and made a slightly early, although not catastrophic early pit stop and we had to change the tires.

We had a penalty early in the race because our driver repeatedly drove over the white lines at the exit of Eau Rouge, which he is not supposed to do, so we received a stop-and-go penalty. Those issues encapsulated the car related action. We also had a theft in the back of the garage where one of the crew’s personal backpack was stolen.

Fifteen minutes later the team managed to apprehend the guy in the Paddock and bring him to justice in true American style. They guy was eventually carted off in handcuffs by the police, which caused a bit of laughter.

Overall, I think we have to regard it as a learning experience. The car was, as ever, well prepared, the pit stops were well executed, and our baseline strategy worked out fairly sensibly. We lacked pace and we had a few issues which made our life more complicated than it needed to be.

We will go away and sort those things out and find out what we need to do to make our car go faster and head off to Le Mans, which is the single most important event of the year.”

Tracy W. Krohn, Krohn Racing Team Owner/Driver, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am: “It was a tough day. It was certainly not the ideal set-up for the car. We clearly didn’t have the right one. It was a tough car to drive for everyone and even more so for me because I don’t get as much seat time as these guys do.

It was all I could do to keep the car on the track. I’m glad we finished. This was a real test and this is a hell of a fast track. If you make a mistake here, it’s not a good end result. All o f these guys out here are good drivers and in the end it was close but it was not a fight.”

Nic Jonsson, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am: “It was a tough day here at Spa. We’ve been struggling all week with the car set-up. We haven’t really been able to nail it down. We’ve been fighting the car pretty much all weekend and could not really get any grip so we’ve been skating around on the surface.

The crew did a phenomenal job. They completely changed the car from yesterday to today overnight and really, really tried hard. I think we got the car a little bit better, a little more consistent. We also tried to double stint tires but it was just a little too much to try to run two stints on the tires here at Spa.

The second half of the second stint got a little too slippery. It was a good try. We just need to go home and look over everything and come back to Le Mans and try to have a strong car for that race because it’s double points and that is obviously very important for the championship.

Today we finished and the car is in one piece, which is important going into Le Mans. We scored some valuable points. Tracy did a good job. Maurizio obviously did a very good job again as well. I think we have a good, solid team and we just need to keep working on the details before Le Mans and beyond that.

We need to get a little more speed out of the car and be a little more consistent so we can be up there fighting for podiums every race.”

Maurizio Mediani, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am: “Our race weekend in general could not have been worse than this. We had a really bad result. I even got a penalty and had to do a stop-and-go. I’m really disappointed that I made this type of mistake. I hope this won’t happen in the future.

Thanks to everybody on the team. Even though we didn’t have a good result, everyone did a good job. We had a puncture with the tire and a problem with the seat and we lost many minutes in the pits for these reasons so we did not make it to the podium.”

Krohn Racing

Be part of Motorsport community

Join the conversation
Previous article A second podium finish for OAK Racing in Spa
Next article Mücke fourth an the second WEC race in Spa-Francorchamps

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Motorsport prime

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Edition

Global