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    Comments from the LMGTE Am drivers after the 4 Hours of Shanghai

    Comments from the LMGTE Am drivers after the 4 Hours of Shanghai

    Shanghai 11 novembre 2019

    Emmanuel Collard: "Our pace was excellent, and the car was equally so despite the ballast weighing significantly on the degradation of the tyres and performance, but the result is very positive for the championship and to have a lighter car in the next race”.

    François Perrodo: "Carrying 40kg more than the Porsches, which became 80kg taking Balance of Performance into account, was a difficult handicap to handle. It took me an age to pass the Porsche no. 98, and this probably cost us the podium. That said, even a speedy driver like Nielsen failed to hold off the Porsche, and this is mainly due to the weight difference impacting on the degradation of the tyres, amplified by the long turns. Looking at the glass half full, the ballast situation should be reversed in Bahrain, another track with high degradation".

    Nicklas Nielsen: "We should be delighted with the result, and I want to thank the team for the excellent work they did over the weekend. The ballast was penalising even though, in the end, we managed to set up a car that worked well with the tyres. I tried to compete with the Aston Martins for the final step of the podium, but fourth place was the best result we could have hoped for".

    Olivier Beretta: "The penalty was excessive, especially considering that I had previously suffered a couple of nudges that the stewards hadn't taken into account. In contrast,  my collision was a racing accident, caused by the fact that my rival took his foot off the pedal while I was already accelerating. These are the rules, I accept them. Speaking of the team result I'm happy because it's working very well, the car is fast, and we’re working well with Motoaki and Kei”.

    Charles Hollings: "If we'd had any more luck, we'd have finished higher in the standings. We know we can't yet compete for the win, but in my opinion, we are showing impressive progress, and if we can put the various pieces together, we’ll improve the results. The level of the Am class is very high, but we’re on the right track".

    Giancarlo Fisichella: "It wasn't a good weekend. We had planned a strategy that we had to change in the race, and in the end, I was forced to save fuel with used tyres, so not ideal. At the start, things were going very well with Thomas, who even managed to take third place, but then the other two stints weren’t at the same level. We hope for better at Bahrain even though it's not easy because the level of the category has risen a lot and so we must improve in turn. Our problem is that we’re missing at least 3km/h of speed on the straight compared to the other Ferraris but don't know why. We'll try to analyse the data to become competitive again".