WEC GT - Krohn Qualifies P6 At Shanghai

Shanghai, Oct. 27, 2012 :Krohn Racing Team owner/driver Tracy Krohn qualified the No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 sixth in the GTE-Am class for tomorrow’s World Endurance Championship 6 Hours of Shanghai race.

The 16-turn, 5.451 km (3.387 mile) Shanghai International Circuit is a new track for all three Krohn drivers. who wisely used the three practice sessions to learn the challenging circuit and set-up the green-and-blue liveried, Michelin-shod Ferrari F458 for Sunday’s six hour race.

TRACY W. KROHN, Team Owner/Driver No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am:

“We have done what we consider a fairly minor change to the car to improve it. We were suffering from understeer all during practice and some of the changes we made were to correct the understeer and we went a little too far on that. As a result we had a great deal of oversteer on the car. We went completely the other way, which made it really hard to drive. I pushed as much as I could with the car but I didn’t want to tear up the tires so I drove about three laps, then backed off for a lap and tried to do two or three more laps. I think my last lap was my quickest one but I was burning the tires up so it wasn’t much point in pushing it hard. We think we know what direction to go know. We achieved our goal of correcting the understeer, we just put too much oversteer in it.

“Shanghai is a great circuit. This is a real track and a very nice facility. I really like the track. I think it will be a really good race. I think it’s going to be very tight. It appears when you walk the track that it’s much wider than it is but when you drive the track, particularly in traffic, it’s pretty narrow.”

NIC JONSSON, Driver, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am:

“It’s a nice facility here in Shanghai. It’s a fun configuration. You have long straightaways and long, sweeping corners with some banking into them, also some hard braking and having to carry a lot of speed into a few corners. It’s a good variation of technical stuff so I think it will make for an interesting race tomorrow here at Shanghai.

“I think we’ve had a pretty uneventful practice and qualifying here so far. I think we’re a little disappointed in the qualifying. I believe we thought we were going to be a little bit faster. From what I understand the few changes we made to the car, along with the track conditions having changed quite a bit, we probably went a little bit too far with the adjustments we made. We have a pretty good idea of what we need to do to fix that and get the car better than it was in practice. That’s why we practice and qualify, to get the best possible set-up for the car going into the race. So far this year, I think we have had the best car in the races and that’s obviously a great testament to the very experienced crew and engineering department we have at Krohn Racing, which makes it even more fun. We hope to have a clean, good race here tomorrow. The Krohn have done a phenomenal job again, as the guys always do. I’m sure we’re going to have a good, quick, reliable car here tomorrow for the drivers to go out and try to have a good race and good finish.”

MICHELE RUGOLO, Driver, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am:

“The circuit is very nice. I thought yesterday that there was no very much grip in the track and did just a few laps this morning in damp conditions, but my opinion is it is very nice. It is a very difficult track, difficult corners especially in the braking part, where you are turning while you are braking, and turning with a lot of banking, like Turn 13. So it’s a very nice circuit.

I think yesterday we had a bit of push. We have worked on the car and today the track conditions changed very much so we went on the other side, the car is a bit oversteering. We can just come back a little bit on the modification we did yesterday and I think the car will be alright for tomorrow. It is a shame that Tracy could not do his best performance in qualifying because there was a bit too much oversteering, but we know the problem and we know how to fix it so it’s going to be okay tomorrow.”

DAVID BROWN, Team Manager/Race Engineer, Krohn Racing:

“We’re enjoying the challenge of setting up the car for Shanghai. It’s a track with a lot of interesting features. It’s quite challenging form a set-up point of view with nice long straights, very tight corners, corners where you have to brake and turn a lot, very low grip, which always means the car is more sensitive to set-up. We’ve done a lot of testing in practice. We think we’re going to have a good race set-up. We’ve got good tires, provided by Michelin. We’ve had a little bit of rain today, just to throw something else into the mix. We expect it to be dry on Sunday. We had quite a sizeable crowd here for qualifying, very enthusiastic, which we like to see. We are really looking forward to tomorrow’s race.”

The TV coverage for the 6 Hours of Shanghai will be streamed live on the FIA WEC official website, www.live.fiawec.com. To check a specific country television broadcast schedule, go to www.fiawec.com for TV distribution information.