Here is what driver had to say after round 1
Francesco Giardinetto, LMGTE Am, Carloni Racing Red #81 – P4 in class, P22 overall
It was looking good before everything went wrong. First for us in GTE and for some of us the first experience in an rF2 endurance. Potential was there, at one point I think we were leading our class and looking quite good in the overall. Unfortunately some contacts happened, we have been forced to pit earlier then expected: to try and salvage a good result, we tried an extreme fuel saving strategy. At the time of the last stop, I realized that we were gonna struggle to bring the car to the finish line. I kept reducing the pace to the point that it was really awkward, I think that Porsche might give us a call for eco friendly initiatives. Still, very happy for the recovery of the #82, they didn’t have much luck in the first hour and they came back fighting for the win! They have been amazing, and the support in the chat was incredible #teamricotta.
Petr Lichnovsky, LMGTE Pro, Panica Gaming #74 – P1 in class, P10 overall
We are extremely happy with the result. Our goal for this season was to fight every race for top 5 places and try to finish once on podium. And we won first race! We knew last season Road America was difficult race with many crashes and full course yellows. So we tried to avoid crashes and survive. Arkadiusz had great first laps and got to third position. Other cars like Wave, Mugen, Wave junior team and HG Bluebolt had great pace but we were still fighting for podium finish. After two and half hours we used code 80 for pitstop, but i forget to change tires and lost position to Streetwise car. But when Streetwise car tried to overtake Wave junior car for second place they colided and i almost got involved but i somehow managed not to crash into that reversing Corvette, but with destroyed tires i had to stop for new tires.
When Arkadiusz got back to car he had strong pace and secure our podium finish. Also other Wave car got unlucky and we took the lead. Arkadiusz made the gap to second place big enough for me to drive carefully and we knew that both HG Bluebolt cars will go for splash at the end, so we tried to bring it home. This is historical moment for us. In this extremely competitive field full of the greatest teams in rfactor 2, its like dream come true for me. Other drivers from Wave congratulated to us and that was really nice from them. Thank you guys.
Riccardo Corazzari, LMGTE Pro, Wave Freem eSports #99 – P5 in class, P15 overall
Well that wasn’t the way I was expecting to kick-off the season. Starting from qualy when I screwed up my 2 laps not being able to go below the 2 minutes flat barrier, then at the “Green” when I had to deal with the polesitter blocking me and the car behind hitting in turn 1 braking zone. But in the end I was able to carry on and on old tyres we were pretty strong as expected, even with the aero damages. With Scalvini in we took a comfortable gap but later in the race I was involved in a massive crash with 2 cars at The Kink: I’m extremely sorry for that but honestly I almost did not have time even to realize. No way to go there, so more than 7 minutes repair, and we did the best to re-calculate the strategy and maximise. In the end P5 is more than a decent result for the crash we had. Congratulations to Panica for the race win, they did a totally clean race and it paid off. Next one for me is COTA, see you there!