Larbre Corvette posts best 2015 finish at Mt Fuji
2015 marked Jack LeConte’s Larbre team’s 10th appearance in Japan. Experience paid off as the C7.R Corvette qualified on the pole for LMGTE Am. But a penalty fora fuel cell vent valve infraction that had passed inspection at previous WEC races this season put them back to last at the start.
Torrential rain brought out the pace car for the first 45 minutes of the 6 hr race. Following advice from Michelin tech, at the first pot stop the team stayed on wet tyres.
They should have changed to intermediates. The tyres wore out when the rain let up sooner than expected. Sometimes pit stop strategy can go wrong.
The team fought back after a late ill-timed pit stop, coming up just short of third place podium. The Larbre Corvette finished ahead of a Porsche 911 RSR, Ferrari 458 Italia and Aston V8 Vantage as time ran out.
19 year old Nicolei Sylvest replaced fellow Dane Kristian Poulsen and is slated to drive the next race at Shanghai’s Formula 1 circuit in China.
