Strakka Racing finished the Six Hours of Fuji in sixth overall as the third best LMP1 privateer, securing second place in the LMP1 teams’ championship in the process.
The all-British team, with drivers Nick Leventis, Danny Watts and Jonny Kane, were part of a frantic battle also involving the pair of Rebellion Racing Lola coupes and JRM, running an HPD ARX-03a identical to Strakka’s example.
The trio travelled up and down the order between fifth and seventh, falling away from the privateers when Leventis – the only ‘gentleman’ driver in the LMP1 class was at the wheel of the car. However, he renamed close enough to the second of the Rebellion cars that when Jonny Kane took over for a race ending double stint he was close enough to force Harold Primat into an error, spinning out of a podium places to Kane’s benefit.
While privateer victory for the other Rebellion Lola secured the title for the Swiss team Strakka did enough to clinch second in the standings in their first year in the top class of endurance sportscar racing.
“We didn’t expect to wrap the championship up so early, especially with one round to go in Shanghai, so to achieve that is just fantastic,” said Watts. “It’s been a really tough year with lots of travelling and new circuits to learn and the whole team’s worked so hard, and to secure second in the Privateers’ category in our first year in the WEC is a tremendous achievement. It was tough out there today, with lots of accidents to try and avoid, but we did well to stay out of trouble and the car ran faultlessly which meant we were able to put up another solid performance securing our third podium position in a row.”
“I’m absolutely thrilled,” enthused Leventis. “To come second in our first year in the FIA World Endurance Championship in the LMP1 Privateers’ category is a phenomenal achievement for a small team such as ourselves and I think that we’ve definitely proved to the bigger teams and manufacturers that we’re here and we mean to stay. I’m really proud of the whole team and it gives us great momentum going into 2013 when we can hopefully challenge for the outright title. Second is a really good effort and everyone in the team should be immensely proud.”
“I’d like to thank all our partners including HPD, Wirth Research, Michelin, Eibach, ATEC, NEO Synthetic Oil, Inspiron One and Relentless Energy Drink for their support and an exceptional job this year. It was a shame that an unlucky Le Mans cost us points-wise, but congratulations nonetheless to Rebellion, and in particular the #12 car, for doing a fine job all year and wrapping up the championship.”
