Krohn Racing have finished the first event on the 2015 TUDOR United Sportscar Championship calendar, the ROAR Before the 24 and are happy with the team’s progress with their new LMP2 prototype. The outfit have stepped up to a Ligier JS P2 prototype with Judd power for the new year after a long career running Ferrari GTE cars in both the ALMS and TUDOR Championship.
Krohn were one of the few teams to test in every session, getting valuable information on both wet and dry running ahead of the first round of the TUSCC, the Rolex 24 at Daytona. The team agree they have made ‘positive progress’ towards the 24 hour race on the Daytona International Speedway’s road course.
Hayden Burvill, one of the Krohn engineers explained why the ROAR was so vital to the team’s efforts. “The main reason to come to the Roar test, in addition to our previous Daytona test, is that we tested all four of our race drivers, which is an important part of preparing the team to be competitive and knowing the strengths of our driver line-up and how we’re going to deploy them strategically during the race. We got through all of our program. The weather being rainy Sunday didn’t really hurt. I was surprised how few of our competitors went out and used the opportunity to test in the rain. For us, we had already tested in both Estoril (Portugal) and in COTA (Circuit of the Americas) in rain so we’re very comfortable with running in the rain. Now we’re even more comfortable running in the rain at Daytona. We’ve got some ideas now of how we would play our strategy if it rained during the race.”
Tracy Krohn, team owner and one of the four drivers added, “We learned a lot about the car so it’s really good we were here at the Roar this weekend. We had one fundamental matter on the suspension hook up that we changed. We managed to do some other very successful testing. I’m still not happy with traction control, but we’ll get there. Clearly, it’s getting better all the time. We’ve had some pretty interesting driving conditions, both at night along with driving Sunday in the rain. There’s also a good amount of cars on the track. The car has always felt good and I’m very pleased with how comfortable everything feels and I’m also content with the test overall. There are some things we’ll take away from this test and we’ll come back to the race ready.”
Nic Jonsson, Olivier Pla and Alex Brundle will share the Ligier with the team boss when the Rolex gets underway. Pla said, “For me specifically, the weekend has gone perfectly. As a team we have some very good people on the team who are very motivated. The atmosphere of the team, I love. It’s just a matter of finding the right balance in the car. We have been working on it and making progress with learning the Continental tires and how they work with the car. Of course right now, we aren’t up to the speed compared to the other P cars. We need to keep working on our side because it isn’t going to be easy, but I believe the team is ready for the 24 Hours.”
The team’s competitive debut in the P class starts with first practice for the Rolex 24 at Daytona on 23rd January.
