Sam Bird and AF Corse team-mate Davide Rigon will start the season opening round of the FIA World Endurance Championship, the Six Hours of Silverstone, from pole position in the GTE Pro class on Sunday.
The British driver and his Italian team-mate drove strongly during Saturday’s damp qualifying session to take top spot, and believes the AF Corse Ferrari should have a strong performance in the dry race conditions as well.
“So far, so good,” revealed Bird to The Checkered Flag. “We’ve grabbed pole position in the #71 car, so we start in the best place.
“I think the dry conditions should suit us better than the wet, definitely for me as well because I’ve got more experience in the dry, so we’ll see how it goes.
“Long race, we have to be clean, tidy, no mistakes, but we start in a good way.”
Bird heads into the race with very little dry running at Silverstone, but feels the AF Corse team know the plan for the race ahead and how they are going to go about their afternoon’s work.
“We’ve had a bit in FP2, and a bit in FP1 as well,” said Bird said of the dry running. “I think we know what we need to do with the car, where we need to be, what tyres to use, the strategy, the fuel loads, so we have the information necessary in order to compete at the sharp end this weekend.
“Davide will start the race, it’s my first ever one so I don’t think they wanted to put me under too much pressure, and then myself [will take over].”
