Will Stevens admitted he was surprised with the early pace of the Manor Racing LMP2 Oreca during Friday practice ahead of his and his team’s debut in the FIA World Endurance Championship at the Six Hours of Silverstone.
The British racer felt they made the wrong choice of tyre during qualifying, utilising the intermediate rather than the wet tyre, but feels the dry weather pace should enable them to be in contention for a good result on Sunday.
“Yesterday [Friday] was pretty good,” revealed Stevens to The Checkered Flag. “We ended P2, and less than a tenth off which if I’m honest I was quite surprised about, because we’ve only had very little mileage on the car.
“The car felt pretty good, I know that in myself and in the car we still have some more to find, overall I was pretty happy with Friday.
“Today [Saturday] was pretty tricky because it was our first time in the wet with this car. Obviously I need to learn where’s good on inters and wets, and where they work, but I think the wet tyre was sure the tyre to be on in quali.
“We went out on inters and only had two laps on which I had traffic on both, so it was pretty hard to get tyre temperature. It was difficult, but you’re always going to have that in a twenty minute session that you have to split it with two drivers.
“Tomorrow [Sunday] is a new day, we know we’ve got strong pace in the dry. obviously mileage wise we are quite a bit behind the other teams, because I know they’ve all done a lot of testing, but we know already that our pace should be reasonably strong, and we’re looking for some good results.”
