Photo by: Philippe Hubert
Rob Kauffman adds endurance experience at the 1000km of Spa
While Michael Waltrip spent the weekend in Darlington with the NASCAR Series, Rob Kauffman and teammate Rui Aguas were adding up kilometers in preparation of the 24 hours of Le Mans.
This weekend they participated in the 1000km of Spa Francorchamps, part of the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, in the #72 Ferrari F430 of the AF Corse team.
During the free practice session on Friday, Rob crashed the car at Eau Rouge and put the team to work to get the car back in time for warm up on Saturday.
With no qualifying session for the #72 car, Rob started the race in the “LM” GTE AM class at the back of the grid. His laptimes during his first one hour stint were very consistent and he was in 10th position in class when he handed the car over to Rui Aguas.
They lost about 15 minutes as there was a problem with the starter motor (which re-occured also later in the race), but Rui Aguas made up some of the lost time thanks to his fast laps.
Rob and Rui’s stints were about an hour each to get as much time as possible behind the wheel of the F430, though it is not the car they are going to drive at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. They have entered a Ferrari F458 in the “LM” GTE Pro class which they will test next weekend (14/15 May) during the 500 Miles race at Imola.
Just 35 minutes before the end of the race, Rob brought the car in with problems due to the crash on Friday. That was the end of their race.
Rob Kauffman: “It was a good experience but is was not our weekend. My disagreement with Eau Rouge yesterday tweeked the car a bit. The team did a great job putting the car together, but we ended the race with a broken right front arm suspension. We are saving our luck for Le Mans”.
-source: rob kauffman pr
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