Krohn Racing qutes on qualifying at Spa

Friday, May 3, 2013: The Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 spent Friday participating in the two two-hour practice sessions at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps with most of the time devoted to drivers Nic Jönsson for morning set-up and Team owner/driver Tracy W. Krohn to get reacquainted with the long 4.352-mile (7.004 kilometer) Spa circuit. The World Endurance Championship (WEC) 6 Hours of Spa race begins at 2:30 p.m. local time on May 4th.

Krohn and Jönsson had previously teamed to drive Spa-Francorchamps together last year with the WEC and in 2011 in the ILMC series. Third Krohn driver, Maurizio Mediaini, only paced a few laps in late afternoon but was first out in this afternoon’s 30-minute qualifying session. Tracy was the second qualifying driver and their times were averaged together to equate a full qualifying performance. They will start eighth in the GTE-Am class for the 6 Hours of Spa race tomorrow. There will be a 20-minute warm-up session in the morning.

TRACY W. KROHN, Krohn Racing Team Owner/Driver, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am:
“It’s been a little confusing day. The set-up has been a little more difficult than normal for us, at least for me. Nic and Maurizio have been able to drive through it a little better than I have…a lot better than I have actually. There is still something in the set-up that we haven’t gotten quite right. We made a pretty drastic change for qualifying and it was better but it wasn’t consistent. It was good for a couple of laps and then the car just went away faster. We’re going to work on that a little bit tonight for tomorrow.”

NIC JONSSON, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am:
“This morning we started out with a little damp conditions with intermediates (tires) and then we went to slicks. We were quite quick the first hour or so and then as the track started to dry out, we seemed to have much more difficulty to get any grip out of the car. The car is kind of sliding on top of the surface it feels like. All think all three of us, Maurizio, Tracy and myself, had the same feeling that we can’t attack the corner without getting lose going in. If you don’t attack the corner, you have way too much push coming off. It’s a very difficult condition right now trying to find a good balance on the car for full stints. In qualifying we could put one good lap in but as soon as you put one or one and a half lap on the tires, you seem to have the same problem again with very low grip. We’ll have to go back to the drawing board tonight and come up with some different set up for tomorrow to be more competitive for the race.”

MAURIZIO MEDIANI, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am:
“We are here in Spa with weather much, much better than Silverstone. After Silverstone I got a cold for 10 days. Here it is better. Compare to this morning, when it was wet, the track conditions this afternoon were better. We had a big improvement on the lap times. We can be happy with our best laptime we did in qualifying.

“Of course, we have to work in a way to adapt our car and our driving style because we are intrigued by the car. The new type of Michelin tires are a big diameter in the front. I think this is the way we have to follow from here into the future. Tomorrow we will have a morning warm-up, hopefully with dry conditions. With this we can adjust with one more step of the set-up of the car to have a good race.”

Krohn Racing