JACKIE CHAN DC RACING X JOTA SPORT WILL START P7 & P12 AT LE MANS
JACKIE CHAN DC RACING X JOTA SPORT will head into 2019 24 Hours of Le Mans with #Mighty38 from seventh place and #Fortunecat37 from twelfth place on the grid in LMP2 class, for the final round of 2018-19 FIA World Endurance Championship at Circuit de la Sarthe.
In the final two qualifying sessions prior to the Super Finale of WEC Super Season, Stephane Richelmi clocked the fastest lap time of the #Mighty38 car that he shares with Ho-Pin Tung and Gabriel Aubry with 3:26.821 in the penultimate session, improving significantly from Wednesday.
The #Fortunecat37 car driven by Ricky Taylor, David Heinemeier-Hansson and Jordan King registered its best lap time 3:28.049 with Taylor behind the wheel at the opening minutes of the night session, before it became messy due to several incidents including a red flag and consequently prevented both cars from further improvement because of the massive traffic in the closing stage.
Thus, the two China-flagged ORECA 07-Gibson cars run by JOTA Sport will start from fourth and sixth row on the starting grid respectively, with #Mighty38 ahead of #Fortunecat37, in the classic race in which only the car finishing first at the end of the 24-hour period will be crowned.
Despite the interruption, the Chinese endurance racing team, which is a collaboration between Jackie Chan DC Racing and JOTA Sport, focused on race preparation for the showdown of the battle for WEC LMP2 championship.
While both cars as are in the contention for teams’ championship, the trio of Tung, Richelmi and Aubry carries an additional mission to fight for drivers’ title.
The traditional drivers’ parade will take place today in the city centre of Le Mans, where all 162 male and female drivers from 62 entrants will be cheered by world motorsport enthusiasts.
Having won five of the previous seven WEC rounds, Jackie Chan DC Racing x JOTA Sport will now concentrate on preparing for the Saturday morning warm-up ahead of the 87th running of 24 Hours of Le Mans, which will be started by Princess Charlene of Monaco at 15:00.
David Cheng, co-founder of Jackie Chand DC Racing
Qualifying in Le Mans is always challenging with 62 cars on track at the same time in terms of traffic management. Both cars and the drivers showed great speed and potential. It was a bit unfortunate that yesterday we had so many red flags and full course yellow that ruined a few good runs for us. But we have the front running pace, and although we know we have the car to challenge for pole, what we are focused on is the race as both cars will be challenging for the world championship title and that will be most important!
Sam Hignett, director of JOTA Sport
A little bit unlucky in the final qualifying session. But all our drivers performed well in the day running and night running. Starting at the front of the midfield is really good place to be for us. Most importantly, we’ve shown the potential in both cars. So now we will have to prepare the car carefully and look forward to a good race.
Final Qualifying Result:
#Mighty38 Tung/Richelmi/Aubry 3:26.821 P7
#Fortunecat37 Heinemeier-Hansson/King/Taylor 3:28.049 P12
