Formula One, I felt when the opportunity came to join this team I was immediately sold. The atmosphere and the racing is just so pure and the level of driving in LMP2 is just phenomenal – not just at Le Mans but the WEC in general. If you look at the starting grid at Le Mans, the first ten cars are WEC cars so the level of the championship is extremely high".
That’s what we’re all striving for. Personally I’m a perfectionist, sometimes a
bit too much, but that’s what makes this team work – everyone is very hard but we’re very friendly with each other. We move forward as a team and that’s what makes us such a strong combination. That’s the charm of endurance racing. It’s more of a team sport than anything else.”
Sam Hignett: “Nobody goes racing to be in the second-best category. If that’s your intention, then you end up not racing anymore. If you’re not pushing towards
the front, then you’re sinking towards the back. That’s the enjoyment of the World Endurance Championship. You’re at the pinnacle of your class and you’re constantly striving towards the front. That’s available here where it may not be available to single seater drivers without a budget.”
Would the team look at LMP1 in the future?
Sam Hignett: “As a partnership we would
definitely look at LMP1 but as Alex mentioned it would be very easy to do LMP1 now, spend a lot of money and achieve nothing. Whereas we can do LMP2 for a relatively sensible budget and achieve a lot. So there would have to be the opportunity to go and really feature in LMP1”.
The regulations have definitely made the LMP2 cars faster and more entertaining.
Sam Hignett: “Definitely. The time that Alex did in the Le Mans test day was three-tenths quicker than Martin Brundle’s outright pole with Toyota! That’s pretty cool”.
Alex Brundle: “Where going faster than the LMP1 cars did as recently as 2011. If you watch [the documentary] Truth in 24, Red Sonja was on pole with Marc Treluyer on board, the LMP2 car that was on pole this year was a couple of tenths faster than that”.