Image Gabi Tomescu Adrenal Media/FOA WEC
Although they didn’t get to drive in the race, the duo certainly make their mark in qualifying, and were all smiles after beating team-mates Nick Heidfeld, Nicolas Prost and Mathias Beche - who went on to finish fourth in the race - to pole position in the non-hybrid LMP1-L class.
“It’s important to put a little bit of pressure on them,” said Kraihamer. “I think everybody was expecting them to be ahead of us; I’ve been told that we’ll need a lot of time in the car, maybe a year or so to get used to it, but it’s working out well so far on our car.”
For Leimer in in particular, this small intra-team victory came as a significant boost. After four years in GP2, the Swiss finally took the crown last year after a ding-dong battle with fellow sportscar convert Sam Bird which went down to the wire at Abu Dhabi, but with spaces in Formula One at a premium, has now found himself following in the footsteps of Neel Jani, who used Rebellion as a springboard into a factory drive at Porsche.
With significantly more track time than can be found on the Grand Prix support package, as well as the experience of developing a brand new car and the presence of a known quantity like Heidfeld - a veteran of 183 Grand Prix starts no less - as a benchmark to prove himself against, Leimer has kept himself in the limelight and importantly avoided the fate of his predecessor Davide Valsecchi, who lost all career momentum with a frustrating season on the sidelines at Lotus.
“It’s absolutely the worst thing for a driver to have one or two years doing nothing, so for me it was important that I could continue to race,” Leimer said. “LMP1 is very quick and nice to drive; it’s got a lot of downforce, so it’s not like I’m going from a GP2 to a really slow car. For me it’s a nice position to be in.
“I’ve tested a [BMW] DTM car, but this is my first time doing a race weekend in a car with a roof on it. Everything for me was really strange at the beginning, I have traction control and lots of new things like that, but the driving style is nearly the same. Up till now everything’s been working really well.”
Although the R-One will likely face the usual new car teething troubles that the manufacturer teams painstakingly ironed out over months of winter testing, Leimer is grateful to have had the chance at the pre-season test at Paul Ricard and Silverstone to adapt to sportscars with a proven mount, free from worries about new parts breaking.
“So far it’s been quite okay because we don’t have many problems with the car, so that meant I could stay out and learn,” Leimer says. “We’ll be in the new car from Spa and for sure we’ll have some problems because we won’t have had as many kilometres as all the other guys, but up till now in the single-seaters where the car stayed from the beginning to the end I wasn’t changing much, so I’m open to learning, to have a new challenge.”