British-Korean driver Jack Aitken maintained his 100% winning record in the second round of the European Le Mans Series at Imola, finishing seventh overall and dominating the Pro-Am category.
Coming into the weekend off the back of an opening-round victory at Paul Ricard last month, Jack and his Racing Team Turkey by TF Sport team-mates Salih Yoluç and Charlie Eastwood were on stellar form and began strongly in practice.
The trio were 13th quickest overall – and sixth in class – at the end of Friday morning’s opening practice session before setting the third fastest time overall – second in Pro-Am – in the afternoon. The #34 Oreca qualified eighth on the grid and fourth in class, with Yoluç starting the four-hour race on Sunday.
Unlike others around him, Yoluç stayed out of trouble on the opening lap of the race and, despite dropping two places to 10th overall, the car made it to the end of the first hour (which was interrupted by two safety car interventions) in sixth place, just under nine seconds off the lead.
Five more full course yellow periods followed in the race, heavily disrupting the flow, but Jack was able to consolidate the team’s position at the top of the Pro-Am field, with the #34 crew closing in on the top five approaching the end of the second hour.
Despite the safety car periods, Jack maintained the car’s strong pace and position on the track, leading Pro-Am comfortably to come home a creditable seventh overall. The #34 car was the only Pro-Am car to finish on the lead lap, with the nearest competition a full two laps adrift at the chequered flag.
Having scored maximum points from the opening two rounds of the season so far, the team leads the standings with 50 points, 17 clear of its second-placed rivals, TDS Racing X Vaillante heading into the next round of the season at Monza in July.
Attention now shifts towards the second round of the ADAC GT Masters this weekend with Emil Frey Racing. Jack returns to his Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO alongside team-mate Albert Costa Balboa for two one-hour races at the Red Bull Ring in Austria. The races take place on Saturday and Sunday, each with a 13:00 CET/12:00 GMT start time.
JACK ON… CONTINUING HIS UNBEATEN 2022 FORM
“It’s great to start the season in such a strong fashion. We need to take every opportunity we have to score points because you never know what’s going to happen later in the season. But we’re looking pretty good right now, the aim is to keep this trend up and build on the strong performances we’ve had so far this year and hopefully move even further up in the overall standings.”
JACK ON… HIS STINTS IN THE CAR
“I was the last one in the car, so Salih and Charlie got us into a comfortable Pro-Am lead and when I came out of the pits, we were in P8 overall. It was a pretty smooth race all told, no real mistakes or incidents which a lot of other people suffered. It was quite a race of attrition, but we kept things clean, I was able to move up a couple of positions overall towards the end with good pace, but we weren’t taking too many risks because we had such a comfortable lead in the class.”
JACK ON… THE LESSONS LEARNT FROM DRIVING A PROTOTYPE
“It was a little bit challenging; I didn’t really get much of a rhythm in the race, particularly in the first stint I drove because I was on used tyres which makes it even harder to fire them up every time you lose temperature under full course yellows. But I was able to bring it home in one piece, not make any errors when the tyres weren’t at their best, which was the main objective in the race.”
JACK ON… THIS WEEKEND’S GT MASTERS RACES
“The aim is clearly to build on the opening round and fight for the top five across the weekend, and generally be a lot more consistent so we can build towards the championship. The Red Bull Ring is a track that I do have experience of, unlike some of the other tracks on the calendar, so there will be less of a learning curve. Hopefully, we can have some pace there, historically it’s not somewhere where the Lamborghini has been the strongest, but we’ll see what we can do. Because it’s such a short lap, there’s a bigger emphasis on marginal gains and making sure everything is dialled in, so if the car is working well, then there are advantages to be had. The aim is to have a strong qualifying and be comfortable in practice as that will set up the weekend.”
Source. Jack Aitken
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