Jean-Eric Vergne believes his first experience of the 24 Hours of Le Mans will aid his transition into becoming a top-flight sportscar racer in the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Having completed limited testing prior to the season, as CEFC Manor TRS Racing’s second ORECA 07-Gibson was not delivered in time for the Prologue, 27-year-old Vergne was only able to muster a sixth and seventh in class from his first WEC outings at Silverstone and Spa, alongside Tor Graves and Jonathan Hirschi.
However, the ex-Toro Rosso Formula 1 driver showed that the package has plenty of promise by clocking the second quickest time at the official Le Mans Test Day, completing more laps than anybody else in the 25-strong LMP2 field.
He hopes that the third round of the WEC will mark not only a turning point in the team’s season, but also serve notice of his ability to manufacturer teams in the LMP1 class.
“I came with not much expectation but only to learn, so I’m really happy with everything that I’ve done so far,” said Vergne, the 2010 British Formula 3 champion.
“Being an ex-Formula 1 driver doesn’t mean necessarily that you can be a good endurance driver because it requires different skills that I didn’t need in the past. My goal is to race in LMP1 and I think I proved in the past that I was fast and I knew how to win races and championships, but you need to prove some other things if you want to reach the top level in endurance racing.
“I’m here to learn, but I also want to prove that I am a quick learner and that I can fit in as an LMP1 driver. Obviously Le Mans will be the big learning experience for me, so I will try to be like a sponge and get all the information and experience from this race I can.”
Despite his limited experience of running with a roof over his head, the Frenchman explained that being in the car required little adaption compared to the many quirks of endurance racing, such as sharing a car with team-mates and managing slower traffic.
“I found it pretty easy to adapt because it’s the kind of car that I know how to drive with a lot of power and a lot of downforce. The track is amazing, and before coming I asked many questions of many drivers who knew it, to get as ready as possible.
“I‘ve done my 10 laps now, testing things on the car, and my first ever lap without a slow zone was a 3m32 so I’m really happy with that and can’t wait to be back behind the wheel.
“I think I like the Porsche Curves best, because it’s narrow, high speed, and is the part of the track where you have highest impression of speed between the walls. I like when we feel the danger, it makes us more alive!
“It’s been very clear from the first two races that you don’t win the race with only one driver, it’s the whole team that makes us win. I’m not setting goals too high, we’re quite a young team and we don’t have much experience compared to some other LMP2 teams, so if we can do a race with no mistakes it will be very good.”
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