Round 2 Driver Quotes

1st nr33 Belgian Audi Club Audi R8 LMS
Gregory Franchi: “It wasn’t a good start, I lost 6 or 8 places after the safety car. The team took the decision to be one of the first to go into the pit lane, and Enzo managed to leave in first position, and after that, Enzo drove really well. Thanks to the team, thanks to Enzo, winning the race is a very good result. Thanks to all the team, all the mechanics.  For me, this is one of my top 3 tracks. Normally we have a bit of a problem with the breaking on the Audi, but with this track, we’ve got a good feeling for the braking zones.”

Enzo Ide: “I was surprised to be in the front. I think we had luck with the safety car, then I just had to manage the rest of the race, but it wasn’t this simple with the Ferrari that was so close to me and the tyres were getting very worn, and the car was moving a lot, but I managed to stay in front of the Ferrari. For me it’s a great achievement. For me, this is my second season in motorsport. I never thought we would win here, and for me, this is unbelievable. Thanks to the team and everybody for this win.”

2nd nr50 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia
Federico Leo: “We are very happy, the whole team and the drivers, that after yesterday’s race that we couldn’t do, to get second place today. Congrats to the Audi to keep the first position, because I thought that Francesco could take him and get first position. The Audi did a very good job in the last laps. I had a few problems at the start. I had a very good start, but in the first corner, a car closed in on me and I lost a lot of positions. The car was okay, we had a few problems with the setup, but it was fine after yesterday. During the safety car, we followed the car in front of us into the pits; we couldn’t enter later as we would lose a lot of places, so we followed them.”

Francesco Castellacci: “Congratulations to Audi, they did a good job. And to Federico. It was tough, because as soon as I was in the car, we were in 5th position, and there was enough of the race remaining, so I tried to take everything easy and use the edge a lot to not make any mistakes, as the important thing today was to finish and get as many points as possible, because we couldn’t participate in the race yesterday. I want to thank the entire team because they did a great job all last night to repair it. The pieces arrived just at the last moment to fix the car, so Ferrari did a great job. At the end, it was good to finish in 2nd position and gain our first points of the year, and the first podium for the Ferrari 458, which is important as the car is brand new. I’m really happy about it. The circuit is really nice; this is my first time here, and I’m looking forward to Silverstone.”

3rd nr44 Heico Motorsport Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3
Brice Bosi: “First of all, I was pretty angry at myself, because yesterday I messed up qualifying a bit because I made a big mistake on the peak of my tyres and we ended up 13th. That’s not the result we expected to have. Therefore, I focused all on my start this morning, which was pretty good. I just ran in the middle, through the other cars, and ended up 5th or 6th by the end of the first lap, which was pretty good. Luck was with me. There were one or two accidents in front of me, and then I could give Dominick the car in 4th position, which makes me very happy. It’s quite tricky to overtake. There are a few places you can, but as we saw yesterday with Dominik’s crash, it’s not that easy to do, but it’s possible. The new Mercedes is a good car. We are very happy to be the first ones on the FIA GT3 podium with that car. We have to learn and improve the car and study all the regulations on the car, but there is potential and we just have to use it.”

Dominik Baumann: “The car was perfect, Brice gave me a perfect car. The tyres were okay so the Ferrari came a bit too fast, and then I couldn’t block him, so I was forced to let him past, but I knew it wasn’t the finish, so I continued to push, and the Lamborghini did some mistakes, so I saw the gap and I headed for it. Now we’re in 3rd place and everything’s fine. The first podium for the team and the Mercedes in GT3. Before we thought we had some problems with the tyres at the end of the race, but we’ve made it to 3rd and everything’s possible.”

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