Fuji pole winner Alex Lynn has revealed that he was “determined” to present Cadillac its first prime spot in World Endurance Championship qualifying after a string of near-misses.
Lynn said that he “actually, actually wished the pole” after qualifying within the prime 4 within the WEC’s Hypercar class each trip for the reason that Spa spherical in Could.
“So many instances we’ve missed out by a tenth or this or that; [there are] such nice margins,” mentioned the Briton, who shares the solo Ganassi-run Cadillac V-Collection.R with Earl Bamber.
“I really feel personally that I’ve pushed the workforce actually onerous to look into the small print and to seek out these micro-seconds. That’s the way you enhance – marginal positive aspects.”
Lynn, who sealed Caddy’s first WEC pole after discovering 9 tenths on his second push lap to get all the way down to a 1m29.901s, revealed the 2 qualifying classes on Saturday had been on “the knife-edge”.
He defined how he had been pressured to make a tweak to the rear anti-roll bar after leaving the pits within the opening qualifying interval, which he additionally topped, after which made a unsuitable name to abort his first flier in Hyperpole.
“We made some modifications from Free Follow 3 to present me extra entrance finish [bite], however it was a bit greater than I anticipated,” mentioned Lynn. “I needed to soften the rear rollbar to compensate and fortunately it was sufficient.”
#2 Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Collection.R: Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn
Photograph by: Andreas Beil
Lynn backed off on his first push lap after encountering Dries Vanthoor within the #15 BMW and admitted that “in hindsight I want I hadn’t”.
Requested if he was nonetheless assured that he might take the pole, Lynn mentioned: “So long as nobody improved. The engineer mentioned [the time needed for pole] was a 28.9 and I assumed, yep, I’ve received that in me.”
The Englishman described pole place forward of Toyota on its residence monitor as a “small victory that feels larger than it’s”. He added that it was good “to benefit from the small wins towards opposition as sturdy as this” in Hypercar.
“Not loads” was Lynn’s reply when requested what it will take to transform the pole into race victory in Sunday’s Fuji 6 Hours.
Cadillac was overwhelmed to fourth place final trip within the WEC at Austin earlier this month by two Ferraris and a Toyota, however Lynn is assured that the V-Collection.R will probably be a contender for victory in Japan.
“I believe we’re a bit quicker than them on long-run tempo, so hopefully relying on what they flip up with tomorrow we could be within the combine,” he defined.
The six-hour race at Fuji, the penultimate spherical of this 12 months’s WEC, begins at 11:00 native time on Sunday.
