A weekend full of lessons learnt and challenges is the summary of the GT Masters-weekend in Lausitz. 17th and 21st from the two races are results far from the expectations for this weekend. Team manager Dick Jönsson Wigroth summarizes a weekend where WestCoast Racing never quite got into the set-up of the car.
”Of course we expected better results but this soon proved to be one of those weekends where we struggled to get the car right,” he says. ”The positives we take from this weekend is that we have learnt a lot and it’s clear we need more track time to get to know this car better. We know that when we get it right it’s very quick and when we then have two such fast drivers as we ha this weekend we can challenge the very top even in a competition as tough as this one.”

Fredrik Lestrup started the first race and could quickly gain a lot of places thanks to a good start and mistakes from drivers ahead. Everything looked set for a finish in 12th position when the team was slightly less than a second to quick in the pit stop when Fredrik Larsson took over from Fredrik Lestrup. That small mistake by the team meant Fredrik Larsson had to take a drive through penalty and slip back to 21st position. In the second race Fredrik Larsson started and quickly gained a lot of positions just as Lestrup in the first race. He handed over the car in 14th place to Fredrik Lestrup who was 13th on the penultimated lap when he was forced to retire in the pits with a broken diff on the very last lap.
”We improved the car throughout the weekend but it wasn’t enough. Without the drive through penalty in the first race and the technical problem on the last lap in the second race we would have had better results but still far from what we hoped for,” Lestrup says. ”This has been a tough but informative weekend, we have gained a lot of information for the coming races here. In that respect this was an important weekend, it was a very special track and we have learnt more about how to work with the car on these kind of tracks. Looking at the results we are not happy but we have learnt a lot and we are putting ourselves up against the toughest possible competition here.”

Fredrik Larsson drove the second stint in the first race and had to take a drive through penalty after which he slipped back and did his stint pretty much alone on the track. In the second race he made a great start and could thanks to that and to mistakes by cars ahead climp to ninth position by the end of the first lap. He was 14th when he handed over the car in the pit stop to Fredrik Lestrup who was 13th when he was forced to retire on the last lap because of technical problems.
”We had higher expectations than this coming here but it has been a tough weekend where we started off a bit wrong and never fully recovered,” Larsson summarizes. ”We improved through qualifying and in between the races but not fast enough. The positives is that both me and Fredrik managed to get a lot of mileage and the team brings a lot of information back home. It was a very special track and it never quite gelled for us but we have been able to test a lot and learnt a lot and those are the good things we take with us from this weekend.”

Result, race 1
Result, race 2