Matt Griffin: Clearwater well-prepared for WEC debut
Clearwater Racing may be a new name in the FIA World Endurance Championship, but lead driver Matt Griffin believes the team is well-prepared to compete with the established names in the GTE-Am class.
Griffin will contest his first full season in WEC since 2013 with Keita Sawa and Mok Weng Sun, the same line-up which took the Singaporean team to fourth in the Asian Le Mans Series over the past winter. The 2015/2016 Asian LMS champions also finished fourth in the Am class at Le Mans last year.
The 34-year-old from Cork, Ireland found the high level of the Asian LMS to be ideal preparation for the WEC and is confident that the team will be capable of launching a title challenge.
“They’re a great bunch of guys, they’re really colourful characters and everything is done to a really high level,” Griffin said.
“Definitely our aim is to fight for the GTE Am championship. I think we can do it but it will be very tough; the Aston Martin will be very strong, Dempsey Proton Porsche with its driver line-up looks very strong, but we’ve got a good car and a good crew, so it will be a good fight.
“The good thing is I know the team quite well. I obviously did Asian Le Mans with them this year and I’ve raced a lot in the past with them in Asia so to be a part of their first attempt at the WEC is great. They’re definitely looking forward to it, particularly Mok Weng Sun. He’s absolutely 100% committed to it, training really hard and Keita Sawa is going to be right there as well.”
LMGTE Am will have a different look in 2017, with the 2016-spec Ferrari 488 among the newer cars introduced to the class for the first time. Although he has raced the GT3-spec F488 before, it will be Griffin’s first experience of the top-spec car, which will be run by a mix of Clearwater and AF Corse personnel.
Nevertheless, Griffin is confident of being ready for the start of the season at Silverstone next month, where he is also racing in the European Le Mans Series on the Saturday.
“I know the GT3 very well because I was heavily involved in the development of that, so I’m looking forward to getting in the GTE car and seeing what I can do,” he added.
“It will just be a step up in terms of aero and outright grip, so I’m not expecting the car to be wildly different. I’ve got three days of Dunlop tyre testing in the 488 GTE at Aragon this week, a two-day Ferrari test at Vallelunga, plus the ELMS test and the WEC Prologue both at Monza, so by the time the first race comes I’ll have done quite a bit of testing.
“My whole philosophy on these things is every racing car is a bit different, but once you’ve had 10-15 laps, they all have a steering wheel, a throttle and a brake pedal, so I’m not too worried about it. I’m relishing it!”
Clearwater will expand to run two Ferrari 488 GTEs at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, third round of the FIA World Endurance Championship, with Alvaro Parente, Richard Wee and Hiroki Katoh behind the wheel.
James Newbold
