Alex Lynn on next week’s Le Mans: “The pressure is up for everyone!”
Cadillac Racing’s Alex Lynn has stood on the top step of the Le Mans podium once already in 2020 after winning the LMGTE Pro category along with teammates Harry Tincknell and Maxime Martin.
That added extra fire to Lynn’s craving to win again. Now, as part of one of the strongest driver line-ups on the Hypercar grid he is targeting a starring role in Cadillac’s first Le Mans in the top class for 21 years.
The key to the No.2 Cadillac V-Series R’s potency is the strength of experience and calibre within the cockpit as Lynn is joined by two time overall winner Earl Bamber four-time podium finisher at La Sarthe Richard Westbrook.
“Earl (Bamber) has obviously won the big prize twice (2015 and 2017), with the manufacturer (Porsche) that has the richest heritage of this race,” explained Lynn. “That's something that is very important for all of us to have someone in our car to have that kind of experience. Westy (Richard Westbrook) has been ‘around the block’ a few times. With his hunger and desire to succeed, and also that matches my hunger and desire to succeed too.”
For Lynn, the start of Cadillac’s WEC programme has seen a consistent strand of tenacious results gathering, that in part reflects the steel of the driver line-up.
“The driver crew that we have is extremely motivated to succeed every time the car is on track and we're pushing each other… I think that's shown in our results, in that sometimes we might have a bad moment or we're not right on the pace as we are still developing, but every single time the chequered flag falls we've bagged a result and we've been there. That's important.
Lynn added: “We're fourth in the Drivers’ Championship, right there close to third, behind the two Toyotas and a Ferrari. I think that's because we dig in and we fight for a performance every single time the race is on. That's important for a driver crew.”
The British driver cannot wait to get on track at Le Mans with the blue Cadillac V-Series.R. He’s in a fairly unique scenario, as in the previous few seasons he has raced in both the LMGTE Pro and LMP2 category. That puts him in a good position to judge and consider one of the key attributes needed for Le Mans – traffic management.
“I think last year when I was in LMP2 when the Toyotas would come up and around you, they didn't exactly have the corner speed to come past that quickly… but then also the dirty air that they created was more than any other car, so that was always quite a difficult challenge. But now we've got a full field of Hypercars which is amazing for the WEC and Le Mans. So, instead of only just a couple of them, there's now a lot of them that create that dirty air.
Lynn added: “In general, it's been okay so far in 2023 but in sports car racing the pressure is up. We're now in an era where everyone's trying to prove themselves all the time, everyone's going for a stint average all the time.
“Therefore, when someone ruins your flow or your rhythm, you don't want that. It does create this feeling on track that you have to work for every single overtake even though it’s on traffic… So, the pressure is up for everyone. You can feel it, you can feel the tension on track, because we're fighting for the big prizes now and if you're a driver that isn't in the top class, you want to get in it, so therefore there is always something to fight for.”
Alex Lynn and Cadillac Racing will be in action for next week’s 24 Hour of Le Mans (10-11 June), round four of the FIA WEC. Click HERE for more information about the upcoming race.
