The unfortunate, but very spectacular fire which befell the No.9 Lotus CLM P1/01 AER during the 6 Hours of Fuji, left many asking themselves if the car would be on the entry list for the 6 Hours of Shanghai.
Racing teams are, however, made up of special people and the small Rumanian team has worked over 100 hours since Sunday to repair and rebuild the LMP1 car so that it will be ready for the first free practice session today at 10h45.
The chassis loom, fuel lines and bodywork were all destroyed by fire and, while most of the mechanical parts appeared to be undamaged, they have been changed to take no risks. Team Manager, Marko van Dommele, notes: “Many things looked like they weren’t damaged in the fire, but the extinguishers are quite harsh on items and so we have changed almost everything.
“We arrived on Saturday and started work on Sunday to strip everything off the chassis, inspect and replace parts, and repair what we can here. We will be ready for practice tomorrow and it will be just Pierre Kaffer and Lucas Auer who will be driving for us this weekend. We couldn’t have done it without a lot of help and a lot of hard work by everyone in the team – I’m very proud of what they have achieved.
“I want to thank the WEC, the Chinese Customs authorities and DHL who ‘gave’ us an extra day by releasing our car early. Last but not least, we all want to thank the guys from Rebellion Racing who acted so quickly and prevented things from being even worse.”
Fiona Miller
