At 19 years old, Mathéo Tuscher is the youngest driver to race in the 24 Hours of Le Mans this year. As a rookie, he had to complete ten laps of the circuit during the Test Day this weekend, a requirement he fulfilled within the first hour. We asked him how he felt about driving at Le Mans for the first time.
“Everything went well”, smiled Mathéo Tuscher after completing his first stint at the wheel of the No.13 Rebellion R-One AER on Test Day. "I think I got in more than ten".
Obviously pleased to have crossed the first hurdle, the Swiss driver who has been in the FIA World Endurance Championship since 2014, confided: “It was the first time I had driven at over 320kph. The aim was to get used to the circuit and knock off a few tenths here and there. I tried to improve with each lap. I realised that you can better your time on a certain sector and then a slight error can cost several tenths further on. But that doesn’t matter. You can make up for that. A small error doesn’t cost you the whole lap like it does on a shorter circuit."
With 60 cars on the 13.629-kilometre circuit, Le Mans is a challenging track and it is difficult to do a completely clean lap.
"The circuit is just as I imagined it and, In fact, I thought it would be scarier. I really enjoyed it and I’ve only got one wish and that’s to jump back in the car to get back out there." Tuscher was first in the car on Test Day and therefore had to deal with the public road part of the circuit being dirty. "There was a lot of dust flying up when you were following others. In the Porsche Curves there’s a lot of sand on the track. After five laps, there was so much dust on the windscreen, I had to stop to have it cleaned and then the sand was coming into the car which doesn’t make things easy for me as I wear contact lenses! (laughs)"
Photo: Rookie Mathéo Tuscher will be competing in LMP1 at the 24 Hours of Le Mans on 18–19 June. 2) WEC 6 Hours of Spa Francorchamps 2016
