SMP Racing’s Andrea Bertolini Celebrates Le Mans Victory
Reigning European Le Mans Series LMGTE Champion and 2010 FIA GT1 World Champion Andrea Bertolini added another accolade to his impressive motorsport CV when he stood alongside Victor Shaytar and Aleksei Basov on the top step of the podium after winning the LMGTE Am class with SMP Racing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Despite his long GT career, this was only the Italian driver’s fourth visit to Le Mans and now he has a winner’s trophy on display at home.
We caught up with Andrea Bertolini to discuss his latest high profile triumph and his working relationship with his Russian teammates.
Andrea Bertolini: “You know some people say your first victory or your first championship is the best. For me I prefer the last one, because the memory is fresh. Le Mans is something very special, it is a really, really big race. Everyone at home knows about the Le Mans result. In GT racing Le Mans was the only big race I haven’t had a good result until now, so I am very happy to finally win and have the trophy at home. It is an amazing feeling.
“This is a great result for SMP Racing. Team boss Boris Rotenberg was really, really happy. He has invested a lot of time and energy into the whole programme and for this reason I am very proud to be part of this victory with SMP, which is also the first victory for a Russian team in the history of Le Mans, which is really good for motorsport in Russia. I started working with SMP last year and the goal was to grow the team and this result, and winning the ELMS title in 2014, means we are going in the right direction. The whole team did an amazing job, a very professional team, they are really focused. My teammates Victor and Aleks have made a big step forward. Sometimes I am a bit heavy with them; I put a lot of pressure on them, both on and off the track to get them to focus on the job.
“The last hour of the race was really tough. We had been a bit unlucky earlier in the race. It is very easy to lose time behind the safety car, but then you can gain time as well. We were really close with Aston Martin until 4 hours before the end when Victor went off into the gravel. At that time I thought the race was done, the maximum we could hope for would be to finish second as the Aston was two laps ahead. But we still continued to push. I made another triple stint, pushing all the time to stay on top. In Le Mans it is really dangerous to reduce your concentration so it is important to keep on pushing. I don’t know what happened with Paul (Dalla Lana). I am so sorry for him and the Aston Martin Racing team because they did a really strong race, but this is motorsport and I am happy because we won and to win you need to reach the chequered flag. This time they had the bad luck, last year we had the bad luck when we crashed at Porsche Curves – that is Le Mans.
“Le Mans is a tough race for everyone involved. Everyone speaks about the teams and the drivers but this event was a beautiful event thanks to Eduardo Freitas (Race Director), the race control team and the hundreds of marshals around the track. The difference in performance between the P1 and GTE classes is quite big and the calls from race control were correct all the time during the race for our safety. The marshals worked for 24 hours in the best way because we have the right flag signals to warn us of slow cars, overtaking cars and other dangers. They are our angels on the track. Personally I feel really safe with this team watching over us.
"The next race will be in Germany at the Nürburgring, which will be a tough race. The Aston Martin has been really fast in the first three races of 2015. Of course we are now leading the championship but we have a lot of racing before the end of the season. On paper the Aston Martin is the car to beat and we have some catching up to do, but this is endurance racing and as we proved at Le Mans, the race isn’t over until the chequered flag has been waved.”
Jeff Carter
