Fuji pole winner Alex Lynn has revealed that he was “determined” to present Cadillac its first high spot in World Endurance Championship qualifying after a string of near-misses.
Lynn said that he “actually, actually needed the pole” after qualifying within the high 4 within the WEC’s Hypercar class each day out for the reason that Spa spherical in Might.
“So many instances we’ve missed out by a tenth or this or that; [there are] such advantageous margins,” mentioned the Briton, who shares the solo Ganassi-run Cadillac V-Sequence.R with Earl Bamber.
“I really feel personally that I’ve pushed the staff actually exhausting to look into the main points and to search out these micro-seconds. That’s the way you enhance – marginal positive factors.”
Lynn, who sealed Caddy’s first WEC pole after discovering 9 tenths on his second push lap to get right down to a 1m29.901s, revealed the 2 qualifying classes on Saturday had been on “the knife-edge”.
He defined how he had been pressured to make a tweak to the rear anti-roll bar after leaving the pits within the opening qualifying interval, which he additionally topped, after which made a fallacious name to abort his first flier in Hyperpole.
“We made some adjustments from Free Apply 3 to present me extra entrance finish [bite], however it was a bit greater than I anticipated,” mentioned Lynn. “I needed to soften the rear rollbar to compensate and fortuitously it was sufficient.”
#2 Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Sequence.R: Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn
Photograph by: Andreas Beil
Lynn backed off on his first push lap after encountering Dries Vanthoor within the #15 BMW and admitted that “in hindsight I want I hadn’t”.
Requested if he was nonetheless assured that he might take the pole, Lynn mentioned: “So long as nobody improved. The engineer mentioned [the time needed for pole] was a 28.9 and I believed, yep, I’ve acquired that in me.”
The Englishman described pole place forward of Toyota on its house monitor as a “small victory that feels larger than it’s”. He added that it was good “to benefit from the small wins towards opposition as sturdy as this” in Hypercar.
“Not loads” was Lynn’s reply when requested what it might take to transform the pole into race victory in Sunday’s Fuji 6 Hours.
Cadillac was crushed to fourth place final day out within the WEC at Austin earlier this month by two Ferraris and a Toyota, however Lynn is assured that the V-Sequence.R shall be a contender for victory in Japan.
“I believe we’re a bit quicker than them on long-run tempo, so hopefully relying on what they flip up with tomorrow we may be within the combine,” he defined.
The six-hour race at Fuji, the penultimate spherical of this yr’s WEC, begins at 11:00 native time on Sunday.
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