Sixth time in Le Mans 24 Hours for TDS Racing and the French team put all its efforts in the preparation of #28 ORECA07, in the Le Mans week organisation and the driver line-up complementarities, made of French trio François Perrodo, Emmanuel Collard and Matthieu Vaxivière.
The result of the race itself, of course, does not reflect the efforts produced by the team, but for Xavier Combet, TDS Racing team manger, a good part of the objectives were achieved in Le Mans.
During 15 hours, TDS Racing crew secured a hard work, implemented the correct strategy and produced the right and numerous efforts into the race. Unfortunately, Emmanuel Collard had a spectacular accident on Sunday morning in the Karting “S” in which the car was badly damaged and the race over. Emmanuel Collard came out of the accident with great bruises and soreness, but no other harm.
Wednesday
FP : P7 3 :32.910 (230.4 km/h)
Q1 : Matthieu provisory pole position 3 :29.333 (234.4 km/h)
Thirsday
Q2 : P17 3 :31.085 (232.4km/h)
Q3 : P6 3 :27.108 (236.9 km/h)
Race :
Withdrew after crash after over 15 hours.
Xavier Combet, #28 TDS Racing ORECA 07 – Team Manager: In fact, and even if we did not make it to the chequered flag, we can be proud of all the work that has been done in Le Mans this week, because we validated a lot of very important points for the team and accumulated a great experience for the drivers.
Our cars performed well during the whole week, as well in the free practice as for the three qualifying sessions. Alex Lynn set the fastest time in Free Practice at the wheel of the #26 (G-Drive Racing), Matthieu set the fastest lap in Q1 setting provisory pole position, and G-Drive (Alex) got the definite LMP2 pole position on Thursday. With #28 TDS Racing we also were competitive in the race, François improving after every stint, or Matthieu setting quick lap times. Emmanuel Collard also demonstrated that he is back at his earliest driving level in a prototype car.
Rookie of TDS Racing team Matthieu Vaxivière rapidly adapted his driving to the Le Mans circuit, by setting provisory pole position on Wednesday. As for Q3 on Thursday, he was in a very good lap when he did a little mistake, which hindered the team to start better than 7.”
“His work put our car in 7th position of the LMP2. But in Le Mans either you are first or you can be between second and 10th and it doesn’t change anything, because we are going for a full 24 hours. So that position was absolutely not a problem”, said the team manager.
Emmanuel Collard was designated to start the 85th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2017. After four full stints without any trouble, he handed the car to François Perrodo. “I did not really try too hard” said Manu Collard, “as starting 7th – and not pole position – it’s more important to manage the car than go quick”.
Xavier Combet “Manu started very well, and handed the car to François who did a great job on track, before handing it to Matthieu. Everything was doing very well in a quite impressive rhythm set by the other LMP2 competitors. François really impressed me with his improvement over the week.”
Close to the end of his second stint, Matthieu Vaxivière, who was doing very well for his first Le Mans event, tried a critical overtaking on #82 Risi Competizione Ferrari, which issue was fatal for the Ferrari. “We all know how important Le Mans is for the teams and how important it is for us to make it to the end of the race. None of us wish this kind of end for his rivals and other competitors, even though most of us have experienced it once. Matthieu was the first one to be sorry after the accident.” said Xavier Combet. “He was hardly penalised for it, with a 7-minute stop and go, which put the car in the 15th LMP2 position. We stood strong together and concentrated, because we all know that the race is long, and that you can be on the podium even if you fall back at 9:00 pm. The final classification is over only when the race is finished. We just had another great demonstration of this.”
“After this, Matthieu showed how he can be very professional, very calm and technically specific with the engineers and the team and at the same time be regular and quick on track. This is a great learning experience for the young driver.”
After his four stints, Matthieu Vaxivière talked about the accident: “When I passed the Ferrari, I really thought that he was going to break earlier, and that’s why I came back on him that early. I am sorry… I apologise to Pierre Kaffer and Risi Competizione and also to my team for the hard penalty we got.”
The TDS Drivers continued their clean and proper race all night long, without any trouble and operating the planned program. In the early morning, the #28 Oreca07 was 10th in the LMP2 class.
Xavier Combet: “We were hoping to come back to the top 6 LMP2 classification and this would have been a great result for that car. In fact Mathieu was gaining a lot of driving experience on Le Mans and after each stint, François was improving his car management. Accumulating driving skills and building up experience was a good part of our program, and this worked out very well. Unfortunately, in his last stint of the morning, Manu lost the control of the car in the Karting “S” and hit the tyre wall very hard. #28 ORECA 07 was to hardly damaged to come back on track. Emmanuel was taken to the circuit Medical Centre and then to Le Mans hospital for a complementary full medical check-up. The very good news is that is totally ok, and he will be back very quickly.”
Emmanuel Collard, the mentor of the team, the experimented example for his teammates, completed very clean and constant 4-stint runs, and in the night, he was even completing circuit laps in the same time than other younger pro drivers. “This demonstrates that even if he had not driven a prototype car for many years at Le Mans, because he was driving a GT car these past years, Manu is back at the level he was and he definitely can take our car to some podium finishes in the future races.” said Xavier.
“I have to have another word for François who started this year in a prototype car”, he continued, “This race is physically very hard and sometimes exhausting. There a lot of energy to put in the driving as well as in the concentration, and François was just incredibly strong for this. He was able not only to manage the car, but also to stay at the place it was in when our competitors had pro or semi-pro drivers in their car. It’s very different than GT racing…”
The TDS Racing team will now be working towards the WEC 6 Hours of Nürburgring and the other championship races, in order to approach and hope for podium finishes.
