An encouraging 2nd lap time for Thiriet by TDS Racing

The Test Day of the 24 Hours of Le Mans was held last weekend (31st May). Even if there were no real stakes, those practices were very important with the race in mind. Indeed, the teams could make their cars run on the 24 Hours of Le Mans track, set up the cars and record precious information.
For the Thiriet by TDS Racing team, winner of the 4 Hours of Imola in European Le Mans Series and marking the first international win of the Oreca 05, the goal was to make the car run on the 24 Hours of Le Mans track. A working program had been prepared as confirmed by Tristan Gommendy. “We had planned to work on the aerodynamics of the car to discover the circuit with Le Mans kit provided by Oreca. The target was to work on the aerodynamics in the morning and on mechanical points in the afternoon.”
However, the rain disrupted the pre-established program. After the 8 hour practices, the #46 Oreca 05 Thiriet by TDS Racing shared by Ludovic Badey, Pierre Thiriet and Tristan Gommendy finished second fastest of the afternoon session despite the tricky track. Regarding the cumulated time of the two sessions, the car set a promising 6th time (3.43.344) out of 21 LM P2 cars. 

The next stage will be the Scrutineering in the heart of the city of Le Mans on Sunday June 7th (4.30 pm for the car).

Jacques Morello, technical director: “The track was completely wet but we had time to validate our aerodynamics set-up. When the rain started to fall, we decided to make our drivers drive in order for them to get used to these changing conditions.”

Tristan Gommendy: “A part of our program was questioned because of the rain even if, in the morning, on a dry track, Pierre succeeded in validating a number of things and giving useful information to the engineers. For my part, I was lucky to have some laps on dry track in the afternoon so I could set the second fastest time. Our work of development has well started, the car is good but we are still far from its full potential. For Ludovic, Pierre and I, the target is still unchanged: to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans in LM P2!”