Yann Ehrlacher satisfied with his LMP2 debut

Yann, you discovered LMP2 this weekend, we'd like to know how that happened!

Quite by chance, I was testing in Portugal with Yvan Muller and I ran into the team manager of ARC Bratislava, whom I knew from Stand 21 at the time, and he asked me if I was interested in competing in the Asian Le Mans Series in LMP2. He called me back three weeks later and told me it was all sorted. The idea of ​​driving with Matthieu Vaxivière, a top LMP2 driver, really appealed to me; I wouldn't have done it otherwise. ARC isn't a top team, but they still do a decent job. We knew we weren't going to be fighting for the win, that was a given. It wasn't something I was necessarily looking for, and I made it clear that there were 16 cars at the start and that almost every car had a Hypercar driver, or else only LMP2 pros. I was coming into this with absolutely no experience, never even done a single day of testing in LMP2, so I didn't really know what to expect.

Were you familiar with the Sepang circuit?

Yes, I drove a TCR here in 2019, with the same very difficult weather conditions! After that, an LMP2 and a TCR are two opposites.

Was it really a whole new world to discover?

When I first got on the track, it was quite impressive. The engine vibrates a lot, it almost makes you cough. There were a lot of things I wasn't prepared for. Aerodynamics is an important part, of course, but it wasn't what impressed me most. It was more about managing wheel lock-up, traction, and the grip—a lot of things I'm not used to. I did a few laps in the dry, then it rained, so you have to relearn the car in a way. It was a short learning curve, and when you only do 25 laps before your first stint in the race, it's not ideal.

How to adapt during a race, especially when sharing a car?

I'm used to looking for optimal performance for myself, whereas here we're looking for it for the final result, so we don't necessarily switch to new tires when it would help us personally; we look at things more in a general way. As a driver, it's a bit frustrating, but that's the world of...EndurancePit stops, Virtual Safety Cars, Full Course Yellows—it was all completely new to me! I learned a lot during the race. It was a huge step forward, and in two four-hour races, I learned far more about endurance racing than I could have ever imagined. It was a great learning experience. My one-lap performance, without traffic, wasn't too bad, but traffic management is something I'm not used to in TCR! These are things I'm a complete novice at. I improved my lap times by eight or nine tenths every time I got in the car. In Sunday's race, it's just a side note, but I had the fastest first sector. In absolute terms, it doesn't mean anything, but there are guys like Fuoco, like Dillmann… if you can beat them in a sector, it means you've got a better grasp of how it works! I wasn't able to do many laps on new tires because we sacrificed the first stint with worn ones. On the second stint, with new tires, it started to work well, but I only managed two laps before it started to rain, and the safety car came out.

Are you looking forward to the next round?

Yes, I'm looking forward to it, because I have some experience with the car and I know how it works. Physically, I'll also be better prepared, because for a first experience, you're always a bit tense since you don't know what to expect. But it's an exercise I enjoy, and doing it with Matthieu, who is an expert, helps me enormously to learn faster.

In Dubai, there will also be the circuit to learn!

I will have to learn it, yes, but to be honest, I didn't really remember Sepang since I was there six years ago! So it won't change me too much to have to learn the circuit.

Was this first experience with Endurance racing positive for you, and does it make you want to delve a little deeper into this category?

Of course, even though I'm still far from what the top Endurance drivers can do, it was a weekend of discovery and learning. The others did the Asian Le Mans Series last year, then theIMSA, WEC ELMS…I came with only twenty practice laps. So I wasn't expecting to come and win or be the fastest. The goal is to gain experience, show some performance if I have the opportunity, and then we'll see. I have a lot of areas to work on in this discipline, so that's why I'm excited to be in Dubai and work on that.

Comments collected by Fabien Gérard.

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