Pipo Derani (Cadillac): “We have to stay alive at Sebring”

Pipo, what does Sebring mean to you?

Sebring has been very good to me over the last few years. I won there for my debut in 2016 and I then had the chance to be entered there with great teams and great crews which allowed me to win several more times. The GTP category is extremely strong this year. We saw last year at Sebring that you have to stay alive to try to win this race. Last year, everything changed at the end of the race. We weren't supposed to win, but we did because we survived (Filipe Albuquerque and Mathieu Jaminet collided in the last quarter of an hour while they were fighting for victory. Editor's note). It's one of those places where you have to make sure you survive because it's such a tough ride for both man and machine. You can have a good rhythm during the day and it can be different at night when the temperature drops. You have to try to adjust your car in the best possible way for the end, but without suffering for 11 hours and 30 minutes. We will have to redouble our efforts this year to achieve victory. The last phase of the race will be extremely crucial.

After Daytona, has your motivation changed as you approach Sebring?

I viewed Daytona in a very positive light. It was a great show. We led a lot of the race and just missed out due to a pit stop at the very end. We still had a fantastic performance throughout the week with pole position, we led a good part of the race, the car was competitive from start to finish. Everything worked perfectly. Unfortunately, I didn't bring a Rolex home. It was a fantastic weekend. Sebring is different. Last year we weren't as fast as we wanted to be at night. With this race finishing at night, we were lucky to win, but we had some things we needed to work on for this year. We have been working and we hope that this will translate into a faster car at the end of the race. On the other hand, the competition has been very strong and has also improved. I mentioned before the season that I thought Porsche Penske had untapped potential from last year and it appears they are reaching it. Their car was also fast from the start, very reliable. The clock doesn't lie and we have to be vigilant if we want to get a good result at Sebring. If we win, let's say consistently, we will feel better than last year. This is our goal.

What do you think made this car so successful at Sebring last year and will it be competitive given the progress other manufacturers have made?

Last year was one of the most difficult races in terms of temperature changes on the circuit. It's usual at Sebring to have times of the day where the track is much faster than others, and that was pretty evident last year. For us, comparing with the DPi, we had a stronger car than the opposition at Sebring. That wasn't the case last year, although I think during the really hot part of the race – during the day – we were definitely stronger than the others. I don't really know what to expect, but if you look at last year's race, once the sun went down, the Acuras and Porsches were faster than us, which hurt because we led a lot of the race with the 01 and 31, but we knew at the end that we didn't quite have the pace if there had been a green flag situation until the end. The car was adapted to the heat, but it is one of the areas we are working on as a team in order to have a stronger car for the end of the race.

With GTP and the tools at your disposal, can you close the gap between day and night?

I will not tell. The tools we have are not used to compensate for temperature changes. It's more about knowing how to shift the brakes from front to rear and how to use the hybrid system. It's more about taking the car to a 7 post dyno and trying to figure out what you can do to the suspension, springs and suspension to find some rhythm towards the end of the race. This is what the team has worked hard on, and it's something that needs to be evolved and learned throughout the process of learning a new car. It's still relatively new to us because it's changed a lot from the DPi in terms of construction, weight, amount of fuel per stint, and the tires have a different feel. We therefore have to balance the car not only with hot tires, but also find a compromise when leaving the pits with cold tires. There are so many elements to this new GTP race car that it's not just about using the tools we have in the car, but understanding what is the best way to exploit it.

Does going into Sebring as the title holder give you more confidence in terms of equipment and engineering?

It gives a lot of confidence. One of the goals this year was to be more consistent. The fact that Daytona was very positive for us also gives us a lot of hope, even more than winning the championship last year. There are a lot of things we need to improve on if we want to be at this level, but we think we are on the right track and Daytona was a great result to prove to us that we are working on the right things to be competitive. It's the details and experience that help you build and create a championship every year. You can't let yourself go from time to time because it will harm you. Experience gives you even more confidence in your ability to achieve this goal year after year. The ups and downs of last year have allowed us to be stronger this year and to be more consistent at the front. If you're competitive and you consistently put yourself in a position to win without making mistakes, without giving your opponents a chance to do better than you, then I think you'll have a much better year and wins. -you, just like the championships. It would be great for me to win the race a fifth time, but honestly, I'm not thinking about it. It's a race like any other, where you do your best. If we repeat the win, being the only GTP car to win at Sebring would make things special.

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