Emil Frey Lexus Racing celebrated a successful debut during the official test days of the Blancpain GT Series. The Swiss team completed two technically impeccable test days with one Lexus RC F GT3 at the South of France in Paul Ricard, taking a lot of positives into the coming season.
A total of 45 race cars met at the track in Le Castellet for the first showdown. Amongst other GT3 cars, the Lexus was one of the highlights in the Paddock. The number 114 Lexus was piloted by the mixed driver squad of Christian Klien (Austria), Marco Seefried (Germany) and Markus Palttala (Finland).
Glorious sunshine and a dry track offered perfect testing conditions in order to explore, amongst others, the new Pirelli tyres for the 2018 season.
“The test went positively and without any technical issues”, says Hannes Gautschi, Technical Coordinator Emil Frey Lexus Racing. “The two days mainly served to give the drivers another opportunity to get to know the Lexus. In addition, we worked on further optimisations of the Setup. It was specifically special since the track has been completely resurfaced and three corners have been slightly changed. The grip level has been massively increased, which was reflected in the lap times. We were about 3.5 seconds a lap faster compared to last year.”
Emil Frey Lexus Racing visited Paul Ricard already last year for one round of the International GT Open. The team was now able to gain important information about the changes to be well-prepared for the race, taking place from 01 until 02 June 2018.
“All together, we are very pleased with both test days”, reflects Lorenz Frey, who fully acts as Team Principal this year and will not compete as an active driver. “We tested ahead at other race tracks and the feedback we received from our drivers was very positive. The car drives consistently and shows a good reliability, which meant we were able to complete our planned steps during the test. We are looking forward to the season, because the test confirmed that we have a good package and can compete on a successful level.”
This was the last test for Emil Frey Lexus Racing before the season kicks-off on 06 April 2018 at Zolder (Belgium).
For more information, please visit www.emilfreyracing.com