Renger van der Zande is headed into his second 24 Hours of Le Mans with Dragonspeed. The Dutchman, who will be driving the #10 Gulf-coloured BR Engineering BR1-Gibson, says he has enjoyed the warm reception for the one-off colour scheme.
Speaking to Motorsport Week, Van der Zande said: "When it got announced, it was just one big overload of compliments about how the car looks. And it does look great, especially going to Le Mans."
As part of the partnership between Gulf and Dragonspeed, Van der Zande and team-mates Henrik Hedman and Ben Hanley will be racing in suits that bear a striking resemblance to Steve McQueen's overalls in the 1971 movie 'Le Mans'.
"I think the Steve McQueen thing on top of it makes it very special," van der Zande continued. "It looks very amazing and it’s great to have a partner like that, heading to Le Mans."
The Dutchman explained that his team has had a long journey to make it to the 87th running of the French endurance classic.
"I think last year was more of a rollout. The car crashed in Spa and it had to be rebuilt. At the test last year, we had a bit of a rollout and I barely made the nine laps that were needed to qualify for the race as a driver."
"During the race, we started developing the car and there were all kinds of issues that got solved. At the end, the car ended up in the wall, which was a shame. We’ve been running around in the WEC a bit more, and since then it’s been going forward."
"The drivability of the car is very good, the reliability is not so good so far, but who knows. I’ve been in a race in Daytona in 2016 I think it was, where we did twelve laps before going into that race and we finished third, so you never know what’s gonna happen."
The Dutchman said his personal goal for the race is to see the chequered flag on Sunday.
"I think the goal is to finish. I think it’s only to finish and nothing more than that. If the car stays out of the garage, we might have a chance to be P3, but that’s purely when others make mistakes or have failures."
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