Egidio Perfetti is over the moon to have captured the GTE Am championship in the FIA World Endurance Championship.
The Norwegian came second in the GTE Am class – before being promoted to first with the disqualification of the class-winning Keating Ford – alongside Jörg Bergmeister and Patrick Lindsey, which was enough to win the championship for the #54 Team Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR.
Talking to Motorsport Week, Perfetti said he was very pleased to win the title in Team Project 1's second season.
"It’s a bit surreal," Perfetti said. "We’ve been working on it for some time, but it came together in the last portion of the race very quickly. We didn’t know what to expect, we were focussing on the championship and a little bit less on the race."
"We solved things after the early hours of the race where we were struggling a little bit with the setup on the car. We improved as the track rubbered on, so we started pushing harder and harder. We saw that things were improving quickly, and we are just very pleased with the result."
"Obviously, winning the race would have been even better, but for now, considering it was our first season and all, I think we are extremely pleased with the team, Project 1, and the job they have done today and to get us here, all season long."
The striking Porsche came close to on-the-track victory in the final hour when the #85 Keating Motorsports Ford had to make two unplanned stops, at which point the gap up front came down to five seconds.
"You know, this is endurance racing," the Norwegian continued. "Last year, this sort of thing kept happening to us. It’s sort of the pain you have to go through when you enter a series like the WEC. The details and the rules are quite unique, and it’s difficult to get used to it."
"But I think it went a bit more our way, and this is racing. For a little moment, it looked like we might be able to catch up with them, but in reality they just were too fast."
"It was a great experience. Obviously, a little less stressful than the first one last year. So I’m very pleased and look forward to see if we can another one done with Project 1."
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