High Class Racing is struggling with an issue on the car entered for Jan and Kevin Magnussen that is impacting the car’s top speed.
The #49 ORECA 07-Gibson, driven by the Magnussens and Anders Fjordbach, had been noticeably off pace throughout practice and qualifying for the 24 Hours of Le Mans thus far.
According to Jan Magnussen, the exact cause of the problem is still unknown but the #49 ORECA is lacking top speed on identical setups, compared to its sister car.
“Last night, we ran the cars identical, rake and ride heights, toes and springs. Two identical setups, set up by the same crew of guys and we were still down.”
When asked to elaborate how much the car was down, Jan replied ‘significant’ while Kevin Magnussen commented that the car was some five to six kilometres per hour slower compared to the other car.
According to the elder Magnussen, the team has been looking into the root cause of the problem, but has so far been unsuccessful.
“I have no real explanation for it,” he said.
His son explained that the team is working to identify the problem, but that it is not an easy process.
“It can be a lot of different things. Of course, it’s easy to go and say ‘let’s change the engine.’ But there’s a lot of stuff you need to tick off first.”
“These cars are sensitive to ride heights and stuff like that. Touching can be a big one too and sometimes as a driver it is hard to feel if you are touching or not, if you are dragging. You can feel it if you are like hitting.”
“So all that we kind of tick the boxes by really running identical setups that setup to the to the sister car who we were missing those six kilometers [to] now, down every straight.”
The team is currently planning to change the engine after the third practice session on Thursday afternoon, with the aim of having a new engine installed in time for the fourth and final practice session in the evening.
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