Sebring, Florida
A jubilant Krohn Racing team proudly celebrated the pole position for today’s 63rd Annual 12 Hours of Sebring, after Frenchman Olivier Pla set a new qualifying track record on Friday afternoon at Sebring International Raceway. He piloted the popular green-and-blue No. 57 Krohn Racing Ligier JS Judd HK LMP2 to a time of 1:51.152 and a speed of 121.131 mph around the 3.74-mile circuit.
Pla, the development driver of the Ligier JS P2, built by Onroak Automotive, dominated practice at Sebring all week. He led the charts in two practice sessions and never dipped below third place in timing, while assisting the Krohn team in an optimum set-up for the car.
Pla was the pole winner at Sebring in 2012 and was second on the grid last year. This is Krohn Racing’s sixth pole position since its start as a race team in 2006. Other Krohn Racing pole sitting drivers have included Nic Jonsson, Ricardo Zonta and Colin Braun. The Krohn Racing team won in class at Sebring in 2011 in the GTE-Am class of the FIA Intercontinental Le Mans Cup series.
OLIVIER PLA, Krohn Racing, Qualifying and Pole Winning Driver:
“The pole at Sebring is a fantastic feeling. It is one of the most prestigious races in the whole world and to be on the pole for tomorrow’s race is fantastic. The team did an incredible job to give me a great car. I know tomorrow is going to be a long and difficult race and we will push until the end and see what happens. We have to be really happy with what we did and it was a perfect strategy from the team so I am very happy.”
What else do you need to do going into the race tomorrow?
“The strategy is not yet complete. We still need to talk and make it. It’s not fully done yet.”
TRACY W. KROHN, Krohn Racing Team Owner/Driver:
On Olivier Pla and Krohn Racing winning the pole for tomorrow’s race:
“You know, it’s been a long, dry spell for us. Olivier did a fantastic job today and the car has been set-up for his liking and it shows with the way he was able to drive the car like that. The car looked pretty loose on the video, but that’s the way he likes it and that’s all right with me. The car’s been good all week. We spent several days testing here at Sebring. A big appreciation goes out to Olivier and the crew for getting the car ready and where it needs to be for tomorrow and hopefully we’ll finish the race the same way. It’s a pure exercise in patience and that’s really what this race is all about. You have to be patient and keep the car on the track. No mistakes and good pit stops, that’s how you win this race because it’s going to be hell out there.”
HAYDEN BURVILL, Krohn Racing, Engineer:
“It always feels good to get the pole. We came here and did testing and this is the reward for all that hard work. Oli knew he could do something like this and it’s always hard in practice to find a gap in traffic to get the chance to work on it. Now the strategy has completely changed. That was the qualifying target we hit with the potential we had, now we’ll switch back to our race program, which we also tested. The team came well prepared for capturing the qualifying speed and race performance is now our goal.”
Originally published by Krohn Racing