K-PAX Would Have Been “Fighting for P2” Without Issue

Sandy Mitchell reckoned that K-PAX Racing would have fought ROWE Racing for second at the 3 Hours of Monza if a suspension issue hadn’t forced its Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 to retire.

Mitchell was approximately three seconds behind the third-placed No. 998 ROWE BMW M4 GT3 of Neil Verhagen, and had broken clear from the Iron Lynx Lamborghini of Andrea Caldarelli, when he started to lose pace towards the end of his middle stint.

It emerged that the Lamborghini factory driver was dealing with a broken left-front suspension, which he nursed before pitting to hand the car over to Marco Mapelli.

Verhagen, Dan Harper and Max Hesse gained second later in the race when the No. 32 Team WRT BMW encountered a puncture, which Mitchell felt could have been a position for the K-PAX crew of Mitchell, Mapelli and Franck Perera to challenge for.

“The suspension went and it was affecting me for the last few laps of my stint,” Mitchell told Sportscar365.

“It’s why we dropped back a lot of pace, and the No. 63 car got past me a couple of laps before the pit stop.

“And then it looks like in the pit stop it’s fully collapsed once the car drops down from changing the tires. It was still driveable for me, but quite tricky because I had no support on the left with the suspension.

“I was able to drive around one and a half seconds off the pace, and then one we stopped it had just gone completely. When Marco went out, it wasn’t possible to continue.

“It’s just a real shame because the pace looked really strong and I think we would have been fighting for P2 with the BMW young guys. It would have been nice to fight with them over the podium places.”

Instead, the No. 63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini of Jordan Pepper, Andrea Caldarelli and Mirko Bortolotti took up the chase but finished six and a half seconds behind the No. 998 BMW.

Pepper lost five positions during the safety car-impacted opening hour, but Iron Lynx was back on the tail of K-PAX and targeting fifth after the first round of pit stops.

“Franck passed [the No. 63 car] on track and I came out of the pits with it right behind me,” said Mitchell.

“We were fighting with a Mercedes [from Akkodis ASP], which was pretty scrappy, and managed to get past but Andrea was still right behind me. And then after that, we just managed to just pull a small gap throughout the stint.

“I then let him past because I knew I was nursing an issue and there was no point holding a fellow Pro Lambo car up.

“I didn’t want to risk anything with them, so they got past and went on to get a podium which is good.

“Pretty promising for the new Lambo to get a podium here and hopefully we can continue that.”

Iron Lynx “Achieved More than Expected”

Benefiting from K-PAX Racing’s misfortune, Iron Lynx finished third and claimed a podium on its first GTWC Europe outing with Lamborghini after its switch from Ferrari.

The Italian outfit’s team principal Andrea Piccini told Sportscar365 that the result exceeded expectations heading into the updated EVO2 car’s first GTWC Europe race.

The Lamborghini underwent an additional BoP test on Friday where it was fitted with a 2 mm larger air restrictor, but no changes were made for Saturday’s practice sessions.

It then received a 10 kg weight reduction as part of sweeping changes before qualifying and retained that through a further adjustment before the race.

“I think we started very far away, at Daytona already struggling a lot with BoP in the first part of the [IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship] season,” said Piccini.

“We all know this is a very important thing for endurance [racing]. I think we managed, working all together, to get to a good BoP for this first [SRO] race, which was fair and allowed us to fight.

“The pace was there. I think BMW and Audi were a bit faster than us, but we managed to make no mistakes and be good in traffic.

“We’re very pleased. We thought we were more far behind, and we achieved more than we expected.”