Lynn: Cadillac Aiming to Take On Toyota, Ferrari in Final Races

Alex Lynn says Chip Ganassi Racing needs to focus on challenging Toyota and Ferrari in the remaining FIA World Endurance Championship rounds at Fuji and Bahrain after it secured a first podium for the Cadillac V-Series.R at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Lynn, along with co-drivers Earl Bamber and Richard Westbrook, currently sit fifth in the Hypercar World Endurance Drivers’ Championship, while Cadillac holds third in the manufacturer standings. 

The British driver argued that Cadillac should not be content with its current position in the standings and instead be concentrated on challenging Toyota and Ferrari in the final two races of the campaign.

“I would say that’s not really what we’re here for, I think, as a team and as a brand,” Lynn told Sportscar365.

“We want to win, as does everyone. I think we’re always the kind of team that’s looking forward instead of looking back.

“So, from that sense, every day is about how do we catch Ferrari and Toyota and better ourselves, rather than, ‘OK, we’re ahead of Porsche and Peugeot,’ for example.

“I think we’re looking at how we can beat Toyota and Ferrari. I think our main target is to improve ourselves, and I think every team would say that there’s things that everyone can improve on.

“But I think that there’s a lot of potential in our car, and I think if we can unlock that, we can give them a good fight.

“Certainly, Ferrari and Toyota are very fast right now, but I think they’re not uncatchable.”

Lynn said Cadillac has made steady progress with its car through the course of the season, but claimed that the rate of its gains are difficult to judge accurately because of strides made across the entire Hypercar field.

“Everyone just keeps moving the bar higher and higher,” he said.

“So, from the start of the season to now, we’re so much faster. But because everyone else is as well, it’s really difficult to see the progression.

“Every weekend, we go into unlocking more potential and extracting the maximum. So, yeah, I would say we still don’t know what we can do, but we’ve achieved or found so much speed in our car already, whether that’s on chassis and also powertrain side.

“Just improving so much. We learn something new every time and we get better at executing or see things that we need to execute better during a race day.

“It’s just every time, but it’s kind of hard because the race weekends are really far apart, and that’s the thing about WEC.

“It really rewards the most well-drilled team on the grid, and that’s why Toyota right now is the benchmark.”

CGR experienced its worst race finish of the season at the 6 Hours of Monza in July, finishing tenth overall and two laps down.

“I think that was actually our first race where we looked back and said there definitely could have been things we did better,” Lynn reflected.

“Usually before that we’d been a very well-drilled crew. But I think in Monza there was a few improvements that can be made because we didn’t get the result that I think our car deserved.

“But definitely every day we go racing, I think being a brand that’s new to WEC, whilst I think we’re content with how we’ve done so far, there’s definitely things we can carry on to do better.

“I think in the last two races we want to put together a perfect race day and if we can do that, then that’s I guess what I mean with the whole Toyota-Ferrari thing.

“If we deliver what we can, what we think we can, then I think we can be really close. And that’s I think our short-term goal for the next two events for sure.”