Nato: Losing Clean Air “Key” to Cadillac’s Disappointing Race

Norman Nato believes that the loss of clean air was the main reason that Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA suffered a disappointing 6 Hours of Fuji, as the team’s No. 12 car that started on pole position ended up in a distant sixth place at the finish.

The opening part of the 100th FIA World Endurance Championship race had been dominated by the No. 12 car that Will Stevens drove to a ten-second advantage in the early stages of the race before the first of three eventual safety car periods.

It was the second safety car — called after BMW driver Raffaele Marciello’s crash — that cost the No. 12 car ground, as Nato emerged fifth after taking over from Stevens and despite briefly running fourth lost further places during his stint.

After a third and final safety car shuffled the order further, Lynn eventually crossed the finish line in seventh, 43 seconds behind the winning No. 35 Alpine A424, with a post-race penalty for Peugeot’s No. 94 car promoting the No. 12 Cadillac to sixth.

Nato felt Cadillac was simply “unlucky” with the way the cautions fell, as several of the marque’s rivals, including Alpine, benefitted from well-timed pit stops.

“There were a lot of ups and downs and we got very unlucky with the [second] safety car,” reflected Nato. “I had just jumped in the car and the lap after was VSC.

“Having been in the lead with clean air, which is quite important at this track, we ended up being P5 and in the middle of the pack. And from there it was a bit of a gamble in what to do in terms of strategy.

“We didn’t do anything wrong, it just didn’t go our way.

“We knew in terms of pure pace it was going be really tight, and it was quite fun in this way that many cars had good pace and it was quite a good race. But it didn’t go our way, not because of any mistakes or penalties. We were just unlucky.”

Asked by Sportscar365 why he couldn’t show the same pace in his stint that Stevens had shown early on, Nato pinpointed a lack of clean air as the main factor.

“When you are in clean air, it’s quite a big advantage,” he said. “You could see this in Sao Paulo, this was quite key to our race. You can manage your pace and manage the tires.

“When you are in the middle of the pack, you have to take risks to overtake, and if you manage to make a pass straight away, good, but if not you can easily lose position. People are also doing different strategies in terms of fuel saving.

“That’s why for me the key point is that we were in the lead, and being unlucky with the VSC, we ended up being P5, where we shouldn’t have been. We should have been in clean air and just doing our race.

“As always this season the car felt good, but it didn’t go our way.”

Cadillac’s No. 38 car shared by Sebastien Bourdais, Jenson Button and Earl Bamber suffered an even worse result, ending up a lapped 13th from second on the grid.

Having run second early on, Bourdais lost ground in the seconds stint as he was given the car’s left-side tires from qualifying, which left the Frenchman vulnerable to being passed by the No. 93 Peugeot and the No. 51 Ferrari after the restart.

Button then endured a nightmare middle stint that saw him slip from fifth to tenth when he was forced off the road after contact with Antonio Fuoco’s Ferrari.

The final safety car period then cut the No. 38 car adrift from the pack, leading the car to finish a lap down.