Latest news with #RuiAndrade
Belfast Telegraph
13-06-2025
- Automotive
- Belfast Telegraph
Strong qualifying puts us in hunt to savour 24 Hours of Le Mans delight, insists Charlie Eastwood
Eastwood and team-mates Rui Andrade and Tom Van Rompuy picked up the pace when it really mattered ahead of the marathon event in France and will start from the third row of the grid. Although they still have some work to do, particularly in respect of extracting extra speed from their TF Sport-run machine around the 8.467-mile Circuit de la Sarthe, the trio are in the ballpark in the build-up to the biggest motorsport meeting on the calendar. In Thursday's two-stage Hyperpole session, Eastwood successfully advanced out of the 12-car field with the second-fastest time, recording a 3:54.646 lap, which was followed by Andrade's career-best GT time at Le Mans – a 3:55.740 effort – on his final circuit to stay in sixth spot. From there, the yellow and black car has a decent chance of climbing up through the field during the opening exchanges of the race, which is due to get under way at 3pm BST. Starting ahead of them is the pole-sitting Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage, the No.21 factory AF Corse Ferrari 296 and the No.46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 Evo thanks to a superb lap by the former MotoGP race winner and title holder Valentino Rossi. A strong result would also help reignite Eastwood's FIA World Endurance Championship campaign as Le Mans offers two sets of points scoring opportunities across the 24 hours. 'Clearly, the top couple of cars are super-fast, but we have not been the sixth-fastest car since we've been here all week. I think all three of us did a really good job,' reflected Eastwood, who triumphed in his class in 2020 when he was part of the Aston Martin Racing family. 'We are not the fastest, but we are definitely not the slowest – we are in the mix for sure and I feel that we can definitely fight from sixth on the grid come race day. 'The Corvette and the team have been super-faultless. 'We have been tuning the car more and more to a good place. 'As we have in the last couple of races, we have executed really well up to now. We just need to make sure we continue to execute this weekend as well.'
Belfast Telegraph
07-06-2025
- Automotive
- Belfast Telegraph
We've made huge strides as a team to be in contention at 24 Hours of Le Mans: Charlie Eastwood
Preparations for the Fourth Round of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) will get under way on Sunday, with all teams taking part in two three-hour practice sessions. It is the only extended non-timed running they can take advantage of around the famous Circuit de la Sarthe before free practice on Wednesday and then qualifying later that day. After the 2024 edition, Eastwood said he was 'super proud' of his team's efforts despite a chronic lack of straight-line performance starving them of real LMGT3 action. At the end of almost 270 laps and 2,260 competitive miles, they crossed the line 15th in class. However, considerable work has been going on behind the scenes since then to hone and improve Corvette Racing's TF-Sport-run LMGT3 challenger – the Z06 GT3.R – with most of the engineers' focus centring on Le Mans, the blue-riband meeting on the WEC calendar. Eastwood – a class winner at the Le Mans when he was part of the Aston Martin Racing family back in 2020 – continues his partnership with Rui Andrade and Tom Van Rompuy. 'Both Rui and Tom are driving incredibly well,' said Eastwood. 'We love the car, and we are able to extract speed out of it. 'So, from our side, when you look at the line-up, we are pretty strong in that regard. 'We didn't have a great race at Le Mans last year, but as a team and a car, we have made huge strides in lots of areas so, hopefully, it can play into our favour. 'We haven't had the performance or results on our side, but the thing I am really hopeful about is that as a crew, as a team and as a Corvette programme, we're executing some really good races. 'With the energy side of things, we will probably have 27 pit-stops. Our guys have become super quick at tyre changes and the strategy has been very good in the last few events. 'When you add that up across 26 or 27 pit-stops, versus just four during the course of a race, it can really make a massive difference in the pitlane.' The LMGT3 grid is growing for Le Mans from 18 to 24, with a third Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG and a third Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R just two of the extra cars joining the permanent FIA WEC line-up.
