The Inter Europol Competition team is extremely happy with the result of their first race in the World Endurance Championship. In the TOTAL 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, the #34 Oreca 07 LMP2 finished in 5th place.

The team went through a huge learning curve this week. A new car, a new championship, and the new low-downforce rule. But the team went all out to do a great job with the car. The start, taken by Alex Brundle, was particularly good as he went from 11th to fifth. Then throughout the rest of the race, the #34 Oreca 07 LMP2 ran always between 5th and 8th place.

Kuba Smiechowski: “I am very proud of the team as we did little mistakes in the race, and we did not get into trouble. My stints were tough and it got slippery as the tyres started to drop off after a while. I think our presence was noticed and feel it is a great step forward for the team.”

Alex Brundle: “Big congratulations to the team for their great performance in their first WEC race. The car was supremely reliable and all of the pitstops went down without a hitch, which is pretty incredible for a smaller team and incredibly heartening for the rest of the program. Clearly, there is a big tick in the box of reliability. On the performance side we know we still need to work to get the car dialed into in the window. Today was all about getting the result and we outperformed expectations which is a good reward for the incredible hard work for the team as a group.”

Renger van der Zande: “We have come a long way since Monday. We tackled some issues with the car. Worked hard on the set-up and everything was not right till we went racing. In the race the team performed well and we did not make any mistakes. The car has potential to improve a lot. We lost time with the refueling, but that problem should not be too hard to solve. We have a good base to move forward from. I will not be in Portimao but will see the team again at Monza and move on to be ready for Le Mans.”

Sascha Fassbender (team manager): “Our first race weekend in the WEC and we have a lot to learn. But we are very proud of today’s result which was the best we could achieve. P5 is a reward to the whole team which has worked very hard over the last couple of months. From here we move forward and are looking forward to Portimao.”