Spyker Squadron returns to Le Mans

[GIR]

Originally Posted by Spykercars.com Spyker Squadron Spyker’s factory raceteam returns to Le Mans coming weekend to participate in the Le Mans 1000 km’s. Victor R. Muller, CEO Spyker Cars and Team Manager of Spyker Squadron, commented: We are very excited to be back at Le Mans after finishing 10th in class in the 24 hours of Le Mans last June. Since Le Mans we have build up a brand new Spyker C8 Double 12R chassis number 019 to 2004 specifications except for the fact that we are still running on the 2003 penalties i.e. 15% smaller restrictor and 70 kilo’s of ballast. For us this is a phenomenal preparation for next year’s endurance championship in which we hope to participate in every single race. On top of Sebring and Le Mans in which we have participated in 2002 and 2003. Peter van Erp, Team Engineer Spyker Squadron: For the first time we have had the possibility to build up a car in relative unstressed conditions. We had learned tremendous lessons during this years 24 hours of Le Mans and all of these lessons have been translated into chassis number 019. The car is equipped with a sequential gearbox for the first time and we have reviewed and improved every single component of the car. Primarily with reliability in mind. Under the current penalties we are not served by a weight under 1150 kilo’s because with 15% smaller restrictors there is just no power left when the 1200 kilo’s restrictors are being used. All this will change when we will loose most of the penalties. I am very pleased with the results of the private sessions of Tuesday and Wednesday and times are improving consistently. We are now approximately three seconds slower than the fastest Porches which is very promising when we take the heavy penalties into account. Chassis number 019 is driven by Norman Simon the factory number one driver and Patrick van Schoote, who also competed for Spyker at Sebring in March. For further information on the Le Mans 1000 kilometres also see www.lemans.org including an interview with Norman Simon on video as well as some photographs latest galleries Tuesday November 4th private session III).

For a picture of the car, Click here

Like I said before, they moved from a full manual shifter to a semi-manual sequential gearbox, hopefully that will keep the gearbox problems in check. Apart from that Spyker is coming along pretty well, they still have to run with restrictors because they still did not sell enough cars to be able to run without them.

Sometimes I think the restrictor rules are stupid but they are there for a reason and rules are rules, how inconvinient they may be. If you start making exceptions in 1 case you'll have to make exceptions in all cases so we'll just have to wait till the 2004/2005 season when Spyker can run without them.

In October 2002 at the French GT Championship at Magny Cours the Spyker C8 came in first place, 0.4 secs infront of the Ferrari 360 GT. The French GT doesn't have the restirctor rules and what's even more amazing is that the Spyker was running on Le Mans specs because the team didn't have the time to adjust the car. Proof of what the car is capable of.