Belfast’s Charlie Eastwood feels a win is there for the taking for Corvette Racing at the final round of the FIA World Endurance Championship in the Kingdom of Bahrain on Saturday.
The American squad have shown glimpses of race-winning pace in the global series, but a mix of mechanical issues and questionable standards by rivals have so far kept it off the podium.
The No.81 crew of Eastwood, Rui Andrade and Tom van Rompuy achieved their best result of the campaign at September’s Six Hours of Fuji when they came home in fourth.
After bagging a second-row start for the penultimate race, the squad were hopeful of breaking their silverware duck, however contact with one of the Alpine Hypercars — with 75 minutes remaining on the clock, and Eastwood behind the wheel — scuppered their chances.
It was the second race in a row they were knocked out of contention by another car having been collected at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) two weeks earlier while running in second.
Staged at a 3.38-mile track consisting of 15 turns with almost two-thirds of each lap spent at full throttle, the Eight Hours of Bahrain should play to the Corvette Z06 GT3.R’s strengths.
“I am ready to get going in Bahrain,” said Eastwood who, less than 24 hours after race day, will take part in the WEC Rookie Test when he samples Cadillac Racing’s V-Series.R prototype car, while fellow Ulsterman Dan Harper is set to get to grips with BMW’s M Hybrid V8 Hypercar.
“We were so close to a very, very good result at Fuji; we showed such super strong pace there on the back of what we showed at the race before that at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas.
“I feel that everyone on the team is very motivated to get a good result at Bahrain and end the season on a high. It’s been a challenging year for us, but we’ve got stronger every race.
“Fuji showed that we had fantastic pace, and it was a faultless job by the crew and my team-mates. Our goal is to repeat that same performance at Bahrain and, hopefully this time, not get caught up in any dramas so that we can secure a podium and go for a win.”
Starting at 11am UK time, the eight-hour daylight-into-dark blast around the Bahrain International Circuit will decide the destination of the blue riband Hypercar drivers’ and teams’ trophies.
In the seven rounds to date, a different marque’s been represented at the top step of the rostrum.