IMSA WEATHERTECH SPORTSCAR CHAMPIONSHIP: MOTUL PETIT LE MANS

October 12, 2024

Mirko Bortolotti

Jordan Pepper

Franck Perera

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We have our GTD Pro winners. From your left to right, Mirko Bortolotti, Jordan Pepper, and Franck Perera. Mirko, why don't you start us off. Big win for Lamborghini here. It came a year after the last Lamborghini win in the WeatherTech Championship. What is it about this place that seems to connect with Lamborghini, and what does it mean to win again?

MIRKO BORTOLOTTI: It's been amazing. It's been two tough seasons, tough years for us. I think we've been showing good potential, but we never managed to pull it off. Never managed to get the result we got today.

I think it's a proud moment definitely to be back on the top side of the podium in IMSA. It's a great championship for us. We always enjoy being here. I think it was about time to have a result like this.

I'm extremely proud of the job that's been done this week by the entire team, by Lamborghini. Obviously my teammates, a fantastic drive by them. Just a fantastic way to finish off the 2024 season. Yeah, just super delighted and excited and happy about this result.

THE MODERATOR: We'll slide over to Jordan. First win comes at a pretty big race. What does it mean to you?

JORDAN PEPPER: Yeah, I think I had a win for about three hours a couple years back. But, yeah, no, very proud. Obviously, it's been a long time coming. I think this effort from the team has been amazing obviously. From Lamborghini's side, it's been a tough go in IMSA with EVO2..

Obviously last year we were in it right until the end, and unfortunately it didn't go our way. But, yeah, obviously this place is quite special. I've come close to a win here in the past, and it was such a good feeling obviously to close it out this time.

Very proud. Just an intense, intense battle out there. All stints, I think there was a point where we were mixing it up with the GTD cars, and I got to the lead, which was quite good.

Then again, we had a moment with Daniel. I think it was quite a critical, crucial moment where he got stuck behind a BMW on cold tires where we could regain the lead again. Then it was just head down, full attack, obviously.

It seemed like they had the pace over us on one lap, but we seemed very strong over the distance, which I think made the difference today, and what was really impressive was the guys behind the wall that made some good strategy calls.

Some risky decisions, but it paid off in the end, and just an incredible job by the team both on the track and off the track today.

THE MODERATOR: Let's scoot over to Franck. As I mentioned, second win. First one since 2018, Daytona. How does it feel to be back on top of the podium here?

FRANCK PERERA: I feel great. I think they said quite everything.

No, I'm really proud of the team. Like Mirko said, it was not an easy season. But I think everyone gave just a maximum, and we didn't give up, and we just believed that it was possible.

The fight was intense. Yeah, just happy. I think it's really great to finish the season like this, especially here. It's just good for Iron and Lamborghini, and the car was just big Iron, and everybody did an amazing job.

Just happy, yeah.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Mirko, I'll start with you. You mentioned this has been a top season. If you look at Iron Lynx in general over the last couple of years where the promise was there, but then in the big races something came up, something went wrong. How did you manage to sort of keep it clean today? What does that mean to finally get the big win out of the way in a significant race?

MIRKO BORTOLOTTI: Yeah, I think it's a big relief for the entire team. It's not a secret that the last two seasons together with Iron Lynx, this is the first win we managed to get in all championships. So it's definitely a big day for the team.

Yeah, I think you summed it up quite well. The potential was there in several occasions. Not only in IMSA, but other championships, and then something went wrong or maybe we made wrong calls or something. Just didn't work our way, which led to the fact that we never really managed to get the result we deserved.

I think from that point of view, for the team it's a great relief to engagement such a big win. And also on a personal note, I'm really happy to be able to take another really important victory over here in America after winning at Daytona.

It means a lot, and yeah, I think as Jordan also said, we are looking at this race. Probably it was not the strongest pace from us today compared to other occasions, but we were even strong on the pace-wise, but we were missing something on other areas.

I think today was just simply the perfect race. We made the right calls at the right time, no mistakes, kept it clean. That's what brought us in the position at the end of the day. Really proud of the performance of the entire Iron Links.

Q. First of all, you just mentioned getting the Ferrari getting stuck behind a BMW on cold tires. I'm assuming that was a prototype. Second of all, I think the final restart, when you get everybody so close here, it's always super important. But you seemed to pull the gap on the Ferrari fairly quickly. Can you talk about that?

JORDAN PEPPER: I think there was some key moments. In this championship, if you bide your time a little bit and get stuck behind, especially our car, where we definitely are not the strongest from T7 to T10, the passing zone into T10 is not available for us.

But I think use the key moments quite well through the traffic. At one point, when we were behind the GTD cars, really maximized that opportunity when they were all getting stuck into each other, and I could capitalize.

Then a bit later on, like I mentioned, with the BMW, this championship is obviously multi-class racing at its finest, and I think that's what's so cool about it, all those different elements. I think it's a lot of up and downs for everyone. I think everyone gains at moments and loses at moments, but obviously we capitalized.

We did a good strategy to get us in the fight with them. He just got past me, and then I was able to capitalize and get him back obviously through the traffic. It worked in our favor.

Then from there the clean air was really important for us, and yeah, the final restart -- obviously I knew when it came down to it, the best we could do was try to open the gap. Obviously I had two cars between us. Managed to open that gap quite strong, and I knew they had the pace over us the first 10, 15 laps. Once that settled down, it seemed like we had the control over them. It was just about getting lucky in the traffic situations.

I think he got messed up a little bit. I obviously got a little bit unlucky at points, but I think the gap was pretty much, let's say, stable around the three, four second mark, which is in motorsport a big enough margin to be comfortable.