ALMS

Harold Primat Laguna Seca race report

Harold Primat press release

Edited: Jun 1, 2018, 1:21 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Race winners Adrian Fernandez, Harold Primat, Stefan Mücke celebrate

SENSATIONAL AMERICAN LE MANS VICTORY FOR HAROLD PRIMAT AND ASTON MARTIN RACING AT LAGUNA SECA

Race winners Adrian Fernandez, Harold Primat, Stefan Mücke celebrate

Photo by: Bob Heathcote

Aston Martin Racing driver Harold Primat and his Aston Martin team mates took a sensational victory in the American Le Mans Series at Laguna Seca on Saturday.

Starting from third on the grid, Harold and his LMP1 team mates; Adrian Fernandez and Stefan Mücke, drove a superb race to finish on the top step of the podium following six hours of intense racing.

On Friday, Adrian had taken to the world-famous 2.238 mile Monterey circuit for qualifying and posted a lap time of 1:14.621 which secured the DBR1-2 third on the grid.

It was then up to Stefan to take control of the 007 car for the start of the race on Saturday afternoon. Within just ten minutes, he had carved his way through the field into first place. With the top four matching each other for lap times, the four cars spent the first hour trading track positions before Stefan pitted and Harold took over for his first stint of the afternoon.

Following the pitstop, Harold rejoined the track in third place and immediately began to close the gap on second place. Heading into the iconic ‘corkscrew’, Harold made an impressive move for second place and was then right up on the back of the first placed driver challenging for the lead.

After a total of three and a half hours of exciting wheel to wheel racing, Primat pitted and Adrian took the wheel; rejoining in fourth place. Continuing to battle hard on this tight and twisty track, Adrian moved up to third position before coming in for the next driver change.

With the top four so evenly matched, pit stop strategy was to play a key role in the outcome of the race. When Stefan took over from Adrian with one hour to go in the race he was able to leapfrog the second placed car in the pits and return to the track in second place.

Putting in a series of flying laps, Stefan began to reel in the first placed driver, and with fifty minutes left on the clock, successfully caught and passed the Dyson Racing car for the lead.

Despite having been racing for almost six hours, the second and third placed cars were still tantalisingly close to the 007 car, but Stefan continued to push on and brought the Aston Martin Racing LMP1 home in first place to secure victory on the team’s return to the American Le Mans Series.

Yesterday’s victory is Harold Primat’s second victory with Aston Martin Racing in the LMP1 category. It follows a win in Okayama in the Asian Le Mans Series in 2009.

“This is an absolutely fantastic result for the whole team. It is a great feeling to be standing back on the top step of the podium and the whole team should be proud of today’s result. Everyone has worked extremely hard to keep improving the car step by step and today’s victory is testimony to all that effort;” commented Harold Primat.

“The team did a super job on strategy and my team mates Adrian and Stefan did a fantastic job in the car. Laguna Seca is a demanding circuit as it is fairly short and has some really twisty sections like ‘the corkscrew’, but the car was handling beautifully so we were all able to push hard and come home in first place. We now look ahead to Petit Le Mans in two weeks time where we will all be working hard to try and get a repeat of today’s result;” continued Harold Primat.

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Mücke Laguna Seca race report

Next article BMW Team RLL win GT driver & team championships

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Formula E postpones Jeddah E-Prix with Mexico now the season opener

Formula E

FE Formula E 10 min

Formula E postpones Jeddah E-Prix with Mexico now the season opener

With the Qatar MotoGP Grand Prix over, it is time to heal the wounds

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP

Qatar GP

42 min

With the Qatar MotoGP Grand Prix over, it is time to heal the wounds

How Brazil showcased everything that's good about F1 - plus some that isn't

Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

How Brazil showcased everything that's good about F1 - plus some that isn't

Max Verstappen on Ferrari clashes: "I would never sign two number-one drivers"

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

1 h

Max Verstappen on Ferrari clashes: "I would never sign two number-one drivers"

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts