Ebrahim admits lack of pace hurt win chances despite Super Trofeo class title
Armaan Ebrahim says he was content with his own pace in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Asia series, even though lack of long run pace hurt him and teammate Dilantha Malagamuwa to attain race wins despite the duo taking the Pro-Am Class B title.
Photo by: Armaan Ebrahim
For the second year in a row, Ebrahim competed in the one-make series of Lamborghini alongside his Sri Lankan partner Malagamuwa, for the Dilango Racing team.
The duo took championship victory in Pro-Am class having secured eight podium finishes in the season, but were unable to win races having come close on few occasions.
"The season was a positive one in terms of my personal pace," Ebrahim told Motorsport.com. "If you take qualifying, I didn't qualify below second and managed to lead three out of the six races that I started [overall].
"But there was a still a little more left to eke out of the car and make it work at the right time. I think we lacked a bit of long run pace.
"The down side of the season was when we were forced to retire due to an engine failure in Suzuka and were handed a stop-go penalty in Sepang for exiting the pits 0.4 tenths too early, where we lost some critical points on the overall title run," he said.
Even though the overall Pro-Am title went to the pair of Toshiyuki Ochiai and Afiq Yazid, Ebrahim said that the Indo-Sri Lankan duo took the class win due to the license grade system.
Good rapport with Malagamuwa
Being in a class where the professional driver has to get along with an amateur, it means the experienced driver has to take the leadership role and keep the team in contention for good results.
"The chemistry and understanding of the pair has to be good," he said when asked on how he combines with Malagamuwa. "Honestly, all I can do is give it a 100 percent.
"And maximise my run [as much] where I can open a bit of enough gap or stay as close to the leader so that would help my partner once he gets in to finish it off.
"[Our results] this year, it was a combination of finding time with the set-up of the car and me finding the balance between driving the car at the limit without over doing it along with better use of the new tyres, which we were able to do to a certain extent," he added.
Being in driver academy a boost
The Chennai-born driver was taken into the Italian manufacturer's driver programme for the 2016 season, which the Indian feels was a good learning curve in his career.
"Being a part of the Lamborghini Young Driver Program was a good experience," he started. "Going to the factory [in Italy], testing some new parts on the Super Trofeo was great and that's what you really enjoy as a driver.
"Also, trying new things and further developing a race car was something I liked to do. As for 2017, it's too early to say whether I'll stay on in the academy.
"But it's looking positive, as Lamborghini India have been getting more involved as well," he said, adding that he is yet to finalise his plans for next year.
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