Michael Waltrip will drive a Ferrari for the Italian team of AF Corse in the 24 Hours of Le Mans on June 11-12. Waltrip, Michael Waltrip Racing co-owner Rob Kauffman and Rui Aguas will compete in the GTE Pro Class. Waltrip plans to test next weekend at the Le Mans course in France. He also tested at the Paul Ricard Circuit in France in March.(ESPN.com)(4-16-2011)
UPDATE: #15-Michael Waltrip will head to France Wednesday to test for June’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.
WALTRIP ON LE MANS: “Le Mans is a circle with a whole bunch of quirky turns stuck in the middle of it like a chicane and then two lefts and a right. That means one thing, there is going to be a whole lot of speed. Every time you get to a corner you’re going to be hauling ass. The challenge for me is learning the circuit. There are a lot of turns, there’s very few places where there is just one turn. It’s like you get there and there are three or four turns right when you get there and then you fly down another mile or so to hit another set of turns.”
RACING WITH FASTER PROTOTYPES: “I went to Portugal and tested with the (Le Mans prototypes) on the track so I’d have that experience. They’ve toned the LMP cars down a little bit. They’ve taken some power away from them. Being out there with those guys is interesting because every time I’ve raced in my life I’ve been in equal cars and when I started racing the road race stuff I was passing cars that were slow, and that was really hard because you couldn’t predict where they were going. Now, I’m going to be in the slow car and I don’t want those LMP guys thinking ‘I don’t know where he’s going’ so what I’ve been told and what I learned in Portugal is to just run and they will find a way around you. That’s what my goal will be, to just to sort of figure it out. We’re going to get there on Friday just to ride bicycles around the track again to try to look at it and learn it. It should be a great experience.”(MWR)(4-20-2011)
