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The Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 of team owner/driver Tracy W. Krohn, Nic Jönsson and Michele Rugolo proudly made an appearance on the podium at the 80th annual 24 Hours of Le Mans race today. The Krohn Team finished in third place in the GTE-Am class, the third podium for Krohn Racing in the past seven years.
Krohn and Jönsson previously finished second in class in 2007 and third in class in 2009 and have been hoping to collected another prestigious Le Mans trophy this June, this time with their co-driver, Italian Michele Rugolo.
The Krohn Racing Team started from the 10th position in class and the 52nd spot on the grid with fastest qualifying driver Rugolo. They cycled through near perfect pit stops and driving stints throughout the twice-around-the-clock event and gradually worked their way up the time charts to the inevitable third place finish.
As season-long participants in the 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship, the championship points that Krohn Racing receives is actually for being the second place contender (in WEC), bringing Krohn Racing into second place in the FIA WEC points chase for GTE-Am teams for the 2012 season.
QUOTES: TRACY W. KROHN, Krohn Racing Team Owner/Driver, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTE-Am: "That was just really not easy. That was a hard race! The team was just terrific. We had some track issues. I had a couple of them but we survived all that. We need to get tires sorted a little bit better but all-in-all, it was good. Mechanically, the car was perfect. The motor was good the whole time. There was never an issue of 'wondering if the car will make it.' The engine was perfect. The transmission was perfect. That's how you finish races and what you have to do! Jeff (Hazell, Krohn Racing Motorsports Manager) and David (Brown, Team Manager/Race Engineer) coordinated it all, as well as each and every one of the guys. Everybody did a great job, including our drivers, Nic Jönsson and Michele Rugolo, who were spectacular. Everybody was superb and kept the thing going. Even our physios kept me running through the night. I have some back problems and they really helped.
We just kept on going and that's what you have to do to finish this race. We've come here and every time we've finished we've been on the podium so that's the key thing. You cannot get anywhere here unless you finish. The last lap was amazing! It was really fun. The marshals were all over the track. It was just crazy. Thank goodness we weren't racing for anything at that particular moment. It was a sight!"
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