Jaap Van Lagen hopes that his
strong showing at the Dubai 24 Hours will help earn him further opportunities
with Walter Lechner’s eponymous team.
The 39-year-old
impressed by setting the fastest lap in the 991 class and was integral to the
no. 40 Lechner Racing Middle East’s five-lap victory over the sister no. 81
car, placing 11th overall. Speaking to Racing.GT, Van Lagen said he would
relish the opportunity to further his partnership with the 2015 Porsche
Supercup teams champion, which also organises the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge
Middle East.
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| van Lagen on the grid before the Dubai 24, where he was entered in both the no. 40 and no. 80 cars. (Jaap van Lagen/ Twitter). |
“Last year Sven
Muller could not do two events so I did some races with Lechner at Hockenheim
and Lausitzring in Carrera Cup Germany. He gave me the chance for Dubai and I’d
really like to stay with him because he’s had so much success in the Porsche
Cup – if he wants to go 24 hour racing with a GT car, he will do it really
well,” van Lagen said.
“He has some really
good mechanics, good engineers, he’s a real winner. If he does something, he
does it properly, and I’m exactly the same.”
The versatile
Dutchman raced a part-season with Lada in the World Touring Car Championship
and took an excellent fifth at the Nürburgring 24 Hours last year, but still
holds ambitions of a full season campaign in Supercup. In his last regular
campaign in 2010, van Lagen finished fourth on countback to Norbert Siedler,
despite missing two races, and won three times in the equally competitive Carrera
Cup Germany between 2011 and 2013.
“I’d really like to
do a full season with Lechner or Alex Fach; I did one full season in 2008 with
Kadach and did the full season in Carrera Cup three times, but never with
proper testing or anything like that because the budget was not enough. Without
that you can’t win championships,” he said.
However, with budget
constraints a continual hurdle, van Lagen recognises that further one-off
appearances, one of which resulting in a high-profile Supercup victory at
Monaco with Fach Auto Tech, may provide his best route to success.
“Monaco was
unbelievable – Alex Fach called me on the Tuesday and asked me if I was
available, so I of course said yes,” he continued. “I’d never driven with him
before, but we’d talked many times together, and he was champion in Supercup
with Earl Bamber the year before. I booked a flight on the Tuesday evening, I
arrived on the Wednesday, on Thursday I was second in free practice, Friday I
qualified P1 and Sunday I won the race!
“As a guest driver
in a new team you cannot say ‘this setup is not correct, I want to drive this
way’ because then you’re out, that’s not the way to work. I’ve driven for five
or six different teams with different setups, different engineers, different
mechanics and it’s hard to be in the front immediately, but at Monaco after
five or six laps of practice I came in and said to Alex ‘the car is really
good, tomorrow in qualifying, I’m sure I will be in the top three.’ In the end
I was P1 and at Monaco if you don’t make any mistakes you can win!”
This article also appeared on Racing.GT
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