Kane Excited For New Dome Project

Strakka's return to the World Endurance Championship with a new Dome coupe has Jonny Kane in high spirits ahead of the 2014 season, he told the Motorsport Journal. Following Strakka’s triumph over the Rebellion team in the privateer LMP1 class at Le Mans last year, the team withdrew its HPD-ARX-03 from competition to focus on the upcoming year in LMP2, a move Kane believes will prove beneficial.

With privateers in LMP1 unable to contend with the latest technologies pushed forward by the manufacturers, LMP2 offers a more even platform and is proving attractive to teams. Over twenty cars were entered for Le Mans in 2013 and Strakka is keen to be involved, with Kane, Danny Watts and Nick Leventis set to drive the Nissan-powered S103 chassis.

The new Strakka Dome S103 will commence testing shortly.

"It was a great sense of achievement for all of us to win the privateers cup at Le Mans and finish sixth overall, which was really the best result we could have hoped for. After that, we thought it was probably a good time to stop and take stock of things and see where the future for Strakka was going to be for the next two or three years," Kane said.

“I think LMP2 probably fits us better. One of the drivers must be silver ranked or lower and Nick is a silver rated driver where everyone in LMP1 was either gold or platinum last year, so it was a tough ask to compete against that and against the manufacturers.

"The rules are strict and very limited, so performance of the cars should be fairly close, and that's where the team can come into its own to prepare the car well and hopefully get some results. Everyone at Strakka is really upbeat and very much looking forward to getting stuck in."

Facing up against well-established chassis ran by experienced teams, Kane accepts that the Dome’s potential will take time to bear fruit and is hesitant to make predictions before the car turns a wheel in testing, but the Northern Irishman is hopeful that Strakka can avoid the persistent teething troubles which plagued the Kodewa Lotus team’s new T128 last season and be in a position to challenge.

“We're up against cars that have been out there for a few years and they've got through their reliability problems, the cars are fast, they're run by good teams, so it’s certainly not going to be an easy feat to be competitive straight off,” he said. “But with the people we've got at Strakka, it is achievable and I'm sure the car is going to be good, it’s just how we develop it over the first couple of months we've got before the first race.

“Hopefully we won't have too many problems, but the nature of endurance racing is that the races are long and they're hard on the drivers and machinery, so any problems we do have will likely show themselves pretty quickly. Obviously Le Mans is the jewel of the season and to take a car to Le Mans in its first year as a private team will be difficult, but we'll give it our best and hopefully come away with another good result.”