In preparation for the upcoming endurance races in Silverstone and Le Mans, leading Hong Kong based motorsport team, KC Motorgroup Ltd. (KCMG) was at Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours earlier this week to test its Morgan-Nissan LMP2 car.
The Nissan-engined Morgan prototype completed 600km during the successful 2-day test with KCMG drivers Alexander Imperatori, Matt Howson and Ka To Jim. The drivers took turns in shaking down the car in both wet and dry conditions and had to conquer an extremely slippery track, collectively producing encouraging results.
Swiss driver Imperatori and British teammate Howson successfully finished their shakedown and simulation sessions despite some small technical issues. Meanwhile, Hong Kong Chinese driver Jim capped off the testing session by impressing the team as he completed his run with strong pace.
KCMG will head to Silverstone on April 14-15 to compete in the opening event of the World Endurance Championship. The team takes its presence in the 6 Hours of Silverstone as a test session for the Le Mans 24 – giving the team a proper venue to practice driver changes, pit stop procedures and gauge each driver’s endurance limit in a real race situation.
The strong driver line-up of Imperatori, Howson and Jim will compete against 34 other teams from across the globe in April. This will ultimately prepare the team for the biggest and most anticipated sports car endurance racing event in Le Mans.
Alexandre Imperatori: “Overall, we had a good shakedown of the new car which allowed us to work on all the small gremlins that you would expect from a brand new car. We have made positive progress considering everything was brand new, from the car to the team, and it was great to start working with our guys. It should provide us with a good base to start real work in Silverstone, which will be a real-life test session for us. Thumbs up to our crew for putting in a great deal of effort to put together the car together in a very short amount of time. I’m looking forward to keep working on getting familiar with and improving our package in the coming weeks and months leading up to Le Mans.”
Matt Howson: “The Magny-Cours shakedown has been the first time this team has worked together having been built only a few months ago, and everything has run perfectly. We have inevitable teething problems but these will be resolved by our guys. Already this is one of the most professional operations I have driven with, Silverstone is a trial run and we must learn as much as possible from the first race weekend. I cannot thank all of the team enough for their late nights and hard work. Pressure is on the drivers!”
Ka To Jim: “Being back in Magny-Cours is such a great thing for me. The shakedown that we did for the Morgan-Nissan car this week helps a lot in making me familiar with a brand new car. There were some setbacks, but that is just expected from a newly-assembled machine. The team did a good job and worked very hard to have the car ready for us this week. I had a good run during my testing session and the team is happy! We all can’t wait for the Silverstone race. This will be the first crucial test for the car and drivers before Le Mans 24 Hours.”
KCMG Managing Director Paul Ip is in France to oversee the initial shakedown of the Morgan-Nissan package. “Our team in Europe has done a good job on the car and we are looking forward to the events in April and June. I’m happy with Alex, Matt and Ka To’s performance and they’ve delivered positive results for us. Silverstone is just phase one of our latest campaign in endurance racing in Europe. Silverstone will be our test in order to prepare for the Le Mans 24 Hours. I believe that it is an effective way for our drivers to feel the pace of car and gear up for the upcoming event in Le Mans in June.”
For more information about KCMG, visit www.kcmg.com.hk. To keep track of latest updates, please like KCMG’s Facebook page or follow @KCMotorgroup on Twitter.
