Gustavo Menezes is confident of Rebellion Racing’s chances in the Lone Star Le Mans round of the FIA World Endurance Championship.
The Californian, sharing the #1 Rebellion R13-Gibson with Bruno Senna and Norman Nato, will be starting from pole position at Circuit of the Americas, marking the third consecutive time the Swiss privateer outfit has started from pole.
When asked if he was confident he could score Rebellion’s second victory of the season Menezes replied:
“Yeah, obviously with the Success Handicap, it’s very interesting the way the battle moves back and forth performance wise with Toyota. They are definitely at a disadvantage, with quite a heavy success penalty here.
So we’re going to do our best, try and take advantage of the opportunity we do have, I think the track suits our car quite well and we have the advantage with performance, so I think it should be a fun race tomorrow.
Again, it may rain tomorrow and then it might be a little bit of a different story with the four wheel-drive versus the rear wheel-drive in the rain, so you never really know where we’ll be, but I’m excited for the race tomorrow for sure.”
Menezes has a stellar track record at Circuit of the Americas, holding a 100% win rate at the Austin circuit. In 2016, he won top honours in LMP2 partnering with Nicolas Lapierre and Stephan Richelmi at Signatech Alpine, one of four wins en route to the 2016 LMP2 title.
One year later, he would once again be on the top step in LMP2, again with Signatech Alpine, this time with Lapierre and Andre Negrao as his co-drivers. Menezes then joined Rebellion for the 2018/19 Super Season, when the track was not on the calendar.
“Obviously, COTA is a special one, the circuit is amazing” the California native spoke about the circuit. “There’s the technical aspect, as well as the high speed sectors. Having driven here in LMP2, the car was fantastic with Alpine back in the day.
Obviously, two races here, two wins is special. We’re trying to make it a third one. The track is definitely a lot less bumpy, I can actually keep my foot on the pedal, so I’m excited for the race this weekend, for sure.”
