Despite taking an LMP2 class win that saw them lead the category for the majority of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Swiss driver Fabio Scherer told reporters after the race that the Inter Europol squad are ‘the underdog team.’
Up against seasoned LMP2 competitors such as WRT and United Autosports, the #34 Inter Europol Oreca-07 Gibson of Albert Costa, Jakub Smiechowski and Scherer ended up class winners at Le Mans. Scherer told reporters that despite his team being underdogs, having the right people can help fight the bigger outfits, and that was proven today at Le Mans.
“For sure we are the underdog and we are the family team,” he said. “But if you have the right people and you know what to do you can destroy the big ones and it feels even better to win against the big ones for me.”
The #34 Inter Europol car took to the head of the LMP2 field within five hours of racing at Le Mans, as cars from experienced outfits like United, Prema and even Jota had major incidents that dropped them out of winning contention.
The team’s near minute lead was slashed in the final hours as the #34 Oreca-07 Gibson machine had to serve a drive through penalty for an earlier safety car infringement, slashing the advantage to 20 seconds. Scherer had his grievances when it came to the penalty, but preferred to focus on the positives.
“I don’t want to speak about it because we won and it doesn’t matter at the moment,” he said.
On the team’s sensational win, Scherer knew a class victory was on the cards upon arriving at Le Mans last weekend.
“When I came here, to be honest I thought we could have a chance. Because I know in Spa we had one of the quickest cars. I knew we would be quite well suited for here as well and through the week it came more and more as our long run pace was always quick.”
The chasing pack was led by the #41 WRT entry and when asked by MotorsportWeek.com how it felt to be chased by former F1 ace Robert Kubica, Scherer said it was one of Kubica’s teammates he was more concerned about.
“For me, it was more [Louis] Delétraz because it was a Swiss rivalry and he’s more or less my age,” said Scherer.
As the chequered flag fell on Le Mans, Scherer won his Swiss rivalry as his #34 Inter Europol team finished 21 seconds ahead of their #41 WRT rivals to pick up their first Le Mans class win.
