Alex Lynn hailed his class victory at the Le Mans 24 Hours as the “biggest win of my career” after triumphing in the GTE Pro division for Aston Martin.
The British driver set the fastest GT lap of the race as the #97 Aston Martin Vantage he shared with regular World Endurance Championship team-mate Maxime Martin and Harry Tincknell had a faultless run to claim Aston’s first win at Le Mans since 2017.
The #97 car led for 189 laps of the 346 lap-distance and beat the #51 Ferrari of James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Daniel Serra by 1m33s to move into second in the WEC GTE Pro Drivers championship with one round to go in Bahrain.
Lynn’s CV includes sportscar success in the 2017 Sebring 12 Hours, the 2013 Macau GP and the 2014 GP3 title, but when asked by Autosport how these compared to Le Mans, he replied: “It’s the biggest win of my career.
“In the end, it’s one of three of the pinnacle of motor racing and certainly for us as a brand, it’s the biggest thing we can achieve.”
Aston Martin endured a difficult WEC ‘superseason’ with its new-for 2018 Vantage, which was hampered by the decision to switch from Dunlop to Michelin tyres coming late in its development phase.
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This rendered it uncompetitive for both Le Mans in the 2018-19 ‘superseason’, but improvements to the car ahead of the 2019-20 WEC transformed its competitiveness in dry conditions, with the #95 Aston Martin of Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorensen scoring three victories at Fuji, Bahrain and the Circuit of the Americas.
Lynn added that Aston’s travails with the Vantage meant the victory was even more sweet.
“I’d be lying if I said it didn’t,” he said. “It’s fairly well documented the last couple of years we’ve had a painful run of things at this place in particular and to be fair, trust me, it’s a long 24 hours when you’re running around a long way off the pace.
“But today, to do what we did in the style we did, in the attacking manner, I’m very proud of what the team has been able to achieve and the vast improvement the car has made in sheer lap time and also in balance and reliability in every sense.
“For me it feels very sweet.”
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