6 HOURS OF BAHRAIN - THE CURTAINS ARE DOWN

Good Sunday afternoon, dear readers! Yesterday, in the heat of the night of Bahrain, the 2022 FIA WEC season came to a close, crowning Séb Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa as World Champions. I’m really happy about these guys I met in Monza back in June, and I send them my congratulations!

Lou and his mates RobKub and Lorenzo, thanks to their perfect strategy, even managed to keep their Prema-branded Oreca in the “podium zone”, but in the very last minutes, unfortunately, they ended up to P5. However, I congratulate them for their amazing season as well for their kindness when I met them in Monza.

So, what will Lou do next year? I hope to discover it 😉 I’m sure he will give all his efforts to do his best, as he always did and always will do!

6 HOURS OF FUJI - FUJIYAMA IS WATCHING YOU

Finally, the moment came. What am I talking about? The 6 Hours of Fuji, held in one of my favourite countries: Japan! 

Lou landed in Tokyo on Monday and had a lot of fun visiting the crazy capital city of the Land of the Rising Sun. According to his Instagram stories, he visited landmarks such as Akihabara and TeamLab Borderless Museum.

Talking about the race, Japanese fans were very happy to see both the Toyota Hypercars on the highest steps of the podium. Our Prema boys gained P6 in their class and P10 in the general classification; in the first 30 minutes, Lou even managed to bring their Prema-branded Oreca up to P3. Robert and Lorenzo did their best to improve the result, but luck wasn’t so generous to them.

WEC will be back on track in 2 months, with the final 2022 act in Bahrain! 

6 HOURS OF MONZA - A NOT-SO-SERIOUS REPORTAGE FROM THE FIELD

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Monza for the WEC 6 Hours! Oh, well, it took place yesterday, but I came back home at around 7:30 PM and I was too tired to write the review. It was my first time attending a WEC race, and I can say it was an unforgettable experience. But let’s start from the beginning.

My dad and me left our house at 7:45 AM and arrived to Monza Circuit at 9:00 AM. I bought the VIP ticket, so I was allowed to enter the paddock, while my dad remained on the tribunes. In the paddock I met some of my friends from Instagram who are into motorsport too, such as Lisa and her husband Davide, Silvia, Jasmine and Deborah. There also were many people from all over the world: Mexican, Polish, Japanese, French, American and many others. It was like travelling all around the world in an only place! 

Then the pit walk with the autograph session started: the most “sieged” drivers were RobKub and Fisico, but there were many other former Formula One drivers such as Paul DiResta, JEV, Kamui Kobayashi, Séb Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Kazuki Nakajima. Lou was very nice and available towards the fans; despite I was wearing a face mask (Covid, here you are again) he recognized me at the first sight and made a big smile. My friends and me succeeded to get many autographs and gadgets!

I watched the race both from the stands with my dad and from the FanZone with my friends. It was full of crashes and yellow flags; the most scary one was when, during the second racing hour, Henrique Chaves lost his Aston Martin’s control and ended up upside down, luckily he was not hurt. Prema Orlen Team ended the race in 9th overall position and 6th in LMP2; Lou had an excellent first stint, he also managed to get the lead of the race after battling with William Owen.

Fun fact: a few minutes before the end of the race, my friends and me managed to shake our hands with Jim Glickenhaus, a movie producer which created an endurance racing team. He’s such a character, he always wears a cowboy hat, you should get to know him 🤠 

The winners of the race were Alpine for the overall classification and Corvette for GT class; my friends and me went under the podium to attend the ceremony, it was fantastic to sing national anthems of France and United States as well as funny (and refreshing!) to be sprayed by champagne.

My first ever WEC experience didn’t disappoint me at all I definitely need to be back next year!

Before saying you goodbye, I post you two of the many pics I took yesterday:

Despite the crowd, I managed to take a pic of Lou’s car 😊

Vicky with Lou himself! He looks surprised, isn’t he?

So, now definitely I have to say you goodbye! 👋🏻 See you at the next post 😉 

2022 SUPER SEBRING WEEKEND - UPS&DOWNS

If Charles Leclerc had a wonderful weekend, bringing back Ferrari to the win after more than two years, unfortunately we cannot say the same about Lou in his IMSA 12h of Sebring weekend. According to what he wrote on his Instagram account, Prema Team had to retire his car.

But… wait, there wasn’t only IMSA this weekend. He also raced in the FIA WEC Super Sebring weekend, where he ended P4; the crew leaded the race too, but unfortunately they had to surrender to the bad weather conditions and to the subsequent red flags. 

As you can see, this has been an up&down weekend for our hero.

2022 WEC PROLOGUE - A SOUND IN THE HEAT

Prologue is a word which recalls us about classical music. Well, but this time in the Floridian heat you could hear the sound of WEC engines instead of the sound of the orchestra. For the Prema boys it was a fantastic combo of track days, with RobKub who scored the fastest time in the afternoon of Saturday and Lou who ended P4 in the afternoon of Sunday.

Personally I think it will be such an exciting season and I wish all the drivers all the best, especially to Lou and to Prema. Lou loves Sebring so much and for sure will have a good Sebring 1000!