Michele Beretta finished twelfth in the most important endurance race in the world, filing a precious experience for his next adventure on the Sarthe Circuit. The italian driver brought at the chequered flag the #78 Porsche 911 RSR of Team Proton Competition in his first partecipation to Le Mans 24 Hours despite some technical issues during the night.
Beretta made his debut at Le Mans, sharing the Proton Competition team’s Porsche with Horst Felbermayr Jr and Max Van Splunteren. Starting from the twelfth position on the grid with Michele at the wheel, the Porsche #78 began the race with a positive recovery up to the tenth place during the sixth hour. Unfortunately, some technical issues slowed down Michele Beretta and his team-mates’ pace and caused the 911 RSR #78 to fall outside the top ten. The young italian drove most of the night with a fast and steady pace, without taking useless risks and gaining an important experience that will give him great knowledge for future editions of the french endurance race. The Team Proton Competition, with whom Beretta is leading the European Le Mans Series, has proven itself to be a high-level squad in a difficult race. Following the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Beretta is already focused on the next challenge, the 24 Hours ADAC Total of Nordschleife Nürburgring, where he will get the track at the wheel of the Team Phoenix Racing’s Audi R8, sharing the german car together with Kim Luis Schramm, Joules Gounon and Frank Stippler.
“I’m happy about Le Mans, it’s a fantastic race. We had some little problems that didn’t allow us to fight for the top ten, which was within our target. About the win, we didn’t have as much speed as Aston Martin and Ferrari, we were missing something in terms of BoP like Porsche, in order to be faster in the straight. Unfortunately, during my second stint, immediately after the refuelling, I had a problem with the front right suspension that forced me to return to the pits due to the serious vibration. Maybe caused from too aggressive drive on the kerbs, during the night we lost the rear diffuser, wasting precious time to fix the car. The team was very fast in both cases, identifying and solving the problems, but we lost almost eight laps, which drop us from seventh to twelfth place. Le Mans is a tough race for everyone, mechanics, engineers and drivers, but these kind of problems can often happen as we saw, but the team was super to face them in the best and fastest ways.”
“Looking to the race, as I already said, it is wonderful but I missed the fans. After the finish line, I felt that there was no happiness, no joy, definitely something we miss during the whole event. I hope this edition is a one-off, because it will be hard to live another Le Mans like this.”
