With three races completed and with three rounds of the 2024 season remaining, Sebastian Alvarez, along with his Inter Europol Competition teammates Vlad Lomko and Tom Dillmann, leads the ELMS championship standings in the #43 entry by five points.
With a win at Le Castellet, the Inter Europol Competition team is preparing its championship lead at Spa-Francorchamps on the 25thAugust. We caught up with Sebastian Alvarez to find out the Mexican driver's thoughts at the start of the second half of the 2024 season.
Q) Can you summarise the season so far?
Sebastian Alvarez: “We’re halfway through and yes, we have had a good first half! Barcelona wasn’t where we wanted to be, but Paul Ricard was a mega race! Imola was damage limitation for us given the brake issue before the start, so we could never have guessed that we would come away with such a great result. So, now we push on, minimise the mistakes and do the very best job that we can.”
Q) Your two-point championship advantage is a narrow one. Next up is Spa-Francorchamps where historically Inter Europol Competition has enjoyed great results. How are you preparing for this event?
SA: “Spa-Francorchamps is a great track and Inter Europol Competition has had great results there in the past. It’ll be a bit different this year as they have resurfaced areas of the track. We still have the data from before – that will help a bit – but in a way, we’ll have to start again in terms of baseline setup, so perhaps it’s like going to a new track!
“This doesn’t make it easy; we’ll all have to work hard with our engineers to develop the car – to make it as quick as possible – in the timeframe that we have.”
Q) The #43 Oreca has been fast at a variety of circuit characteristics so far. Spa is a great circuit with three very differing sectors. Weather conditions aside, do you focus on the high-speed turns mid-lap or the fast start and end to the lap in terms of the race setup?
SA: “Spa is a great track in that – as a driver – you can play around a little more with the downforce. We can go high downforce [fast middle sector] or low [fast sectors one and three] so I think that’s something we will experiment with on the test day at the circuit to determine which option is better for the strategy and the race.”
Q) Mugello is a new venue this year and some teams have tested there recently. What’s the plan for the final two rounds of the championship there in Italy and for the season finale at Portimao?
SA: “Mugello follows Spa, and we’ve not been able to test there yet. It’s a new circuit to me, and I believe it’s a demanding track with high-speed blind corners. I’ve driven it on the Sim to understand the layout, but yes, we need to prepare as much as possible. Portimao, I feel comfortable there, having driven and raced there before. As always, we’ll give our all!”
Round 4 of the 2024 European Le Mans Series is the 4 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps on the 23-25 August.
