Of the three ELMS championships that will be decided this weekend, the closest battle is in the LMGTE category with the no77 Proton Competition Porsche leading by just 9-points after five races.
Gianmaria Bruni, along with teammates Christian Ried and Lorenzo Ferrari, has secured three podium finishes, including victory in Barcelona to be in the lead of the Driver and Team titles.If successful on Sunday, the former FIA WEC LMGTE Champion will take his first championship win since 2014 and his first as a Porsche factory driver.
Q: This weekend is important for Proton Competition, leading the championship by 9 points.For you personally this would be your first major championship for eight years and your first with Porsche. How are you approaching this weekend?
Gianmaria Bruni: “No, with experience I do this as a normal race, and then, if we do a good job, like in the past races, the result will come. If we don't do it, the result will not come. So, that's my approach.”
Q: Proton Competition have always done well at Portimão with three wins in five ELMS races since 2017.What are your thoughts on the track and which corner, or corners, do you like the best?
GB: “I was here for the first time in FIA GT in 2009 and I really liked it a lot. We have some difficult times when the E when we were here. In the past, we were struggling a bit with tyres, but, in general, it's a nice track and it's a nice country. The Portuguese fans are amazing, and they love motorsport.
“This track is really demanding, especially since they resurfaced the track, you have a lot of grip. You really have a lot of high grip, and you have to really concentrate and be really fast all the time. You have to just trust the car and go through the corner.
“I like turns 5, 7, 8, 10,11, all these blind corners where you don't know where to brake. It reminds me a bit of old days in Oulton Park, or this kind of track in England where it's quite challenging to find the right spot to position the nose of the car, and it's really nice.”
Q: What have been the highlights of the 2022 season for you so far?
GB: “Obviously, we had the good races. Starting from the first race we had a good come back and came very close to the victory.Then we had a good race in Monza, even if we finished second. We know how the result was, but the race was good. We had issue in Imola, but this is motor sport, it can happen.
“We had a good race in Barcelona, of course. We had also good race in Spa but, unfortunately, we had the success ballast, but I prefer this because it means you have the points, but it's part of the game, part of the championship.”
