Krohn Racing and their three drivers Tracy Krohn, Nic Jönsson and Michele Rugolo finished fifth in the GTE-Am class in the inaugural outing of the World Endurance Championship and gained 10 points toward the coveted FIA Endurance Trophy for the LMGTE-Am Team Championship.

However they were disappointed after a failure of the gear-shift at the five-hour mark cost the Ferrari F458 team a 25-minute pit stop and a loss of 12 laps. Additionally, owner/driver Krohn locked up the brakes and hit the wall shortly after the seven-and-one-half hour mark, causing a lengthy pit stop of one hour and 11 minutes and a trip to the garage for a splitter and rear suspension replacement. Although it was not the result Krohn Racing had their sights set on, they walk away with valuable and needed points in their quest for the 2012 WEC LMGTE-Am Team Championship.

Nic Jönsson (Krohn Racing driver #57 Ferrari 458 Italia LMGTE-Am): “Unfortunately we had a part fail. Then unfortunately, Tracy had an incident, but it had nothing to do with the end result really because we were already out of contention. Now we have to see if we can address that and move on to Spa and the rest of the season. I think we still have a very good chance of winning the championship if we can get the reliability of the car.”

Tracy W. Krohn (Krohn Racing Team Owner/Driver # 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari 458 Italia LMGTE-Am): “Now we’ll move on to Spa and beforehand get the gearshift issues figured. I was very impressed with the car. I’m actually very happy to be heading away from Sebring with the points. It could have been a lot worse. We’ve now got this one behind us and we’ll head for Spa and then onto Le Mans.”

David Brown (Krohn Racing Team Manager/Race Engineer): “We have been let down by poor reliability again and an incident involving the wall and the right hand side of the car, which further put us back down the field. A great deal of work and investigation will go into the next few weeks in preparation for Spa, where things will be different.”

(Based upon Krohn Racing press information)

Photo: SEBRING INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY (SEBRING, FL, USA), SEBRING 12 HOURS, FREE PRACTICE, 16TH MARCH 2012. Krohn Racing competed for the first time with the Ferrari 458 Italia in the LMGTE Am class.