Jan & Camaro @ Daytona '10
Jan Magnussen starts the season at Daytona
By Jan Magnussen Presse - Jan Kaiser - 07-01-2010
A Chevrolet Camaro on display at Daytona 2009. The car is apart from the paintscheme similar to the car Jan Magnussen will drive at Daytona late January.
For the sixth year in a row Jan Magnussen will have his raceseason kick-off at Daytona in Florida. The American sportscar classic, that is a part of the Grand-Am series will be held in the last weekend of January and yet again the Danish racingstar will be starting in the GT class in a car from his American employer General Motors.
Jan Magnussen will drive for Stevenson Motorsports in a brand new Chevrolet Camaro GT.R that has been built and developed by Pratt & Miller - the same team that builds his Corvette C6.R and the car from previous years at Daytona the Pontiac GXP.R.
Stevenson Motorsports has in previous years started in Grand Am with a Pontiac GXP.R and with their two drivers Robin Lidell from the UK and the American Andrew Davis they won races in 2009 and finished third in the championship. The new Camaro has as mentioned earlier been built by Pratt & Miller and has the same chassis as the Pontiac GXP.R Jan himself helped develop. The new car has been quick out of the box. At a joint test at Daytona in December the team were fastest.
The race at Daytona will be Jan Magnussens first race since he was violently driven off the track at Laguna Seca in his Corvette. C6.R in october 2009. Jan Magnussen has since that incident been suffering from pains and has cancelled tests. Since that several treatments and painkillers has made progress so Jan doesn’t predict any problems, even though he is not completely free from pains. At Daytona Bergmeister who were the culprit of sending Jan into the wall will be starting in a Porsche by the way.
Jan Magnussen has won victories in other sportscar classics like Le Mans, Sebring and Petit Le Mans, but even though he has fought for victory at Daytona he hasn’t won it yet and thereby missing out on the spoils of victory and coveted award - the Rolex Daytona watch! Even though it is a tough class of 26 GT cars Jan Magnussen is not in doubt. This race and watch has to be won.
"This watch will be mine" says Jan Magnussen. "It has been close the previous years, but unfortunately we have had problems during the races. The race at Daytona is hard on the cars and the game is all about coming through without troubles. The track has some long stretches where part of the oval track is used, but the infield is narrow and there is often contact between the cars so it is all about finding the sweet spot between taking care of the car and going fast. The car is quick out of the box. But it is a new car and there will always the question of going competitively over the distance. Pratt & Miller has proved that they can build really good and fast cars and Stevenson Motorsport and their drivers has proven themselves as racewinners, so I think we can be in the lead pack fighting for victory."
Jan Magnussen travels to Daytona today and he will participate in the official pretest before the race this Friday to Sunday. The race starts at the 30th of January 3.30PM local time.