Niklas Krütten enjoyed a successful debut at the world-famous 24-hour race in Le Mans.
The 19-year-old from Trier finished seventh in the LMP2 class for the COOL Racing team, alongside Ricky Taylor (USA) and Yifei Ye (China). The trio came home eleventh overall, narrowly missing out on the top ten.
The three drivers produced a really strong performance in front of roughly 250,000 spectators at the endurance classic in France, and were in with a good shout of a podium finish. However, four punctures and several reduced-speed phases at tactically unfavourable times repeatedly set the Swiss team back and prevented them from achieving a better result.
Niklas Krütten: “This race is really one of the absolute highlights of my career so far. The atmosphere in the days prior to the start was electrifying. The fans lining the streets during the driver parade made me really emotional. It was just awesome. The race itself actually went very well for us. Our pace was top, but unfortunately the result does not reflect the performance of the whole team. In such a long race, the interaction between engineers, mechanics and drivers is extremely important. That was perfect. Unfortunately, the punctures and reduced-speed phases cost us. However, I am not unhappy. I very much enjoyed the Le Mans adventure and hope I can be part of this spectacle again in 2023.”
Krütten returns to action in less than two weeks (24th to 26th June) at round three of the ADAC GT Masters in Zandvoort (Netherlands). Driving a BMW M4 GT3 for Schubert Motorsport, he and Ben Green (GB) will be looking to back up the strong performances of the last race weekend, when the young duo won both races together at the Red Bull Ring in Austria.