Akkodis ASP Lexus #78 has had quite an eventful year so far in the FIA World Endurance Championship.
The team has not had the same driver combination for two races in a row, all down to Ben Barnicoat being injured in a cycling accident, happening between the FIA WEC round in Qatar, and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship round at Sebring. That has called for all the changes amongst the teammates of Arnold Robin and Finn Gehrsitz,
For the 2025 24 hours of Le Mans, the team has chosen to pull in Jack Hawksworth, who drives for the Vasser Sullivan Lexus outfit in IMSA. He was drafted in for the 2024 race as well for the #87, but only after Jose Maria Lopez was called back to Toyota, after Mike Conway got injured in – you guessed it – a cycling accident prior to the race.
Racing24-7.net managed to catch up with Hawksworth, to hear a bit about his year and the race ahead.
Is it good to be back at Le Mans this year?
“Yes, very nice.”
With a bit more preparation than last year?
“A lot more preparation, yes! Last year was like… I remember this time last year being at this thing and being… I’d just flown in, super tired, and yeah… no, it feels really nice to be back, like, and also for the team, second year here, all that kind of stuff, so, yeah, it feels good.”
Photo: JJ Media
It looks like the car has quite a lot more pace this year than last year, developing, finding the right setup and getting more to grips with the European tracks, I guess, after racing in the US for so many years?
“Yeah, I think that, based on what I’ve seen, the first few races have been really competitive. And then even just coming in the garage yesterday, you can see how much better prepared the team is, how much calmer it is, everything. You can see they’ve taken a big step. So I’m excited now. I think we’re in good shape.”
And things are going quite okay in America as well.
“Yeah, at the moment we’re second in the championship. So we started the year with a bad Daytona, and then we’ve been second the last three races, so second in the points, quite close to first, so good start so far.”
And survived the Detroit as well.
“Yes, so Detroit was a GTD Pro race, so we finished fourth. It was an exciting race, but it didn’t count for the championship for us. ”
Hawksworth is usually part of the #12 car i IMSA, which runs in the GTD category.
The Akkodis ASP Lexus #78 car was 3rd and 4th fastest in the two Sunday practice sessions respectively, with the sister car #87 being fastest in both sessions.
The next time that we see the cars on track, will be 14.00 CET on Wednesday.
