Sepang, Malaysia (31 January 2018) – With the 2017/2018 Asian Le Mans Series coming to a close this weekend in Sepang, the American duo of Guy Cosmo and Patrick Byrne will be fighting to the finish for the LMP3 Championship.
The final chapter for the four race championship series will see Cosmo and Byrne making their final journey across the world to hopefully come home with an LMP3 championship in hand. The duo have shown mega success throughout the season with top team, Jackie Chan DC Racing x Jota Sport. With two podiums including a victory in Japan, Cosmo and Byrne enter the final race just one point out of the LMP3 championship lead.
Despite showing a strong pace at the previous round of competition in Buriram, the team struggled with a power steering issue that left them having to settle with a fourth place result. With a new weekend of racing ahead, Cosmo and Byrne will once again be partnered with young French racer, Gabriel Aubry, in hopes of closing out the weekend as LMP3 champions.
Cosmo, who is making his way to Sepang fresh off of a strong IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge four-hour endurance event, is eager to get the weekend started.
“As with all of these races, Patrick (Byrne) and I will be learning another new race track but we’ve come prepared and we’ve proven to learn the circuits quickly,” said Cosmo. “However, this time we can benefit from the experience of our new teammate, Gabriel Aubry, who’s raced at the Sepang Circuit before, to help us get up to speed quicker than usual. We have a strong program and this will be a great showdown to see who will be crowned Asian Le Mans Series LMP3 champions.”
The short three week period between events was used to diligently study the car and improvements to be made going into the final event of the season and Cosmo is mindful of the team’s focus heading into the event.
"Our main focus will be improving our overall pace,” said Cosmo. “Of course, it goes without saying that we need to have a flawless race, smooth and trouble free pit stops and clean, consistent stints for each driver - but our competition is strong. All of us at the Jackie Chan DC Racing x Jota Sport team have been working diligently to look at what we’ve done so far to be able to work on finding ways to improve. We are focused and ready for this weekend. We want this championship.”
Byrne, who has shown tremendous pace to keep the No. 6 machine in the front of the pack throughout the four race season is feeling prepared heading into the weekend.
“We will be focusing on car setup, preservation, and outright speed,” explains Byrne. “The team, teammates and myself are preparing as much as possible. I’ve clocked countless hours on the sim and have looked over data from previous years. That being said, this track is notorious for some fickle weather, so our preparations could easily go out the window depending on those conditions. Learning new tracks this year has been the norm. Each new track is a new learning experience and each time we go through this process we become more efficient at it. This ALMS season with Jackie Chan DC Racing x Jota Sport has been a fantastic experience and I got to enjoy it with none other than my super teammate, Guy Cosmo. I am looking forward to the many opportunities this may open up for us going forward.”
The four hour finale event will get underway this weekend and can be viewed at www.asianlemansseries.com or on the official Asian Le Mans Series Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/AsianLMS/)
Event Schedule
*All times in ET
Friday February 2nd
7:40 PM ET – 9:10 PM ET Free Practice 1
10:40 PM ET – 12:10AM ET Free Practice 2
4:00AM ET – 4:15AM ET Qualifying
Saturday February 3rd
11:57PM ET Race
