Subscibe to our feedMaintaining Momentum on the Drive for the Championship
In his years of driving race cars, Adrian Fernandez has been in all sorts of situations, but this year he’s sailing along in uncharted waters.
Despite all his previous success, he’s never been in a position to win five straight major races. But when he and the American Le Mans Series return to action after a break so some teams can participate in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Fernandez and his co-driver Luis Diaz will be vying for their fifth straight victory in the Lowe’s car in the LMP2 class.
Fernandez said that while the win streak is a little surprising, the performance of his Lowe’s-sponsored Acura is not.
“I knew we were going to be good because this is the second year with this car,” he said. “Last year, it was a brand-new car for us, and we didn’t have all the right pieces until the end. It took us a year to really learn the car. But this year has definitely been a good year for us."
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Fernandez and Diaz have been so dominant that their chief competitors in the Dyson Mazdas have been given a horsepower advantage by way of an air restrictor and turbo boost on their engines.
That made for a nail-biter of a race in the most recent event at MillerMotorsportsPark in Tooele, Utah, but the Lowe’s team came out on top by less than a second after nearly three hours of racing.
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“They were 10 miles per hour faster than us on the straights at Miller,” Fernandez said.
But as of now, that concession to the Mazdas is set to expire before the next event at LimeRockPark in Lakeville, Conn.
“But you never know,” Fernandez said, adding that beating a team that’s been given a break by series officials makes the wins even sweeter. “It shows that this team never gives up. The last race was a very good one, and we just barely won it. It speaks volumes for the team.”
The ALMS summer break for the Le Mans event comes after several weeks of racing on a regular basis, and Fernandez and Diaz are focused on maintaining their momentum during the down-time.
But Fernandez said he and his team will use the time to prepare the car. And he and Diaz, while spending time with their families, will continue to hit the gym, working out and staying in top physical condition. The ALMS, like NASCAR, has limited testing due to financial concerns.
“It’s almost like having an off-season and coming back to the season, but it’s been that way a long time and it doesn’t affect us that much,” Fernandez said.
In years past, he’s joined the drivers who compete in the famed 24-hour endurance test in France, and claimed a clas pole and second-place finish in 2007.
Already in his summer break, Fernandez traveled to Monaco to help Sergio Perez, 29, the son of an old friend and supporter, compete in a support race, GP2, to the Formula One event there. Perez finished ninth in a field of 28.
And Fernandez's family traveled to Florida from Mexico for a visit, giving the extended family a chance to enjoy some quality time together.
"That’s my priority right now,” he said, adding that Diaz is also spending time at home with his newborn son, Luis Pablo. But come July 17-18, they’ll be back behind the wheel at Lime Rock, a race course that suits Fernandez just fine.
“I like that track a lot,” he said. “That’s another track where we want to win really bad, especially after what happened last year.”
An electrical problem with the car knocked the Lowe’s Fernandez Acura out of contention while it was running among the leaders and poised to possibly take an overall victory.
Fernandez said that the new pavement on the course has smoothed some of the bumps, but the track still has some tight corners that can be challenging, especially in traffic.
The straights aren’t that long, and the corners are winding, like many of the older road courses, and there are elevation changes.
It’s one of the oldest tracks, and it’s very different,” he said. “I sort of grew up in those kinds of tracks, so the first time there I got up to speed quite quickly. It’s been changed a little, but the views and the settings are beautiful.”
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Fernandez said that if he’s going to extend his win streak to five, it’ll take a flawless run because the Dyson Mazda crew has a month to make their cars better.
“They are working on their chassis and their cars,” he said. “I expect them to be more competitive than they were at Miller.”
But that competition is just what Fernandez and Diaz need to keep them focused on the prize – a championship title at the end of the season.
And now, they are ready to get back in the car.
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