Ex-Formula 1 racer Merhi and his team-mate in the #6 Audi R8 LMS GT3, Yoshiaki Katayama, finished third earlier this month at Sugo, equalling the finish they achieved together in the fourth round of the season at Fuji in August.
The Spanish driver believes that the team could have come away with its first win in the GT300 ranks on either of those occasions had things gone more smoothly - and feels next month’s Autopolis round could offer a chance to finally break the team’s duck.
“Team LeMans has improved a lot since last year and now the tyre degradation is also pretty good,” the Spaniard told Motorsport.com. “We have a very balanced team. I think we could have had a win already this year with better luck.
“It’s about putting everything together. Last year at Autopolis we had good tyre degradation and we were one of the quickest on race pace. [Saitama Toyopet] Green Brave was very strong last year but this year they will be the heaviest car [on 75kg success ballast].
“We will also be heavier, but our car is much better than last year, so on paper we should be competitive. It’s also a long [450km] race which means I do two stints and there is more time to recover if there is an issue. Hopefully we can have a strong weekend.”
Asked if a win could be on the cards, Merhi replied: “I really think yes. Every weekend we are now competitive. Usually there is one car that is super-quick each weekend because it is light on success ballast, but I think we have a chance to win.”
Merhi and Katayama finished fourth on the road at Sugo, but were promoted to the final podium place when the winning Team UpGarage Honda NSX GT3 was disqualified.
Katayama made rapid progress in his opening stint and was running as high as fourth when he ran off-track at Horseback corner while battling the works Subaru BRZ for third.
While the LeMans Audi only lost one place in the incident, Merhi believes the damage to the front splitter cost he and Katayama, as well as a delay during the pitstop, the chance to fight for an even higher position at the end of the race.
“The front splitter was damaged, which meant we lost some downforce and compromised the pace a little bit,” he explained. “We also lost a lot of time in the refuelling, I would say six to eight seconds compared to the average.
“Sugo is a track that is difficult to overtake, so when we restarted [after the red flag] in that big pack, we destroyed the tyres. Also with the damaged splitter I was always losing a lot of time in the last corner, which made it hard to pass the lapped cars.”
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