Gavin: Fitness crucial at Le Mans
Oliver Gavin believes that his own physical fitness as well as his team's experience will be crucial this year
The four time GT1 class winner at Le Mans will be competing with Corvette Racing in the GTE Pro category this year.
"I've realised after doing so many 24 hour races that it's important to be well rested and well fuelled and hydrated," he said.
"This year in particular I've been working in conjunction with a number of doctors and been on an intensive course of vitamin and mineral supplements to make sure I'm as healthy as possible at the start of the race.
"Le Mans week is a huge mental and physical challenge because it's such a massive race. The whole focus of the year is around this event and inevitably the pressure is very intense this week. To deal with all of that for six or seven days you need to be fully loaded at the start of the week.
"Three weeks before an endurance event I make sure that I can run [on the road] for 2-2.5 hours without any problems. Back in April I did a marathon in three hours 17 minutes and have kept up that level of fitness and carried it all the way through to this point.
"In the 10 years I've been driving for Corvette the car has evolved massively and the way the team approaches Le Mans is very different now to a decade ago. One of the things that's changed over the last couple of years is that they spend more time focusing on making the drivers as prepared as possible, recognising that the driver is a very important part of the machine which makes the Le Mans race work.
"Corvette has worked super hard on cooling and cockpit comfort - the seat, AC unit, carbon monoxide meter in the car, drinks system, rear view camera - and the spotting that the team does to help us avoid potential incidents in the car. These are all things which have evolved within the team over the last decade."
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