After their successful debut in the 2020 Porsche Supercup, the team led by principal and racing driver Côme Ledogar is setting their sights even higher this season. They are focusing on expansion, podium finishes – and experience behind the wheel.
It has been an eventful and instructive year for the likeable Frenchman. In his day job, he’s a full-time racing driver in endurance events around the world. In his spare time, he founded his own racing team, almost as a sideline. The new team immediately competed in the Porsche Carrera Cup France and the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup. This is a man who’s not only fast on the circuit, but able to live several lives in parallel.
Côme Ledogar's career took him through formula racing into the Porsche Carrera Cup France, where he finished second outright on his debut for the Pro GT by Alméras racing team in 2012. The following years were active too, as he raced in numerous endurance championships including Bathurst and Le Mans. He always stayed loyal to the Porsche Carrera Cup, and in 2014 he finished first in the series in France with Alméras. He has also raced in the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland and Italia, where he also finished as champion in 2016 with Team Tsunami RT. He even competed in the Supercup for a season.
In addition to his driving skills, he brings his experience as a driver coach and manager in other teams, all of which is now helping him to build his own team. His focus is on the people – and Côme Ledogar makes no distinction between racing drivers and mechanics. After all, if you can build connections with your people, you can build success out on the circuit. He demands maximum commitment from all his racing drivers – himself included, even when not in the cockpit. In the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup Season Test, his drivers #11 Florian Latorre (FRA) and #12 Steven Palette (FRA) finished 6th and 18th. There's still room for improvement.
What can we look forward to next season?
Florian Latorre finished the 2020 Supercup season in a strong 5th place – as did CLRT in the Team Classification. This put them ahead of established players including FACH AUTO TECH and MRS Racing. We talked to Côme Ledogar before the season started, about his plans and goals for the Supercup 2021.
Hello Côme.
What did you learn in your debut season that you want to implement right from the beginning of this season?
I learned that there is always room for improvement and we need to keep on working, even if we had a good result. Especially with the new car, there is an even higher level of work as with the previous one, but we are ready for every challenge this season.
What expectations do you have for hotshot Florian Latorre? What can we expect from Steven Palette?
For Florian and Steven there is no alternative than standing on a couple of podiums this season. The overall goal for the season 2021 is to win at least the Team Championship.
Being a small team do you feel a bit like the underdogs? What is the benefit of being small and relatively unknown?
I don’t know if it really is beneficial for us but in terms of logistics it is a bit better to be a smaller team. Since we have no ProAm or Rookie drivers in our team we only compete in the Overall Classification this season, so there’s no other option than winning.
You were a very successful Rookie in the series yourself. Do you have any tips for the Rookies this season on how they can use the awareness of the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup and design their career?
The Supercup Rookie Programme is doing a really great job helping young and ambitious drivers to become professional on every level. I would have been very happy back in my day to have had all the opportunities and help the Rookies of today get. The professional support might also be the reason why we are seeing Rookies on top of the podium in their very first Supercup season. My advice for the upcoming talents is to keep their motivation high and stay focused during race weekends.
What do you think of Porsche’s plans to promote sustainability in their one-make cups?
It is a great chance to preserve the way we drive and not go fully electric. It keeps the car sound as we know it and as long as they are sounding like that, it makes me happy. But also in terms of the environment, it helps a lot to make our sport more sustainable. Thank you for that, Porsche.
Côme, thank you so much for the chat.
