Gigawave takes its first win

With the LMS title already in the bag for Luc Alphand Aventures Corvette C6.Rm was there really going to be much of a race for the LMS fans in GT1?

Qualifying said it all: with barely a tenth separating the grid, there was no lack of competitive fight on the cards. The Larbre Saleen S7R Ford was 7/100th ahead of the Gigawave Motorspots Aston Martin DBR9, which edged out the Corvette by 1/10th. As ever with endurance racing, the question was, would the last the distance?

At 11.37 BST the engines fired up with that particular combination of growls and howls so utterly characteristic of LMS, with LMP1's, 2's & Prototypes and GT1's and 2's sending rumbling shock waves through the grandstand as they prepared for the warm up lap.

Ryan Sharp took the first stint and immediately the pack came back in sight of the Start/Finish for the rolling start, the young Scotsman charged down on the Saleen declaring his intent

Closing the gap, Ryan pitted after the first hour to hand over to Peter Kox for a double stint With a brilliant display of commitment and verve, Peter overhauled the Saleen and used every single one of his 600 horses to increase the gap to a lap by the time he handed back to Ryan at the half way point at just after 3 hours in to the race.

Another disciplined, pointed performance by the young Scot gave not an inch of his lead away.

With a pitstop in hand and a flawless drive Ryan Sharp handed the lead back to Peter Kox. But Peter was determined to leave no doubters in his wake and extended his advantage first by one and then by 2 laps until pitting. Coming out of the pits the Flying Dutchman pressed on and magnificently held a one lap advantage to the finish line taking Gigawave MotorSport to its first First.

Team Principal Nigel Stepney said, "It was a well earned victory in a competitive field where nearly every starter went the full distance. Peter and Ryan drove measured, commanding stints and the team never missed a beat.”

Reflecting on a season when the Team has been busy as the deployment partner of Nismo for the Nissan GT-R, Stepney continued: "We've come to expect this level of performance from Steve (Hagger, team manager) and the crew but we always said that some of our podiums could have been ewe better. Today we did it and it felt pretty good. Tomorrow, we start again. It's been great to get the Aston out again but we're back to the business of developing the GT-R for the remainder of the season."
AMR Teams