GRC Racing : Good start to the season

After 24 hours GRC Racing’s Aston Martin Vantage N24 passed the finish line in Dubai as number 42 overall and number 6 in its class. This was the first race the car has participated in.

”Usually a place as number 42 does not live up to our ambitions for this car,” Team Boss Jan Kalmar tells. ”But first and foremost we are delighted that the car made it through and that the unlucky circle, the Aston Martin has driven on, has been broken. This is of no doubt. We are always running for cups, but we knew that the opportunities had faded when our BMW 120d unfortunately was destroyed during the training.”

Nonetheless, a small change in luck on the Autodrome in Dubai could have changed things a lot.

”After 3½ hours we were number 18, just after, and clearly faster than, a BMW 120d from Hungary,” Jan Kalmar goes on. ”A tube for the cooling system for the rear brakes was torn loose and a small piece of wire, meant to keep the tube open tore the brake tube entirely off. It could have gone terribly wrong, but the driver reacted immensely fast, and we were able to repair a short time after. In that sort of cases, a prototype, as our Aston Martin has become by now, is always difficult to treat, and the episode put us an hour back.

One hour at the 5½ km long track makes just around 25 laps, so the possibilities of a place on the podium were hardly realistic anymore. If it should happen, it would mean that a lot of other cars would have to get serious problems

”But our luck was not yet entirely with us and around midnight a Renault Clio smashed into the side of our car. It seemed as though the damages limited to a read wheel, but later that night we were in the pit box for almost 90 minutes with a broken rear suspension, which was another damaged caused by the unfortunate encounter with the Clio earlier. On top of that, the organization had problems with the fuel system, which meant, that we ran out of fuel. But all things being equal, ’m happy and satisfied. The car has shown both that its durability is generally in order and that it has a potential of getting forward in the field. With the speed we had and the strategy planned, the car had top 10 potential. Not bad!”

Both of the team’s cars will now be packed in the containers, so that they can be shipped back to Europe.

The next planned race for GRC Racing’s cars is the first race of the German endurance race series VLN at Nürbugring in the ending of March.
AMR Teams