Young Driver AMR: Tomas Enge LMS 1000km of Spa race report

Tomas Enge (CZ), Christoffer Nygaard (DEN) and Stefan Mücke (GER) driving Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin DBR9 in the 1000 kilometres of Spa didn’t finish the race. Thus the preliminary mission for the 2010 24 Hours Le Mans hasn’t been completed as the team would like to.

Tomas Enge was chosen to start the 1000 kilometres of Spa for Young Driver AMR team, and started from the 29th on the grid. As the region of Belgium is noted for its changeable weather, already in the opening laps of the second Le Mans Series round started to rain. The rain then caused several accidents in Eau Rouge and Les Combes sections. Anyway, Tomas Enge demonstrated his driving skills with ability to cut through traffic and moved to 24th position in overall rankings and second position in GT1 class.

Tomas Enge handed over to Stefan Mücke after his opening stint in the 2nd position in GT1 class. The 1000KM Spa has been stopped just after the two-hour mark due to a major power cut affecting the Belgian circuit. The lack of power has affected communications for the past 20 minutes, and also knocked out the timing screens at the track. The red flag period has taken about half an hour, after that the race has been restarted.

During Stefan Mücke’s stint a mechanical problem has occurred, which saw Young Driver AMR mechanics work more than 30 minutes to replace the car’s water pump to allow the #52 Aston Martin DBR9 to continue in the race. However, it fell from the second to the last position in GT1 class.

Christoffer Nygaard took the car over from his team mate Mücke for the last stint. Unfortunately, in the very last hour Danish driver lost a control over the car, and in the fast section of Blanchimont in a speed over 250 km per hour he left the track and crash into tyre barrier.

Tomas Enge, Young Driver AMR team’s driver: “Immediately after the start I moved two positions higher, and after the restart I set about hunting down the lead GT1 car. I stayed behind him during the whole stint. I didn’t attack him, instead of it I played a waiting game, because the race in Spa has been the preliminary test for the 24 Hours Le Mans. Unfortunately, we suffered a mechanical problem during Stefan Mücke’s stint. He had to go for a pit stop to change the broken water-pump. As the third took over the car Christoffer Nygaard, who lost the control over the car in a high speed and left the track. The car is damaged quite a lot after the accident, but after the first view, it has seemed there shouldn’t be broken chassis. Well, we failed the preliminary race and have a lot to do until Le Mans.”

PR