Young Driver AMR: Great pit work brings Top 10 finish

Young Driver AMR claimed tenth place in today’s Qualifying Race for the fourth round of the GT1 World Championship at the Paul Ricard circuit in Le Castellet/France. Darren Turner (GB) and Tomas Enge (CZ) finished tenth in their Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin DBR9 after starting from 17th position in the qualifying race. The great work of the Young Driver AMR pit crew once again played a key role in the race. Enge/Turner gained five places in the race after the team performed a quick and almost perfect pit stop. Stefan Mücke (D) and Christoffer Nygaard (DK) had bad luck. Mücke was in fifth position at the beginning of the race, but had to retire after five laps with a broken cardan shaft.

Enge/Turner will start from 10th place in Sunday´s Championship Race, while Mücke/Nygaard have to start from the back of the grid.

Tomas Enge: “The start of the race was really hectic. We started from 17th and I’m not used to start so far back on the grid. There was much action at the back of the grid and I had some pretty good fights. We had a great pit stop and finished 10th. So we really made the best of the qualification, considering we have one a heaviest cars in the field due to the penalty weight we received for our success at the last round at Brno.”

Darren Turner: “At the end of the race, I had a pretty bad understeer and the car was out of balance. The tires had a big drop until the end of the race, so it was pretty tough. Our race was really hard, but after I got in the car I overtook two cars before the end and managed to finish tenth. I hope we will have a similar run tomorrow in the championship race and will grab some points.”

Stefan Mücke: “The start of the race went really well. Starting from eight, I was in sixth position after the first lap and actually overtook one more car. When I was fifth, we suddenly got a problem with the drive train and I had to retire to the pits. It’s a shame, because the car felt really good in the first laps and I’m sure we could have kept the fifth position until the end.”

Christoffer Nygaard: “There was no race for me today due to our retirement. I hope for better luck tomorrow, but it will be very hard as we have to start now from the back of the grid.”