Young Driver AMR: Takes fourth and eleventh in Qualifying Race

Young Driver-Aston Martin fourth and eleventh in Qualifying Race

Spa-Francorchamps (B)/ 30.07.2010. [GT1 World Championship]

Young Driver AMR managed to set a good foundation for the Championship Race of the Belgian round of the GT1 World Championship in today’s Qualifying Race at Spa-Francorchamps. Christoffer Nygaard and Stefan Mücke finished fourth in their Young Driver-Aston Martin DBR9, while the sister car of Darren Turner and Tomas Enge saw the chequered flag in 11th position.

Stefan Mücke started eight on the grid in the Qualifying Race of the fifth round of the GT1-World Championship and was running in fifth position at the end of the first lap. The German ace then passed another two cars until the end of his stint and handed over the car to Nygaard in third position. When Christoffer Nygaard overtook the Aston Martin half way through the race from Mücke, the engine didn’t refire immediately at the pit stop. Nygaard lost one position due to that issue and finally finished fourth.

Darren Turner and Tomas Enge had a strong race after starting from 18th position. Turner overtook five cars during his stints, Enge continued the chase to front and managed to overtook another to competitors and finished 11th.

The result of the Qualifying Race means the two Young Driver-Aston Martin will start from second row of the grid (Nygaard/Mücke) and from 11th position (Enge/Turner) into Saturday´s Championship Race.

Quotes of the Young Driver AMR drivers:
Stefan Mücke (#8 Young Driver-Aston Martin): “At the start a another car made contact with me, but fortunately it didn’t cause any damage to my car. At the end of my stint I had a real drop in tires, but could climb as high as third position. A Corvette was chasing me and it was hard work to keep him behind me. “

Christoffer Nygaard (#8 Young Driver-Aston Martin): “Stefan drove a great race in the first half, I only had to bring it home. In the beginning of my stint a Ford was just behind me. I had to push a little bit to make a gap, but after that my race was quite uneventful. The only issue I had was a problem to restart the car after the pit stop. We lost some second until the engine refired and possibly lost third place due to that.”

Tomas Enge (#7 Young Driver-Aston Martin): “We made good progress in the Qualifying Race, starting from 18th and finishing 11th is not too bad. We are near the top 10 and the car is improving. I hope we continue in this way in the Championship Race and score good points tomorrow.”

Darren Turner (#7 Young Driver-Aston Martin): “I had a really good start and could make up three positions on the first lap. I had lots of traffic in the race, it was quite entertaining. But we have to work a little bit on the set up for the Championship Race. We will look into the data and look at what we can improve.”