Young Driver AMR: Mücke and Turner score big points with fifth place finish
Sunday, September 04, 2011
From the seventh position of the grid, Darren Turner had a really good start and moved up to fifth place after the first lap. The Briton maintained the fifth place until the mandatory driver change. During the pit stops, the Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin lost one position, but also gained one, so Mücke was still in fifth place in the latter part of the race. Mücke could keep a chasing Lamborghini and Nissan in distance and secured the fifth place. With the fifth placed finish, Mücke/Turner maintained their fourth position in the drivers World Championship. They even closed the gap to the
as the Championship leading Lamborghini and the second placed Nissan finished behind the Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin in China.
The streak of bad in China didn’t came to end in Sunday’s Championship Race for Alex Müller and Tomas Enge in the second Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin DBR9. Enge started from the back of the grid according to the regulation as the Young Driver AMR-team changed the V12-engine before the Qualifying Race. The quick Czech made good progress and was already in 12th position, when a lengthy pit stop cost valuable time. Alex Müller saw the chequered flag in 14th place.
From Ordos, the Young Driver AMR team travels now to Beijing, where the penultimate round of the GT1 World Championship will take place on Friday and Saturday (9./10. September). With just two races to go, Young Driver AMR is currently fourth in the team championship.
Quotes after the Championship Race:
Hardy Fischer (Team principal Young Driver AMR):
“The fifth place of Stefan Mücke and Darren Turner is the maximum we could hope for on this track, so I’m not so unhappy with the result. They even closed the gap to the two championship leading cars, which is something we really couldn’t expect. Tomas Enge and Alex Müller had bad luck during the races, but their speed showed that a podium finish would have been possible without the issues they had during the two races. Now we move on the Beijing, which I expect to be even more difficult for us then Ordos.”
Alex Müller (#7 Young Driver-Aston Martin DBR9): “This was certainly not our weekend. Practise and Qualifying went great, but then we had this issue with the engine, which we chased during both races. We have now focus on the next round in Beijing and I really hope that we left our bad luck in Ordos.”
Tomas Enge (#7 Young Driver-Aston Martin DBR9): “Our practise was good and after Qualifying, we had a really good starting position. But then the drama began, when we had to change the engine and had to start from the back. From that position, a good finish is just impossible in this very competitive championship and also on this track where, it’s very difficult to overtake.
So, our weekend was literally over after the Qualifying. It seems to be the same for us this year every two races. A good weekend is followed by a one not so good one.”
Stefan Mücke (#8 Young Driver-Aston Martin DBR9): “The race was pretty hard, during my stint I always had much pressure from behind. In the beginning, I could stay in contention to the fourth placed car, but then the success ballast we have to carry here, came into play and my tires lost their performance a bit earlier the car in front of me. Now we move on to Beijing, that will be very interesting.”
