Oman Racing Team endures tough start to the Blancpain Endurance campaign
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
A promising performance from the Oman Racing Team during this weekend’s (11/12 April) Blancpain Endurance Series season opener at Monza ended in disappointment with qualifying issues scuppering the Motorbase-run squad’s chance of a strong finish.
The #44 Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 faced a formidable challenge with 58 GT cars taking to the world-famous Autodromo Nazionale Monza circuit. Despite an encouraging start, Oman Racing Team drivers Daniel Lloyd, Ahmad Al Harthy and Jonny Adam ultimately ended the three hour contest in sixteenth place in the Pro Cup class with an overall P26 finish.
Lloyd set an impressive pace in the opening qualifying stint, taking ninth overall and sixth in the Pro Cup class. Unluckily for the Oman Racing Team, red flag incidents prevented Al Harthy and Adam from building on the position with the squad posting a combined position of P20.
The opening first hour progressed well with Lloyd pushing the Aston into 11th place before handing over to Al Harthy. Unfortunately pit stop complications meant that the team lost almost a full minute in the pits and the #44 Vantage dropped way down the order.
Aston Martin works driver Jonny Adam took the final stint of the season opener, managing to work his way up into P27 but a safety car incident in the closing laps prohibited his chances of any further improvements.
Despite being disappointed with weekend’s results, David Bartrum’s squad remains positive about the Blancpain season ahead following a solid performance from drivers and crew. “We know that there’s great potential in the car and under different circumstances we would have been looking at a top ten finish this weekend;” said Team Principal David Bartrum.
“We have some work to do on the Aston to reach its full potential and I feel sure that we’ll be in the mix at Silverstone. The team and drivers worked really well under difficult circumstances; unfortunately it was just one of those weekends where things didn’t go our way.”
Source - Motorbase
