Unfamiliarity at Imola an issue for Beechdean in ELMS

Friday, May 13, 2016


Having gained the overall win at Silverstone last month by virtue of the transgressions of the actual race winning JMW Ferrari 458, the #99 Aston Martin Racing entered Beechdean V8 Vantage GTE will be looking to follow up that performance with more championship points at this weekends second round at Imola.

With Jonny Adam still on AMR Customer duty within the Blancpain Endurance Series, AMR factory driver Darren Turner again joins team boss Andrew Howard and Alex MacDowall for the 4hour race on Sunday.

With non of the drivers surprisingly having any racing prior experience of the 4.9km circuit (except probably that from work completed at Turner's Base Performance simulator facility) it comes as no real surprise that the team was today the slowest GTE at the end of FP1. That is in no way detrimental to the capabilities of the team but considering the depth of knowledge and experience of the teams and drivers within this years GTE championship, the #99 does have the steepest learning curve this time around.


With the JMW Ferrari setting the early pace with a fastest lap of 1:42:262, the #99 Beechdean completed its set up finishing just over 1.5seconds behind them. Howard reported that he "was surprised at how busy the track was and how there was little room for error"whilst MacDowall was "still confident of the team picking up significant championship points".

Tomorrow sees the second ninety minute Free Practice session in the morning before qualifying just after lunch. The start of the for hour race starts 14:00Hrs local.

Photo credits - Adrenal Media / R Leach
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