Fight back podium from TF Sport at Paul Ricard

Saturday, August 27, 2016

TF Sport continued its championship challenge in style today (August 27, 2016) at Circuit Paul Ricard as they finished in a battling third position in the fourth round of the Michelin GT3 Le Mans Cup.

It was by not an easy result as early race issues dropped the #34 Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 entry down the field on two occasions, before the team rallied and took the chequered flag just 8.2 seconds behind the eventual race winner.

Euan Hankey and Salih Yoluc shared the driving duties again in defence of their championship lead and it was the latter who went on to qualify the green-liveried Aston Martin in second position in the Superpole shootout.

“It’s my best result so far in qualifying,” Yoluc stated. “It was really good and now I want to give our rivals a good fight. It’s like 50 degrees in the car but you try and forget that but also we know it’s tough to survive…”

The four-hour race got underway under blue skies with Yoluc taking the first stint and battling for the race lead from the outset before ducking back in behind the leading Ferrari. News shortly followed however that Yoluc was deemed to have jumped the start and was awarded a drive through penalty.

Back on track Yoluc soon found himself trying to work his way back up the order having dropped to eighth, but unfortunately contact #66 Lamborghini saw him serve a second drive through penalty with 40 minutes complete, dropping him from third to tenth with it all to do.

No stranger to a challenge, Yoluc battled back through the field again before handing over to Euan Hankey at half-distance in third position. “I made a good start and got the lead briefly and I was surprised I got a penalty, but I haven’t seen the replay yet, but I’ve heard it was a jump, so no problem,” Yoluc said. “With the contact, I misjudged it a little as I thought he wouldn’t defend that hard. We had winning pace but with the problems, I can’t complain about third.”

Despite having pitted twice more than those around him, Hankey pushed hard with a string of fastest laps, closing the gap to just eight seconds at the chequered flag.

“It was all I could do – fight-fight-fight,” Hankey explained. “It was for my own personal enjoyment and I had some good new tyres. I’m unbelievable happy with third as it really could have been so much worse.”

Hankey’s views were reflected by TF Sport Director, Tom Ferrier.

“That was an interesting race that obviously had some highs and lows,” he said. “We made three trips through the pits compared to one for our rivals and with that it’s obviously all-but impossible to win. Still, that aside, we showed our pace as we finished so well and set fastest lap after fastest lap. We need to look at a few things but we can be happy with the podium.”