It is almost three weeks since our previous update but travelling for some of the team members and an ad hoc event kept us quiet in terms of writing but not in terms of racing.
Last week found us practicing Sebring again, but in the middle of the week one of the HRT drivers dropped us an idea, to be more specific, he dropped us a bomb! He “discovered” a private race for the 27th of Feb in Mount Panorama and gave us the heads up. Unfolding the details of the event we found out that was a 12h race for teams with min 2 drivers, max 4. As an endurance spirit team it was more that a simple race for us. Most of the HRT members knew the track in advance but for 2 out of the participant 4 drivers, was like going to the moon. Qualified cars for the race were the McLaren, Ford and BMW GT3s for class A, Ruf C-Spec for Class B and KIA Optima for Class C.
Practice sessions of Mount Panorama or “The Mountain”, as it is well known, started last Wednesday. Everybody was practicing like maniac and after 3 days we were in a decent level. Saturday evening came quiet quickly and we managed to position the car at P7 on qual, moving to P6 in the first corner of the race. After 12 hours of endless driving up and down the mountain, eight driver swaps and close to 400 overtakes, we managed to finish in the 4th position! The way that the race was developed we could have even finished 2nd but due to bad luck and some bad calls, 4th is what we got. Besides the good race, the fun and sleepless night, we got some valued lessons as well that will help us achieve better results in the future. Sebring race is only nine days away…