Arkivet
Positives despite DNF at Red Bull Ring
WestCoast Racing didn’t manage to finish the first ADAC GT Masters race of the weekend at Red Bull Ring. But despite that there were positives to bring into Sunday’s race at a track which has proven to be difficult for the BMW’s.
Martin Öhlin and Fredrik Lestrup drove equal lap times in qualifying in their respective qualifying sessions. The time set by Martin Öhlin was enough for 17th place in the grid while the same time set by Fredrik Lestrup only was only good enough for 29th place in the grid for the Sunday race in a faster second qualifying session.
Martin Öhlin took the start stint in todays race and got his stint divided by two periods of safety car after incidents in the early laps. The team chosed to keep Martin out for a bit longer and he went into the pits with 28 minutes remaining of the race to hand over to Fredrik Lestrup. In the pitstop the adjustment arm for the seat broke and the seat was stuck in the rearward position. This delayed the pitstop with an extra 38 seconds and thus ending all hopes of scoring a point. Despite this Fredrik Lestrup managed to keep a strong pace and managed to be faster in the race than the best BMW-time set in qualifying. With four minutes remaining he lost all drive in the BMW and was forced to retire in the pits.
”I didn’t get so many real race laps in my first GT Masters race unfortunately with several laps spent behind the safety car,” Martin said afterwards. ”It’s disapointing we had to retire but the car worked much better today which is promising for tomorrow. We will start even further back then but these races are usually eventful so anything is possible.”
”This track has proven not to suit the BMW but our car felt really good in the race today,” Fredrik said. ”Unfortunately we had to retire when something happened with the gearbox or the clutch and I lost all drive. On top of that the adjustment to the seat got broken in the pitstop so it was a bit challenging. The positives are that we got the feeling back in the car and had a better laptime in the race than set by a BMW in any other session this weekend. Hopefully we can use that in the race tomorrow despite starting a long way back.”