Nissan's Race that Could Have Been

SILVERSTONE, UK – Every now and again motorsport throws up a race that is full of "what ifs" and "maybes" and this afternoon's FIA World Endurance Championship at Silverstone was one of those events. Despite the formidable pace of the Greaves Motorsport Nissan in the hands of Martin Brundle, Lucas Ordonez and Alex Brundle, four separate incidents scuppered the chance of a top result last weekend. 

Over at Signatech Nissan there were celebrations and commiserations when the No.26 car finished on the podium but the No.23 of Jordan Tresson, Franck Mailleux and Olivier Lombard failed to finish the six-hour race.

Alex Brundle had a great run in qualifying on Saturday and put the Greaves Nissan on pole position, whilst Franck Mailleux wasn't far behind in sixth on a closely matched grid.

When the race got underway on Sunday lunchtime though the Greaves driver didn't have the most auspicious start when he had to take quick action to avoid a spinning LMP1 car, dropping him all the way down to 13th place.

"We were almost a victim of our own success at the start," said Alex. "It's good to start on pole up there with the LMP1 cars but to then have one spin in front of you it negates all of your effort.  We fought hard to get back through the pack and I made it up to ninth by the end of my first single stint so we were more than ready for the fightback."

Next up was Lucas who continued the recovery, despite hitting a stray bollard that was in the middle of the track at Brooklands. 

"Everything felt great when I jumped in the car," he said. "I got into a good rhythm straight away but after about 10 laps I came across the bollard, right on the racing line so I couldn't avoid it.  It got stuck under the car and believe me that really messes up your aero.  It also put our pit stops out of sync but I got back down to business and stayed out until the first safety car period."

Lucas pitted to hand over to Martin Brundle who joined the race behind the safety car just before the restart. Unfortunately he picked up a stop go penalty early on in his run.

"That was the race that could have been," said Martin. "We were quick enough to win but when you have four separate issues it is hard to recover.  We had Alex's incident at the start, then Lucas' bollard. Lucas was also hit from behind and I got a stop-go.  That was a strange one as it happened at the restart and it was an AM-class Aston Martin that just didn't get going and looked like he was pulling off so I passed him and got a penalty for it. I think without those dramas we could have won comfortably here."

At Signatech Nissan Franck had a good start and moved up to fourth, where he stayed throughout his opening double stint. Olivier Lombard was up next before 2010 GT Academy winner Jordan Tresson took the wheel.  Jordan had a good run but unfortunately came to blows towards the end of his stint.

"As I came through the Becketts Complex I felt like I had a puncture and went into the run off area at Chapel," explained Jordan. "Unfortunately I then lost the car on the astroturf and went into the wall and that was the end of our race.  Before that everything was good and I had enjoyed a steady run.  It's a shame as we needed to score big points today for the championship."

Alex jumped back into the Greaves car next and fought his way up to fourth, such was the pace of the Zytek-Nissan.  Then it was Lucas' turn to take it to the flag. He fought hard, taking the second fastest LMP2 lap of the race along the way and finished in fifth position after closing down the Oreca-Nissan of Pierre Kaffer.

GT ACADEMY CHOOSES EUROPEAN WINNER
The FIA World Endurance race wasn't the only race at Silverstone this weekend. The six European finalists of GT Academy also went head-to-head on the full Grand Prix Circuit. The outright winner was Belgian Wolfgang Reip who will now go on to Nissan's driver development program which will prepare him for the race of his life at the Dubai 24 Hours in January 2013.

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Contact

Lindsay Morle
Motorsports Nissan Europe
lindsay@morle.com
+44 7971 481078