Nielsen Racing’s 2020 Le Mans weekend gets off to a positive start, securing valuable championship points in La Sarthe for their Le Mans Cup campaign.
The #7 DUQUEINE M30 D08 of Colin Noble and Tony Wells ended the 13-lap epic to finish fourth; missing out on a podium by just 2.5 seconds. Tony started the race only to be pushed out wide soon after lights out – ending his stint 10th. Colin hopped in after six laps – more than 50 seconds behind the race leader. Fortunately, Colin’s ever-improving pace, secured him the second fastest lap of the race.
The #10 D08 of Canadian pairing Garett Grist and Rob Hodes took the chequered flag 15th – the same position they qualified in; an impressive result considering the Le Mans Cup crew worked through the night to rebuild the car in time for this morning’s qualifying session, following damage sustained during yesterday’s FP2.
Road to Le Mans race 1 results
#7 Tony Wells & Colin Noble
Qualified – P5 3:48.216
Race – P4 P4 overall after 13 laps
3:47.613 second fastest lap of the race
#10 Rob Hodes & Garett Grist
Qualified – P15 3:52.726
Race – P15 P15 overall after 13 laps
Stuart Moseley, LMC Team Manager
“Car 7 qualified relatively well, starting the race in P5 which put us in the hunt for a podium finish. Unfortunately, Tony got a little bit swamped at the start which made things a bit tricky but he picked it up from there and it was a good solid stint. We had a clean pit stop – the time was good and then obviously Colin had to make chase and he had a fair bit of traffic to tackle to start off with. He just missed out on the fastest lap overall – it was a good race for Car #7.
In terms of Car #10, it’s been a challenging 34 hours after the damage we sustained in FP2 from one of the track markers that ultimately meant we had to re-chassis the car overnight. The guys worked through the night and the car was ready just in time for qualifying. Since then, the car’s run pretty faultlessly and they were able to bring home a strong finish. Rob’s getting a few more laps in and starting to get more familiar with the Le Mans circuit, so hopefully in Race 2 they can make some big progress.”
Rob Hodes, #10
“The team did an unbelievable job, worked all through the night. Literally took the car apart and then put it back together again after an unfortunate incident yesterday that affected the chassis. They had it ready with 15 minutes to go before qualifying.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get a great qualifying position and that was quite frustrating for me being stuck behind slower cars. We had a good race. My pace was really good but unfortunately I just got too frustrated behind the slower cars, so made a pass attempt that wasn’t the wisest and that cost us and set us back but then Garett did a good job – picking up a few spots from where we qualified. Racing at Le Mans is racing at Le Mans – so I’m having an awesome time!”
Source. BAM Motorsports
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