Blancpain Endurance Series at Monza
The first round of the Blancpain Endurance Series kicked of in Monza and a massive and impressive 60! GT cars were on the grid.
After their successful start to the season in Hungary the newly found Blancpain Racing Team had their baptism in this highly competitive series.
The newly designed Lamborghini Gallardo GT3 FL2 was on the pace with a P6 in free practice, but the team knew that this first round would be not easy as the cars strengths would lay in different areas this year.
In qualifying Sunday morning Peter put the car in 17th position 0,7sec of pole, an impressive 24! cars in 1second!
Marc Hayek took the start and after a hectic few laps came into his own pace and could establish good lap times.
The crew did a great job at the pits stop when Peter took over for his middle stint. Unfortunately the radio stopped working and the signal to leave took a little too long.
Peter then tried to make up as much ground as possible and in doing that lost the car at the exit of the famous Parabolica corner and slightly touched the barrier.
Annoyed by his mistake Peter drove the Gallardo back from P38 to P16 posting quick lap times to show the potential of the new car, which was in race trim more competitive then in qualifying.
At the last stop Marc took the wheel again and start where he had left of by pushing hard.
Unfortunately the brakes didn't last as expected and the team had to make an unplanned extra stop to change the front pads. This was done very quickly, but in the process they made an error for which Marc had to serve a drive trough penalty. After that it had no point to continue and Marc decided to park the car.
All in all it was disappointing, because although the team knew it would not be their strongest track, there was a realistic chance on points and that was the focus, because you need each single one in this championship!
