Nürburgring 1000Km - July 15-16

Qualifying review
After a difficult time in the run up to qualifying, the team’s efforts were rewarded by a third in class grid slot. The car left the workshop for the first time only six days previously for its shakedown, so the practice sessions were destined to be more of a public test session than making refinements for the circuit and conditions. Having had a very hard few days, the team was delighted with the pace of the car and the start position for Sunday's 1000 km. Practice had been challenging on Saturday morning with electrical gremlins dominating the first 90 minute session. The afternoon practice brought a big improvement but shaving more than four seconds off that time in qualifying was an even greater achievement.

Tim Greaves, Team Owner and Driver; “We’re very pleased with the result. We’d always like to do better of course but with less than 75 laps on the car it’s a fabulous result for the team. We got good feedback for tomorrow from the second practice and hopefully this will keep us consistent for the six hour race. The pole sitting MG Lola is a very well sorted car and we look forward to the challenge that they’ve set us over the coming months. Stuart’s time was particularly impressive as he’d only completed a few laps in this afternoon’s session.”

Stuart Moseley; “We were four seconds faster than we’d been all morning. A lot came from pushing the car and with braking. There’s still a bit left in me – if we’d pushed a bit harder in practice I think we’d have been able to be even faster and got more out of qualifying. New cars can have teething problems which has slowed our progress here but this qualifying result is something that the team can be very proud of after all the effort that they’ve put in.”

Race
Team Bruichladdich Radical made its international debut in style by making its way to the front and leading the class within eight laps. Stuart Moseley drove through very crowded conditions on the track with a pace to match Le Mans Series LMP2 leaders RML and fellow Radical runners Rollcentre Racing. A spin for Stuart as he passed a Porsche and a problem with a boost pipe to the engine cost the team time and by mid-point were lying 7th in class and 20th overall. From that point it was a case of making the most of the running time available, given that the car had only completed around 20 laps in a shakedown before this weekend. Both Stuart and team-mate Tim Greaves drove well and in its first race took the flag after a hard race of 171 laps and 6 hours.

Tim Greaves, Team Owner and Driver; “I’m very pleased we finished. We had a recurring turbo pipe problem so for the last stint we were normally aspirated! Once we’d lost ground with the first pipe problem we knew we were out of contention for a podium so from then our goal was to finish and put mileage on the car. The car handled extremely well and there’s plenty in reserve. We’ve demonstrated that the car’s quick enough – now we need to make sure we’ve got reliability.”

Stuart Moseley;: “I had a slight advantage at the start when the car in front didn’t make it off the line. Unfortunately putting me with the ‘P1’ cars got me boxed in a bit but RML didn’t have a great exit out of turn one and Michael Vergers [Barazi Epsilon Courage] got by on turn two. The next turn I managed to pass him round the outside with all the traffic for second in class. I sat behind Michael and managed to pass him going down the hill to take the lead.”

“A few laps later I was overtaking a Porsche but I couldn’t get past cleanly because of a Panoz being there and it just felt as though the Porsche pushed me round and I over-steered into a half spin. There were no marks on the car so I’m not sure what happened. From there I had a routine stop and was making up places and getting through the traffic. About halfway round the circuit in my second hour I lost power instantly so had to crawl back to the pits with what turned out to be a loose boost pipe.”

“I think the highlight for me has to be leading the class and getting there on merit as well as showing that we’ve got the performance.”

Team Bruichladdich Radical next competes in round five of the Le Mans Series on home ground at Donington, UK on August 26-27.

Text & Images copyright ©dailysportscar.com. All Rights Reserved.