6hrs of Silverstone, UK – Sunday, Aug 26th, 2012– After a long summer break the team returned to racing at the 6hrs of Silverstone in UK for the fourth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship marking the halfway point in the season. After a wet start to the weekend, practice and qualifying took place in rapidly changing conditions however the sun shone for the 35,000 spectators over the full six hour race on Sunday.

The privateer Gulf Racing Middle East team representing the United Arab Emirates, have not enjoyed a smooth start to their first year in prototype racing. During the first three rounds of the inaugural WEC Championship, the team has been hampered by unavailability of manufacturer parts and unfortunate mishaps disabling its drivers.

Only one Lola LMP2 B12/80 Nissan powered car entered in the Silverstone round. The sister car #28 would not race this weekend due unavailable parts from Lola and injured driver Swedish F1 stalwart Stefan Johansson nursing a badly broken leg from an event in China earlier in the month. Also Dubai based driver Frederic Fatien remains out of action after breaking his ankle at Spa in May.

This left drivers Fabien Giroix (FRA), Keiko Ihara (JPN) and Jean-Denis Deletraz (SWTZ) to take the helm of the remaining car #29 for the Silverstone round. The first time this trio have all raced together in one car. Keiko Ihara is the sole female to compete in the World Endurance Championship.

Fabien Giroix, Keiko Ihara and Jean-Denis Deletraz during the autograph session

Fabien Giroix took the race start followed by Keiko Ihara then Jean-Denis Deletraz each completing 90minutes of driving with Fabien completing the last stint of the race finishing at 6pm.

The team finished in 5th position in the WEC LMP2 ranking and after starting from 21st place on the grid the team maintained position throughout with consistent lap times and speed. The team achieved 10pts in this round with a total of 34 pts in the Championship.

To complete any endurance race with no mishaps is a source of satisfaction for any team and conversely the final results do not reflect the effort of the team, however Fabien Giroix remains upbeat about the teams performance overall.

Keiko Ihara from Japan is the only female driver in the WEC

“Im pleased we had a good clean race today and we had no major mishaps, this provides us with good data we can build on going forward this season, we know what we have to do to improve and im very pleased the way the team worked today, everyone did a good job and I am happy with the result.” commented team boss Fabien Giroix

The team now heads back to Dubai then on to Sao Paulo, Brazil for the fifth round of the championship on Sept 15th.

 

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