Ferrari 458 Italia racer Michael Lyons Blancpain Endurance Vice-Champion

Kessel Racing team-mates Lyons, Alessandro Bonacini and Michael Broniszewski ended the 2015 Blancpain Endurance Series as Vice-Champions with third Pro-Am podium at the Nurburgring on Sunday, 20th September.

 Arriving at the famous German track third in the Pro-Am title race, having been within a single point of the series lead at the midway point of the season prior to misfortune at the Total 24 Hours of Spa, the trio produced an excellent performance to chalk-up their third podium of the year.

“Considering we didn’t score at Silverstone earlier in the year, due to an incident on the first lap, and also missing out at Spa through no control of our own, to end the season as Pro-Am Vice-Champions is a great result”, said the Bishop’s Stortford racer, “Whenever we finished a race we were on the podium, with a win at Paul Ricard too, so overall I’m really happy with the season and the team.”

Qualifying was far from straightforward for the No.11 Ferrari with Lyons blocked on all of his laps, and then missing out on a potential top 15 overall starting slot when the session was red flagged on the one lap he had a fairly clear run.

 Resigned to starting the contest from 34th overall on the 50-plus car grid as a result, 15th in the Pro-Am class, Broniszewski took the first stint and made good progress to move up into the Pro-Am top 10 prior to the first pit-stop, which the team opted to take earlier than most of its rivals.

 Handing over to Bonacini, when the order settled down the Italian held second place in Pro-Am and 15th position overall and he was able to work his way into the class lead with just over half the race distance complete.

 Following the deployment of the Safety Car for the second time in the race, with around 70 minutes left on the clock Bonacini pitted to hand the Kessel Racing machine over to Lyons but an unfortunate delay in the pit-stop dropped the Briton to sixth in Pro-Am and 20th position overall.

 Mounting a spirited fightback, Lyons was into the Pro-Am top four with around 20 laps to run and then moved back into the podium placings with six laps left. Maintaining the top three class placing to the chequered flag at the three-hour mark, the result ensured the 24-year-old and team-mates Bonacini and Broniszewski ended their first season together as Pro-Am Vice-Champions.

“Things weren’t perfect for us but to come through to end the race in third was a good result, especially with the Ferrari ahead of us in second on new tyres – we had to carry tyres over from qualifying so we had less grip than they did”, said Lyons.

“Qualifying was a bit of a story actually, I was blocked pretty much every lap and on my last lap I was a second up on my delta and due a 55.5 second lap. There were yellows in the last sector, though, so I backed off but we still should have had a 56.0 lap. But then the session was red flagged before I got to the line! We should have been top 15 on the overall grid, or top 20, not where we were.”

He added: “Broniszewski had a good stint at the start, from that we pitted early and we got Bonacini out in some space – strategically, we called the first stop perfectly. Unfortunately there was a bit of contact, nothing too major, but we still got through to the lead before the second stop. Then the delay in the pits cost us badly, to fight back onto the podium was the best result possible after that.”

While the Blancpain Endurance Series is now at a conclusion, Lyons will be back on track for the final event of the European Le Mans Series campaign with Murphy Prototypes on 17th/18th October at Estoril in Portugal.

Final 2015 Blancpain Endurance Series Pro-Am Driver Standings:Vice-Champions: Michael Lyons/ Alessandro Bonacini/Michael Broniszewski, 63pts


Related Motorsport Articles

84,520 articles