With the Barcelona race Marco Didaio finally made his entry in the Le Mans Series. His sole objective was to finish the race and to gather as much data as possible to improve the Lucchini-Judd that currently is outside the average regarding the lap times.

Sunday at 11:35 Hrs. the green light comes on for the Lucchini-Judd driven by Marco Didaio and his team mate Filippo Francioni who ran the car in qualifying bringing it to the middle of the LMS starting grid. After various problems in the free practice sessions, mainly with the shock absorbers and impossible to resolve during the race, but surely resolved before the Monza event which takes place from 25 – 27 April.

After the third stint driver change with some 3 Hrs. of racing to go the car would not start up again which was caused by a burnt starter motor. The team’s mechanics have replaced the starter motor in no-time and the car was ready to go out again. The car lost 3 places in this stop and came back to the track in the 10th position in the LMP-2 class.

At the start of the last hour of the race when already various LMP-2 cars had to abandon the race, Marco’s team mate called into the box that he had a problem with a drive shaft. The car was immediately pulled into the box and the mechanics managed to replace the driveshaft in about 20 minutes to give the 2 pilots the possibility to finish the race in 11th position in LMP-2 class.

We conclude by saying  it was a difficult weekend for Marco making his debut in a new racing class on a racetrack he has never driven before. With the help of his team mate and the entire team he  managed to end his first LMS race with a car that was difficult to drive and that still lacks lots of electronics such as servosteering, paddle shifting and traction control.