SECOND PLACE IN G3 FOR POUR DUVAL, NELISSEN GRADE, KELDERS AND KERKHOVE
Penders, Lamot And Hemroulle Finish Fifth In Class Having Lost 40 laps At Start Of Race
When you lose 40 laps right at the beginning of the race, without it being your fault, it’s a bitter pill to swallow… and difficult to find your motivation again. Nevertheless, by Saturday evening, Rudi Penders, Franz Lamot and Jean-François Hemroulle started their delayed hunt for lost time, which wouldn’t be a walk in the park for the Prospeed team …
“Saturday evening we looked for our position starting at the bottom of the timing sheets,” Jean-François Hemroulle said, “but as the race went on and other cars started hitting trouble we slowly moved up. We thought we had had it after that stupid accident on lap 4, but then a water leak cause to engine to get a bit hot, fortunately without too many consequences. And then the tyres started playing up… »
Rudi Penders was the first to notice the tyre problem: “We fitted soft tyres at the front hoping they would allow us to gain some time on the track. But instead of lasting a double stint, they were already completely cooked after just one stint, so we had to revert to our initial tyre choice.”
The right rear tyre also punctured several times during the race, as it already had done in practice: “The mechanics couldn’t find the cause. This cost us two extra pitstops and a halfshaft which had suffered from driving back to pits on the rim.”
By dawn, the ProSpeed Porsche 996 GT3 RS had moved up to 30th overall to finish in 26th at race end, just making into the top 5 of the G2 class, which, as expected, was dominated by the two new factory Porsches 997 GTS RSR. While the result of course doesn’t reflect the potential of the team nor the drivers, it in any case doesn’t impact the fighting spirit: “Rendezvous for the Zolder 24 Hours in four weeks time. Our revenge will be sweet,” Franz Lamot announced in combatant mood.
Fortunately, the second ProSpeed Porsche had a less eventful race. Net result: François Duval, Pascal Nelissen Grade, Christian Kelders and Christophe Kerkhove finished on the podium of the G3 class, in second to be precise after a textbook race with only some small brake problems to complain about.
“In fact, we lost contact with the eventual class winners when a brake change took a bit longer than expected,” Duval said. “Normally this takes some three minutes, but now it took ten and that’s where the others took the lead. But in the morning it looked like the situation could be reversed when the leading Dodge had brake problems of their own. The team asked me to do a double stint and put some pressure on the leaders, but they didn’t cave in. At the end of the race we didn’t push our luck and decided to consolidate our second place.”
If you don’t take into account the cockpit heat problem of Pascal in the beginning of the race, the puncture of Christophe, a shorter stint due to tyre problems for Christian and some fuel gauge alerts for François, the three gentleman-drivers and their professional co-driver really didn’t have anything to worry about for 24 hours; something their team-mates on the car would have wanted as well. Next stop for ProSpeed Competition: the Zolder 24 Hours, main race of the Belcar Championship.
