Tom swapped his British Touring Car for a Le Mans Prototype sportscar last weekend, driving the Zytek to 8th place in the classic 1000kms race at the Nurburgring in Germany……..

Tom was reunited with Arena International Motorsports and Hayanari Shimoda, the team with which he had successfully won the event two years ago. They had all hoped for a repeat of that victory, but a couple of mechanical problems with a new car limited the result to an 8th place finish. A strong performance from Hayanari in qualifying meant Tom could start the race in 3rd place, behind the two factory diesel turbo Peugeots and showed that the car has tremendous potential as the fastest of the non-diesel entries.

However this was Tom’s first and only Arena’s second event with the brand new Zytek 07s and despite several tests to put some mileage on the car, there was unsurprisingly perhaps, a few problems in a tough six hour long race. An electronic gearchange sensor broke and then a fault with the air jack lifting mechanism added to the delays in the pits which cost the team a decent result.

Both drivers had to battle back up through the field after losing time in the pits. Tom rejoined after his second stint in 17th place and got the car back up to 9th despite the gearchange problem. The handover to Hayanari was delayed by nearly six minutes with the air jack fault and he had to climb back up from a similarly low position, getting as high as 5th before he pitted to hand the car back to Tom to complete the final half hour. The team had dropped to 10th after this final stop and although he gained a couple of places and closed the gap down to just a few seconds to the 7th place finisher at the end of the race, Tom had to settle for 8th place after the six hours of racing.

“Obviously we are disappointed with the result, the car was quick enough to get us on the podium, but the reliability is not there yet. I’ve really enjoyed it though. It was good to be back with Arena and Hayanari again and I hope to do more races later in the year, where my commitments with Vauxhall in the BTCC will allow it.”