Round 2 - Silverstone GP - 2nd June 2013
Q1: 6th in class / 24th overallQ2: 22nd in class / 54th overall
Q3: 9th in class / 29th overall
Race: 18th in class / 43rd overallBlancpain Endurance Series racer Daniel McKenzie and the Beechdean AMR team endured a very tough outing at Silverstone on Sunday, 2nd June, during round two of the 2013 season when gearbox problems early in the three-hour encounter set the scene for a very long afternoon.Working on a variety of set-up changes to the No.99 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 during practice, McKenzie and team-mates Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam went into their individual qualifying sessions at the Northamptonshire track aiming to achieve an overall top 10 starting slot.While Poole-based McKenzie posted the sixth fastest time in class, 24th overall, it wasnt indicative of his true pace as he was using old Pirelli tyressaving fresh rubber for the raceand there were also fuel issues which cost at least 0.5 seconds per lap. The quicker of the sessions ended up being Q3 in which Adam was ninth in Pro-Am and 29th overall, the starting slot for the 180 minute race.Taking the opening stint, McKenzie made a good getaway and gained three places on the first lap before climbing the order further on lap two. Disappointingly though, any further progress was halted on the third tour due to a major problem with the gearbox.Doing well to coax the Aston back to the pits, the Beechdean team leapt into action and hurriedly fitted a new gearbox before getting the 24-year-old back into the race. Clearly losing a significant amount of time, McKenzie rejoined several laps down and remained on track until lap 31 when he handed the car over to team principal Howard.He ran a relatively short stint before Adam took the wheel on lap 46 and the squad was able to complete the race without any further drama, finishing a much lower than anticipated 18th in Pro-Am and 43rd overall.Daniel McKenzie:It was a difficult weekend overall. Things didnt start too badly in the first practice with my team-mate in the car, but as the circuit gripped-up the balance of the car changed so we had to alter it quite a lot for qualifying. We did make good improvements with the car throughout the weekend but things went wrong that shouldnt have gone wrong, like the fuel problems in qualifying.Id made up some places on the first couple of laps of the race but when I down-changed for the hairpin on lap three, the compression unit in the gearbox went catastrophically and literally sheared it to pieces. I managed to crawl back to the pits and the team did a 24-Hour Race style pit-stop to fit a new box. Hopefully it was a one-off and well be back where we should be at the next round.Round three of the Blancpain Endurance Series will take place at Paul Ricard HTTT in the south of France on 29th/30th June.
