The second race of the Blancpain Endurance Championship last weekend should have been an opportunity to build on his early season success, but unfortunately bad luck intervened for Adam Christodoulou and his team.
Former British Formula Renault champion Christodoulou went into the weekend holding third place in the Pro-Am championship; the location was Silverstone, the famous home of British Formula One.
With all three of the team's drivers having spent time on the tarmac here the previous weekend, there was plenty of fresh knowledge available for the team in the Mercedes. However, issues arose in testing which meant non of the three drivers got as much time on the track as they would have normally expected.
Qualifying began first thing on Sunday morning, and with sixty GT cars on the grid, finding space at the race start was going to be tricky. The rules state all three drivers have to take part in qualifying, and so Klaas, then Steve, then Adam took to the track in turn.
Achieving a good opening lap in qualifying is all about eeking out a space on track to ensure a clear run. The limited amount of testing time meant Christodoulou faced uncertainty over the balance of the car, and to mix things up further, the switch to a fresh set of tyres inserted a second potential risk.
Fortunately, the new tyres brought the car alive, and with a clear circuit ahead of him, Christo managed a qualifying lap of the 5.9km track in 2:01.697 with an average speed of 174.3Kph.
This performance landed the car 3rd in class - the top placed Mercedes - and 12th overall. This was a huge improvement, some twenty six places higher than the equivilent result in Monza. A starting this far up the grid would be a huge advantage.
The three hour race got underway at 3pm. It was a beautiful sunny weekend at Silverstone, and driver Steve Jans was given the privilige of starting behind the wheel. Klaas Hummel would follow second, with Christo set to conclude the day and bring the car across the finish line.
Steve's stint progressed well; he managed to inch up the order into second in class, and this left him fighting with the professional category racers.
However, the excitement was not to last, and contact with an Audi put the team's Mercedes into a spin which dropped the car back down through the pack. Thankfully, Steve was able to make something of a recovery in time for Klaas to step in.
It was at this point that disaster struck - the ABS failed - and any use of the the brakes started to cause the front right wheel to lock-up, consequently causing irreperable tyre damage.
It took the time of fifteen laps sat in pits changing the front tyre to fix the problem, and it effectively ended the team's race.
Not willing to give up entirely, Klaas stepped back into the car before handing over to Christo for the final few laps and to bring car over the finish line. The poor luck reflected badly on the final results, and the team finished a dissappointing 47th overall; 19th in class.
Christo remarked after the race, "I am absolutely gutted. After a tough start of the weekend, our qualifying pace was beyond our expectations, and it was looking really good in the race until we encountered the issue with the ABS."
"Had we not had the incident, I think we would have easily have been in position for second place, maybe even fighting for a win in class."
Adam returns to the Blancpain series in the south of France, at Paul Ricard on June 29th and 30th.
Before then is one other chance to see him on track; the second round of the AVON GT4 European championship - at one of Hollands most prestigious bike circuits - Assen TT.
