Jamie Campbell-Walter and Jamie Derbyshire finished seventh in the third round of the FIA GT Championship at Magny Cours, France, after an heroic last stint by Campbell-Walter. The 2000 Champion, driving his Creation Autosportif Lister Storm, had a power steering failure half an hour from the end of the race, and he picked up a puncture having had the tyre penetrated by a stone kicked up on the exit of the final chicane.

Dunlop’s teams had a difficult start to the race with the Graham Nash Saleen S7R of Jesus Diez Villarroel and the RML Saleen of Tommy Erdos both getting involved in a first corner collision with a Zwaans Racing Chrysler Viper, and all took to the gravel. Erdos returned to the pits where the car was retired. The second car of Chris Goodwin and Miguel Ramos went on to finish 12th after suffering a misfire later in the race. The GNM team changed the radiator on Villarroel’s car but it was not classified at the end of the race.

The tyre wear was as the Dunlop engineers had expected, with the Creation team able to complete a stint-and-a-half on the same set of tyres. Most of the teams changed the tyres at every stint to reduce the possibility of punctures from the dirty circuit.

“We were looking to change tyres at every stop because they were coming in with lots of little cuts and slight penetration,” said Dunlop’s Firdos Avari. “The Creation car was the only one with penetration right through the tyre, causing a puncture.

“The tyre wear was as we had expected and we could have run two full stints on the same set of tyres with a fast driver and a gentleman driver. There were no problems with the Dunlop tyres during the race, and we are happy with that.”