The final round of the 2012 Blancpain Endurance Series is fast approaching for Gulf Racing UK and the remainder of the 45-strong field. The Surrey-based team heads to the 3.93 km (2.44 mile) track in Northern Spain with just its No.9 McLaren MP4-12C GT3, the Gulf Oil International car being one of seven from the Woking manufacturer entered for the race. The No.69 entry will not be appearing in Spain due to family commitments for team co-owner, Roald Goethe.
The German driver’s co-owner, Mike Wainwright, is looking forward to the challenge of yet another new track, and is hoping that the team will be able to realise the potential shown to date and achieve a solid result. Having qualified as the fastest McLaren at the German round, and led the race during the first hour, he knows that a higher placing in the final classification is not far away.
“There’s no denying that the beginning of the season was difficult,” says the Swiss-based British driver, “but we’ve made some very positive steps forward in the last couple of months and at least we now go into race weekends confident about reliability. There’s also no denying that the number of cars on the grid and the awful weather conditions at some of the earlier races proved to be quite a challenge for non-professional drivers like myself. I hope for our last race of the year we can build on our Nürburgring result and bring home a good finish to round off the season.”
McLaren factory driver and double Le Mans Series champion, Rob Bell, is realistic about the weekend ahead is equally positive about the big steps in performance made by both the team and the manufacturer over the past season. “I think ultimately the balance of performance will be the determining factor in how the McLarens perform at Navarra. It’s a great place to end the year as it’s a new facility, opened just a couple of years ago, and it will also be a new challenge for most of us. I’ve tested there once before but haven’t raced on the track, which is very tight and twisty; I’m not sure if that will suit us or not.”
The Merseyside-based driver continued: “We’ve worked really hard on things like getting the best out of the bottom end of our engine and I think we made a step forward at the Nürburgring actually. The reliability of the McLaren MP4-12C GT3 is there now and the Gulf Racing UK car prep is absolutely second to none, it’s fantastic. At the Nürburgring that made a big difference to us as we turned up and were on the pace straight away and continued that way all weekend. If we can go in the same manner to Navarra we might surprise ourselves; we’ll have to get there and see how it goes.”
Source : Gulf Racing UK