Murphy Prototypes took the chequered flag at its first 6-Hours of Donington race in a well deserved third place position. Following a strong showing in all practice sessions this weekend the team is a little disappointed with its qualifying and ultimate race performance. However, the young Irish squad in the LMP2 category can be proud of what it has achieved in its relatively short racing career. It was an incredibly tightly fought battle in a quality field today and once again, with the fastest lap of the race going to Brendon Hartley, showed that the team has become a serious contender in sports car racing.

Brendon Hartley (2nd & 4th stint)

“There is some disappointment because we had really high hopes for the race, but I think that we should be happy with our result. Obviously for the team it’s their second podium in four races, so we all should be proud. It was a really tough race; I really enjoyed battling it out with the class, and it was a quality field too. Jody did a great job on the first stint, but we had a bit of a problem on the pit stop which put us a lap behind, so I think that we did well to un lap ourselves and get right back in to contention. It was a tough race car to drive, we really had to push it, but I did manage to get the fastest lap of the race. It was a really good effort all round to come back to third and the team did a great job all weekend.”

Warren Hughes (3rd stint)

“It is great to get a podium, but it is tinged with some disappointment as the car probably wasn’t the best it had been which made it quite hard to stay quick. It meant that we had to push very hard to be on the limit, but the team had a really good strategy to get us back in to contention with the safety car and made a very good call to get us on the lead lap. I had a spin that cost us 10 seconds, because I was pushing very hard, but the galling thing for me was the penalty for the nose change. It was not dangerous; there was a crack in one louvre and we were called in to change that which probably cost us second place. It was a great team effort though to be on the podium in a quality field.”

Jody Firth (1st stint)

“The first double was very difficult. The car was at its best for FP3 and we got nowhere near that balance in qualifying or the race. I made up a few places at the start and then just held station from there. The guys in the team have done a great job all weekend; they could not have done anything different today and credit goes to them as well. We really had to push today and if a couple of circumstances had gone our way we would have been looking at second. But never mind, it is still a good result for the team and our disappointment with third just shows that our expectations were high coming in to this weekend.”

Greg Murphy, Murphy Prototypes Founder

“It is great for the team to be on the podium here at Donington, but we are feeling a little flat to be honest. We are disappointed because we believed that we could have won the race and in truth bad luck cost us second place. All in all though the team and drivers did a grand job and I would like to thank them, and all the supporters who came to Donington for our home race, for a good weekend for Murphy Prototypes.”

Source : Murphy Prototypes