The Reiter Engineering team from Germany also participates with a Lamborghini Gallardo LP600+ (#24) with Swiss Marc A. Hayek (CEO and president of Blancpain) and Dutch Peter Kox in the cockpit. Marc A. Hayek secured P12 in the free practice session on Saturday morning, with an air temperature of almost 28 degrees Celsius. At noon, with a temperature of almost 32 degrees Celsius, Peter Kox completed his laps on the 5.791 km (3.598 miles) long track, alternating with the Swiss. In the pre-qualifying session in the afternoon, the duo took P16, only 1.09 seconds behind the fastest car in the field.
The first part of the three-part qualifying was aborted after a Porsche (#33) had crashed into the barriers, damaging them badly. Since the team had decided to participate in Q2 and Q3, the Reiter Gallardo was still in the pit at that point in time. Q2 was delayed due to the repairs of the barrier. During the second qualifying session, it started to rain in several sections of the track. However, this did not really affect the drivers. Marc A. Hayek was pleased with his qualifying. “We are lacking in top speed but the car ran well. We tested the set-up for the race in my qualifying session and therefore did not pay attention to setting the fastest lap”.
Without an opportunity to set a fast lap, Peter Kox was not able to implement the planned strategy in Q3. “It just did not work. I could not set a fast lap because other drivers aborted their stints on the track, blocking the fast cars”, said Peter Kox, who was very disappointed about start position P30.
Just before the start on Sunday, dark clouds gathered. However, the short and heavy rain during the formation of the starting grid did not result in wet race conditions. Marc A. Hayek used slick tyres like all of his competitors and managed a good start in the tight field when the green lights came on. He found his rhythm after five laps and gained a few places. However, a damaged car lost oil on the track in lap 17 and the safety car came out. The team decided not to bring in the car for the driver change. After the safety car phase, the Swiss secured a fantastic ninth place. However, a few laps later, in lap 23, Alex Buncombe in the Nissan (#35) crashed into the rear of the Gallardo in a turn, kicking Marc A. Hayek out.
“As a result of his performance and our strategy Marc (A. Hayek) had gained a lot of places. After starting from P30 he had brought the Gallardo up to P9 which was brilliant. Of course we were very disappointed when the Nissan crashed into him”, said Hans Reiter (Reiter Engineering team principal).
The next race will be the highlight of the Blancpain Endurance Series: the 24 Hours of Spa Francorchamps which will take place from July 27th to 29th, 2012.
Source : Reiter Engineering