The Gulf Racing Middle East team battled hard to overcome a number of technical issues with their new 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship car in last weekend’s 60th Anniversary Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring . Fabien Giroix, Stefan Johansson and Maxime Jousse brought the No. 28 Gulf Racing Middle East Lola B12/80 Nissan, which races in the iconic Gulf Oil International colours, through to finish 7th in the FIA WEC LMP2 class.

The first round of the new World Championship was waved off by FIA President Jean Todt. Running alongside the opening round of the American Le Mans Series, the WEC race took place on the notoriously difficult and punishing Sebring track – a former airfield in Central Florida.

Taking the start amongst a field of 63 cars, the Dubai-based team experienced a variety of technical issues which delayed them considerably compared to their class rivals, but they never gave up and used the valuable experience gained with the car, the LMP2 category and the level of competition to move forward to the next round in Spa in May.

There was great disappointment for the No. 29 entry of Frederic Fatien, Keiko Ihara and Jean-Denis Deletraz at not being to take the start of the race. Due to a number of mechanical issues related to repeated overheating of the Nissan engine during the practice and qualifying sessions, the car was confined to the pits rather than being out on track. This meant that the trio of drivers were unable to complete the mandatory night laps required for entry into the race, and complete enough laps within the 110% performance regulations. With the experience of the three drivers, there was no doubt in the team’s mind that the drivers would have qualified for the race if the car had been running trouble-free.

Source : Gulf Racing Middle East