Le Mans Series

Another finish for Spyker Squadron in Hungary

© Spyker Squadron

Tom Coronel and Peter Dumbreck took a ninth place finish in the fourth round of the Le Mans Series season at the Hungaroring near Budapest tonight. Having started from eleventh place on the grid the Spyker Squadron drivers fought hard but eventually had to settle for ninth in the ultra-competitive GT2 field.

Both Tom and Peter drove a very consistent race but it soon became clear that the narrow and twisty Hungaroring track did not really suit the Spyker C8 Laviolette GT2R and it would almost be impossible to get a top result without other teams hitting trouble. Both Spyker Squadron drivers gave everything but none of the other teams got into serious trouble and after six hours Tom crossed the finish line ninth in class.

The team will now return to Zeewolde where they will prepare the number 85 car for the final round of the Le Mans Series season at Silverstone. The Autosport 1000 KM of Silverstone will be held on September 12th and unlike the last two races it will be a race on Sunday afternoon.

Peter van Erp, Managing Director Spyker Squadron: “It was really competitive again, incredible. I think today an eighth or ninth place was the maximum we could have achieved. Our drivers worked so hard and still you see that on average we are about a second a lap slower. In the dark we managed to get a bit closer, but this really was not our race weekend. We have worked incredibly hard, but we simply lacked speed here in Hungary. Unfortunately we did not have all the luck during the race as Peter was hit by an LMP car and we lost some 45 seconds in the following pitstop and then we also lost some time during the safety car period because the rules were not carried out as they should have been. But even if we would not have had those issues I think we would not have finished much higher.”

Peter Dumbreck: “It is clear that we did not have the pace today. We made the best of what we had and we both drove pretty consistent. There was one problem when I was hit by a prototype, but to be honest that was not a big issue. We simply did not have the pace of the front running guys today. The priority was to make it to the end and it would be nice to finish every single race this season, we are only one away from that so hopefully we can finish Silverstone as well. As that tracks suits us a little bit better and it will be a bit cooler I hope we can take a top five there, we will see!”

Tom Coronel: “We pushed very hard. Nobody else made mistakes. We were a little bit unlucky with the pit stops as the other ones came through. Normally during a safety car the pit exit should be on red, maybe this could have helped us for two places. Anyway, I am satisfied, the car was strong and we had a good pace at the end as normal. We made it, we finished in front of the Hankook Ferrari of Allan Simonsen, which was the goal from about half of the race. I am happy, there was nothing else I could do. One more to go, Silverstone.”