|
News Archive » Scuderia Ecosse's Race Ends at Le Mans June 17, 2007 There has been high drama through the night at Le Mans but unfortunately the race is over for the Scuderia Ecosse Ferrari. After leading for over two hours during the night, the car suffered a driveshaft failure at 0845hrs. Tim Mullen was at the wheel and heading along the Mulsanne Straight when disaster struck; although he was able to crawl along for a while the car finally ended its race just short of Mulsanne Corner. All the drivers had run trouble-free stints through the night. Andrew Kirkaldy completed a triple-stint to bring the Ferrari into the daylight hours. The run into the morning can be treacherous as the drivers have to contend with a cool, damp track which can catch out even the most professional racer. The Scot had a small spin at the end of his second stint, but no damage was done and he was able to carry on. At 0550hrs Andrew had made his way up to second place, three laps behind the leading #97 Risi Ferrari, but this was all about to change. At 0615hrs the American Ferrari pitted with a broken splitter and was pushed into the garage. Ten minutes later Andrew took the lead! Shortly before 0700hrs Andrew handed back over to Tim Mullen and the Risi Ferrari rejoined the race. Tim ran in the lead until 0845hrs when he radioed in to report a driveshaft problem. After monumental efforts by the whole team, the decision was taken to call it a day at 1000hrs. “You clearly need a lot more luck than we have to win this race,” said Team Principal, Stewart Roden. “We were running like clockwork all the way through; everyone else seemed to be having the dramas, but not us. We were just setting the strategy for the final few hours of the race when we got the call from Tim. We’ll keep trying until we’re successful though so we’ll see you all again next year.” The Scuderia Ecosse team is now packing up at Le Mans and heading south-east to Monza for the next round of the FIA GT Championship next weekend. The team’s line-up at Monza is Chris Niarchos/Andrew Kirkaldy and Tim Mullen/Tomas Enge. ENDS |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
