The RAW Motorsports duo of Steve Burgess/Ben Dimmack started on the back foot at Oulton Park, after problems with their Radical RXC during pre-race testing.
“The input shaft to the gearbox broke and the team had to dash back to the workshop on Friday evening, which meant little sleep for them as they burned the midnight oil to be ready for Saturday mornings practice and qualifying sessions.
An electrical problem thwarted their attempts to get out in qualifying. “Eventually we both went out in the wrong qualifying session, just to do our compulsory three laps each to be able to start the race from the back of the grid,” Burgess explained.
“It was a great start and I quickly picked off the GT4 cars on the opening lap, then got Khera’s Ferrari down the Avenue and Lunn’s Lamborghini exiting,” said Burgess having climbed third by the end of the third lap.
Tilley’s Mercedes was the next target, “I was closing in on him and then he had pull off with problems exiting Old Hall on the fifth lap, so we were up to second,” he added.
For a while he began to close on Orange’s leading McLaren too, before the gap began to open again.
“I started to get gear selection problems again, but still had fourth and fifth OK and pace while I kept moving,” he said.
Comfortably holding onto second place, the pitstop window was approaching and along with most of his rivals, he pitted from second place on lap 11 during a safety car intervention.
“We had been Ok while we were going, but couldn’t afford to stop. Without the lower gears we wouldn’t be able to get out of the pits again,” he explained.
So despite entering the pits they were unable to rejoin. “The selector shaft had gone and there was no way of fixing that, so our race was over. I felt particularly sorry for Ben as at least I got a race and for the team after all their hardwork. But when the car was going it was awesome, and we had the pace to be at the front and a great set up,” Burgess concluded.
There is now a three-week gap until the next rounds at Silverstone, which takes place on the Northamptonshire circuits Grand Prix Circuit.
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