After a race which saw TMC’s two Ferrari 360 N/GT race cars establish themselves quickly as the front runners in the three hour endurance event, cars 88 (Jamie Davies and Tim Mullen) and 89 (Kelvin Burt and Darren Turner) battled through several unexpected mechanical difficulties to eventually finish in the points in seventh and eight positions respectively.  Having started the race from second (88) and third (89) in class on the grid, the two TMC machines raced to the front before calling into the pits for several unplanned stops.  Remarkably, the team managed to replace elements of the right front suspension of car 88 loosing just three laps after damage was incurred from contact with Enna’s high kerbs.  Car 89’s gear linkage was also repaired with a similar loss of time when Darren Turner encountered problems in his session.  This prompt action demonstrated the rapid response of the team when faced with difficult circumstances and enabled TMC to consolidate their lead in the Team Championship (the team still leads with 27 points).

Kelvin Burt: “I jumped into the car for the middle stint but by that time, we knew a podium finish was slipping away from us.  Darren had been suffering some problems with the gear box in the car and this slowed us down considerably.  The good news is that the team knows exactly what caused this and have a fix planned already.  As I had no alternative, I drove a nice steady race, and just ensured that I handed the car back to Darren for his final stint in one piece.” 

Jamie Davies:  “Of course I’m disappointed but our qualifying time and early race pace are a better indication of our performance.  The team did a great job under the circumstances to ensure that Tim and I finished in the points.  We are only a single point behind in the Drivers’ Championship moving to Brno and we know that track very well.”

Tim Mullen: “Enna has been a good experience for me – it’s been very hard on the car and the team but we’ve still come away just one point behind. I was pleased with my pace in the early stages of the race considering that I hadn’t driven here before the weekend - Friday especially was spent learning the circuit.  I can’t wait for Brno now to enable Jamie and I to get our lead back!”

Darren Turner: “A difficult circuit, for sure.  I was gathering pace so quickly during my first stint and concentrating on keeping the car off the kerbs which can be a killer for the car.  Unfortunately, I hit a problem with the gearbox which had the same result – I had to come in for the linkage to be fixed and it cost us a lot of time.”

“A disappointing result on paper,” said Rod Benoist, TMC’s Team Manager.  “However, when we look back at our qualifying times and the pace of both cars during the early stages of the race, we take comfort from the fact that we have established both cars as Championship contenders after just three rounds.  After setting the pace during the first half of the race, we needed to react to several unexpected problems and the team did just that.  Overall, we are pleased to be still leading the Team Championship and with seven rounds to go, we have plenty of time to recover our lead in the Drivers’ Championship too.  We now look forward to a great race in Brno in two weeks time.”