Racing Team Nederland captured their first World Endurance Championship pole position ahead of this sunday's 4 Hours of Silverstone. The duo of Job van Uitert and Giedo van der Garde put together an average time of 01:40:948 to take pole ahead of United Autosports and Jackie Chan DC Racing.
Speaking to Motorsport Week after qualifying, ex-F1 driver Van der Garde said that the team had expected to be up front, despite facing a few obstacles.
"Very happy with today’s result. I think all weekend we’ve already been really strong," the Dutchman explained. "We couldn’t show it yet on all the free practices because we were always P2, P3, P4. We were there, but in qualifying everything got into place. The decision that we made with the tyres and the compounds in qualifying, that was also a good choice.
Yeah, pretty happy. Pretty happy with the step forward that we made with the new car and the new team. Tomorrow is still a long race, but hopefully we can get a podium."
The Dutch outfit was fast in practices, but had a number of issues to work out, particularly with tyres as a result of some mishaps in free practice.
"We had some issues in FP1, we had a puncture," Van der Garde continued. "So that got us compromised in FP3, because we had to use up one tyre already. It was not ideal, and it was not perfect, to be honest.
"So we knew the car was there, we knew the car was quick. We also knew what to do with the compound, so I think we made the right choice."
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