Team LNT had a mixed debut in the FIA World Endurance Championship. The #5 of Charlie Robertson, Ben Hanley and Egor Orudzhev finished fourth overall, but the #6 of Mike Simpson, Oliver Jarvis and Guy Smith had a less pleasant afternoon.
The troubles for the trio started when the Ginetta G60 LT-P1 – AER lost a wheel at Luffield, a failure which the team is yet to comprehend.
“We don’t know yet how and why we lost a wheel shortly after the race start, the nut was still in one piece. We’ll look at that back at base," said Simpson. “That was a real shame as the pace was coming.
I was delighted to get the fastest time across the two Ginettas (a 1:39.1) but the best news of all was the reliability across the board – Our delays were not related to the basic package, they were due to the wheel loss incident We’ll take some real pluses from this and work hard to be smarter and slicker next time as a unit.”
The car's trouble continued when Oliver Jarvis got behind the wheel, with the experienced Briton involved in Miguel Molina's crash in the #71 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo, leaving the Spaniard out of the race.
“I had one incident in my stint that cost us time," Jarvis commented about the crash. "I genuinely believe that was a racing incident, but as the car passing I fully accept it is my responsibility to get by safely and I didn’t manage to do that – I have been down to try to talk to the team about it but I understand if they are upset with the outcome."
"After that the car though was still quick. With a cleaner race there’s little doubt that it has huge potential.”