TF Sport’s Charlie Eastwood described a “frustrating” FIA World Endurance Championship round at Fuji after falling away from an anticipated podium finish due to contact with an Alpine.
After narrowly missing out on their second pole position this season, by just 0.082 seconds, the #81 Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R squad missed out on a likely podium by the end of the 6 Hours of Fuji.
Into the final racing hour, after fighting at the sharp end of the LMGT3 class since the beginning, the top-three cars were covered by just one second.
The Northern Irishman resided in plausible podium contention before Alpine’s #35 A424 Hypercar of Charles Milesi tapped the rear of Eastwood’s Corvette into a spin at Turn 16.
Eastwood reflected on the seventh and penultimate WEC race of the year: “What could have been, once again.
“We were in a really good spot the whole race.
“The Corvette was really flying and we were in the podium spots.
“Unfortunately a Hypercar missed his braking into the last corner and spun us around.
“He got a drive-through for it, but it was no real consolation to what it did to our race.
“The positive is that we came back from P11 to P4, chased down the podium cars and didn’t give up until the finish.
“The whole team at this point deserves a great result.
“A podium at a minimum and probably a win today got away through someone else’s mistake.
“It’s a frustrating one but we need to keep taking away the positives of the steps were making and how fast the Z06 GT3.R has become so we can close the season in Bahrain on a high.”
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