Lady Luck deserts fast Gilchrist and Gray
Two bits of bad luck with a Safety Car and the weather put paid to any chances Brock Gilchrist and Rylan Gray had of a top six finish, but they still showed plenty of pace on their recovery to 20th in the first race of the weekend at the ADAC GT4 Germany event at the Nürburgring.
Starting sixth, Gilchrist lost three places after the Safety Car start on wet tyres - his first experience of the GR Supra GT4 EVO on a wet track - but still settled into the top ten in challenging conditions. He had plenty of speed too, clocking frequent fastest sector times in the first stages of the one hour race.
As Brock settled in he made progress up to eighth, then was up to seventh by lap 14 before an incident in front put him back in the top six. The Safety Car came out and he jumped into the pits in drying conditions to hand over to Gray and the team took the gamble to try and translate the speed into a potential podium result - opting for slick tyres for Gray’s stint.
Unfortunately a shower a couple of laps later left Rylan no option but to head back into pit lane for a change back to wets, and that dropped the young Aussie gun back to 25th.
His progress despite the setback was impressive, moving back through the pack until the chequered flag.
Just making the top twenty wasn’t quite the result the champion and top rookie from the Toyota 86 Championship this year had hoped for, but there were plenty of positives and new learning experiences for the up and coming drivers.
“Everything got thrown at us in that race from having to change the tyres on the grid when it started to rain to driving the car for the first time on wets at the start of the race,” said Gilchrist afterwards.
“It was a big learning experience. There was literally no vision on the straight so I was happy to bring it back in sixth after my stint. Unfortunately it didn’t go our way in the end but we gave it a good go and I’m still very happy. We do have strong pace to take into tomorrow.”
Gray will get his turn at qualifying and starting the car for Sunday’s race and he is also aiming to put the tough lessons of the Nürburgring’s changeable conditions to good use.
“The race today was okay really,’ he said. “Brock got off to a good start and kept us in the top ten. We made a tough decision in the pits and it wasn’t the right one but we did have great pace and I think we can be confident about tomorrow. There’s definitely some things we can learn from the race though and put that to use tomorrow.
“The plan will be to build on our pace, qualify well and try and use the pace to finish off the weekend on a high with a good result.”
Schedule of the weekend (all times GMT+2)
Sunday 6 August
8.30 – 9.30 Qualifying 2
15.30 – 16.30 Race 2
