Kiwi duo show top five pace but full course yellow flag ruins race
Bad luck ruined a fine performance by Tom Bewley and William Exton in the first one-hour race at the Nürburgring on Saturday, but they still managed to bring the KCMG GR Supra GT4 EVO inside the top 15.
The circuit’s notoriously unpredictable weather arrived for the race time and that was a new experience for both drivers as they fought their way into contention for a top five finish. A full course yellow when they were mid pit-stop put paid to any chances of that, however.
Bewley started the race and revelled in the conditions, despite having zero wet weather time in the car or on track. During an impressive first half hour stint he rose quickly through the field and came in for his pit stop in an excellent seventh place overall.
During the driver change, however, a full course yellow was deployed after a Porsche blew its engine and was left stranded on track. That meant the Kiwi duo lost a lot of track position. After a lengthy full course yellow Exton took the restart in 14th but only had 12 minutes of race time left.
Exton too had great pace in the conditions and clocked a series of fast times – including a purple sector on the penultimate lap – as he fought through to 13th at the flag.
TOYOTA GAZOO racing Motorsport Manager Nicolas Caillol was disappointed for the pair after they showed such pace in the tricky conditions, commenting: “We are all proud of the boys who did a great job.
“Unfortunately a very impressive run was not rewarded because of external circumstances. No question a top ten result was on and perhaps even a top five would have been achievable without the full course yellow falling when it did.
Bewley was philosophical. “It’s disappointing but that’s motor racing,” he said. “We knew what we had to do and we were there on pace, so all we can do is learn from that and look ahead. Tomorrow is another day and we’ve got another race so we’ll be putting our best foot forward again and aiming for a good result.”
The race was won by the Wimmer Werk Motorsport Porsche of Ivan Ekelchik and Ferdinand Winter.
