Drayson Racing Finishes 4th In Mosport ALMS Event

Drayson Racing finished fourth overall at The Grand Prix of Mosport. It was a dramatic day for the No.8 Drayson Racing Lola Coupé with Judd Power and for the whole of the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) at Mosport International Raceway.

A substantial accident red flagged the race with 29 minutes remaining and would take a yellow-chequered finish short of its scheduled two-hour and 45-minute distance as a result. Paul Drayson (Gloucestershire, UK) – who started the day’s event from fourth place on the grid – and Jonny Cocker (Guisborough, Yorks, UK) finished fourth overall and in the Le Mans Prototype (LMP) class after a strong run by Jonny back through the field. In the process, Cocker set the race’s fastest race lap with a time of one minute, 7.962 seconds.

The red flag halted the race for approximately one hour with 29 minutes remaining in the event. The race returned to yellow flag conditions and was chequered the following lap when track and Series officials determined a wall damaged in the accident was not suitable to safely return to green flag conditions. The race-ending red flag was the result of contact between Cocker and a GTC competitor. Both drivers were unhurt in the incident which left the Porsche heavily damaged after a head-on impact with the wall. The United Kingdom-based entry sustained only cosmetic damage to the left rear of the car.

Entered into the 12 September 1000Km of Silverstone Le Mans Series round, the team will have the Lola-Judd and full team kit to the UK by 1 September. The Dale White (Bozeman, MT, USA)-managed team will then do a complete prep of the car in time to practice at Silverstone on 10 September. The Silverstone race marks the first of three Intercontinental Le Mans Cup events of which Drayson Racing is the sole British and ALMS-based prototype team. The precursor to a sportscar world championship will include the Petit Le Mans, ALMS-finale on 2 October at Road Atlanta and the 7 November event in Zhuhai, China.

UK and European viewers can view the broadcast on tape delay, 5 September on MotorsTV at 17:00 (UK)/18:00 (CET).

Quotes

Paul Drayson, Owner/Driver: “Mosport is an unforgiving track and we have seen that in practice and again today in the race. I am glad that both Jonny and Luke are unhurt after such a big shunt which is a tribute to the safety systems in these race cars today. Now we cross the Atlantic for the next stage in our 2010 campaign. We are very excited about returning to our home track and competing in the Intercontinental Cup – flying the flag for the independent teams against the factory entries.”

Jonny Cocker, Driver: “Difficult race for us. We proved again that we have fantastic pace. The car was just brilliant again. The Michelin tyres worked really well for us. They came into their own halfway through the stint and the car was really good. We had a few problems which meant we were a couple of laps down when I got in the car but I was still determined to push hard. We got fastest lap by quite a margin; that was good. We had an incident with one of the GTC cars; a bit of a misunderstanding between the two of us. It’s just unfortunate that the Porsche made contact with the barrier which damaged the barrier to the extent they had to red flag the race. Fortunately everyone is OK. We discussed it all and it’s all sorted now.”

 You can also check our extensive Photo Coverage of the American Le Mans Series at Mosport by clicking HERE

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