TOP FIVE FINISH AFTER LATE CALL TO JOIN ELMS

Woodward rejoined in sixth and held the place for most of his stint. “I really enjoyed it, but it was a stressful weekend, a real challenge again. We had gone the wrong way on set up too, as we had no experience of running the current car,” he said.

With the lappery between the three classes, progress was tough, but by lap 51 Woodward was into third, but a lap down on the lead after two hours.

He was still in third when he handed to debutant Mark Richards. “A really good stint, cars were streaming passed, GT’s a bit slower than us and LMP2 considerably faster. I overtook loads and it helped my concentration, but it stole a bit from my lap times. But I was thrilled to be able to hand to Mark in third,” Woodward added.

For Richards it was a real baptism of fire. “I had never been to this circuit or been in the car before the beginning of the week, so I developed with the car and that helped me concentrate,” Richards explained.

He was battling to stay in the top six, but was finding it hard passing the quicker GT cars. “I came out behind Lietz in a quick Porsche RSR and tried everything, but was stuck for about 16 laps, until he was held up and I stuck it down the inside,” he added.

But Richards efforts had earned him a drive through penalty for track limits, dropping to seventh. “That’s a lesson learned for me, but a great weekend, I didn’t crash it and was on the bronze driver pace, even if it wasn’t where I wanted to be,” he said.

Kaiser was back in for the final stint and retained sixth on track throughout, but promoted to fifth, after another crew were disqualified.

“We saved our short stop until the end, which meant we double stinted on tyres with full tanks. It was good to be back and by the end of the weekend we were getting there,” Kaiser concluded.

Published by Peter Scherer for 360 Racing,