G-Drive Racing lost out on LMP2 victory after brake failure in the final hour of the WEC 6 Hours of Mexico.
The #26 G-Drive Racing ORECA 05-Nissan driven by Rene Rast, Alex Brundle and Roman Rusinov had a comfortable 40 second lead when the right-front brake failed with 25 minutes remaining.
The resulting repairs the team to an unrepresentative eighth place finish, on a day where the team could have took a dominate victory.
Starting from fourth, Rast held second position in the opening stint before Rusinov inherited the lead after some slick pitwork.
The Russian kept the RGR Ligier at bay for the duration of his fist stint, surviving contact with event promoter Ricardo Gonzalez on his in-lap before handing over to Brundle.
The next full-course yellow demoted Brundle to second for his stint, however the long-awaited onset of rain brought the race back into G-Drive Racing’s hands.
Perfectly-timed switches to both intermediates and slicks helped Rast to build a sizeable lead in the deteriorating conditions, before handing over to Rusinov in the final hour.
However, the spoils of victory were to desert G-Drive Racing with 25 minutes to go when the brakes failed at turn five.
Rusinov said that the last minute failure just added to the bad luck that team has suffered this season.
“It is really disappointing and hard to take because we all did a great job up until that point and was in full control of the race.
“We will investigate exactly why the problem happened with the direct supplier.”
Teammate Rast agreed: “We took a look at the brakes, the left one looks perfect the right one just broke even though they were running the same temperatures, so it wasn’t our problem it was simply a material failure.”
The result drops the team to fourth in the LMP2 standings, on 71 points, 59 off the lead with four rounds remaining.
G-Drive Racing will hope for better luck in two weeks’ time when they head to Austin, Texas, for the second leg of the FIA WEC’s American tour, the 6 hours of Circuit of the Americas (September 15-17).
