View the pre-race event details here
The fourth round of the IVRA Endurance season brought the 56-car grid to Brazil and Autodromo José Carlos Pace, known well as Interlagos. With track temperatures raising above 50 degrees in the early parts of the race, preparation and practice was centred around keeping good pace in those early laps.
The #56 Acura was driven by Taylor Lane and Jason Dilworth and ultimately it's race was short. The pace was low in this car, and Taylor did a great job in the first two stints to keep it facing in the right direction. The same unfortunately can't be said for Jason, who had contact with the Fiercely Forward car late into his first set of tyres. Going deep on the brakes into turn 1 is normally not the end of the world, but in this case the spinning Fiercely Forward car was on a piece of the track that Jason couldn't get away from. The contact ultimately retired the car.
Fortune was somewhat different for the #256 car in those early stints, moving up from their qualifying position of 11th to 5th in class with Håkon Lindmo taking to IVRA Endurance for the first time. A bit of contact with a GTP car did drop them back down the field, but the first safety car and some solid driving soon had them back up to that 5th position.
As the laps ticked by, and with Chris Chadderton taking the wheel yet again in this car this season, the team engineered by Thomas Marton didn't settle for 5th. They continued to climb up the standings to 3rd, then 2nd. A great pit strategy call when the team noticed an impending fourth safety car period brought that extra position, and Chris exited the pits in 1st position in class with less than a stint to go.
But then... tragedy. First the #123 Pro class car drove into our #256 in a straight line down to turn 4, dropping the car to 6th. Then just a lap or two later another two Pro cars tangled, again in a straight line, and the ensuing chaos collected our car again.
Ultimately after taking repairs and dragging the car to the finish the team finished in 8th position, which doesn't begin to reflect just how well they executed their race. A podium at least, and quite likely a win, were pulled from the team today by incidents completely outside of our control. Everyone involved will lick their wounds, debrief, and get ready for upcoming events.
Driver Comments