On the week of NOMAD's 5th birthday, the task for the teams put forward for the Spa 24 hours was simple: bring the cars home without incidents that forced extra pitstops. Barring one hardware failure, both teams managed to pull it off. This is a great result for the team as a whole and ensures the hard work behind the scenes is paying off.
Car #561 – Mercedes AMG GT3 – 8th in Split #5
Car 561 driven by Jason Dilworth, Dan Gilding and Ryan Hamilton were put into the 5th split which is an improvement thanks to each drivers hard work to increase their respective iRatings. Jason qualified the 561 in 13th position along with some well known teams including IVRA's Rusty Spatulas.
Jason produced a measured but fast triple stint to leave the 561 running 1st after problems with the Akkiko team (with a certain Gordie Mutch) who had romped off into the distance and were 42 seconds up the road before a huge crash at Blanchimont. The 561 were the only ones to triple at the beginning.
Dan took over and produced a solid drive leaving the team at the top of the field. Ryan's first foray into the night was interesting to say the least. It seems everyone put in their most unhinged drivers in and there were fights breaking out everywhere, even between leaders and lapped traffic. Ryan managed to avoid most of the melee but managed to spin the car and gently reverse it into the wall on the exit of Le Combes. He also picked up a big haul of incident points, which made conserving those a focus for the rest of the race.
The night shifts went by without many issues. A couple of small spins but nothing major. A quad stint from Jason put the team back in the mix for the podium positions. With 4 hours to go the team was looking at a solid 4th finish with 3rd a possibility. All that was left was a simple triple stint from Jason and a double from Dan to finish, or so we thought. With 10 laps to go on Jason's final stint of the race his wheel developed a problem where it kept wanting to select a lower gear. The car became impossible to drive and on a downshift spun the car around into the wall at No Name/Ickx.
With damage and Dan having to load back up in VR, Ryan dove into the car to keep the damage minimal. Dan managed to bravely limp the car home into an 8th place finish. 7th was possible but the server gods were with team Occitans this time as they disconnected 30 mins from the end with a quick tow. Despite the horrible end the team displayed exactly what drivers at NOMAD can do and quick actions made that result possible.
Car #562 – Lamborghini Huracán – 6th in Split 10
Car 562 driven by Simon Underhill, Tim Penny and Casey Waters in the Lamborghini Huracán, qualified 29th in split 10 thanks to Tim's qualifying attempt. After a pretty uneventful start and gaining 5 places within the first 3 laps Tim worked on consistency to gain a number of places before heading into the pits in a realistic 21st position to hand the car over to Casey.
Casey continued the consistent performance of the car gaining a couple of places and ended his double stint in 19th, clocking up a few off track incidents along the way, but keeping the car damage free.
Simon took over in lap 101 for his first double stint focussing on reducing the incident rate, but also applying the same consistent pace the others had shown. When the stint was finished, we found ourselves in a healthy 15th spot, up 14 places from the beginning.
As a team we decided as the track temperatures were falling that we would try some triple stints through the night, Tim taking the first. It soon became apparent that this was the way to go and Tim found that he made up some ground to the others finishing the triple in position 11th on lap 224. Casey jumped in for another double stint, gaining a couple more places and putting us into the top 10. Then it was Simons turn for his triple driving the car through the night until 03:00 BST Sunday morning, gaining a further 2 positions to 7th.
The rest of the race was all about the battle with 6th, 7th and 8th. Due to some earlier fuel saving work, this meant that car #562 was in the perfect position to finish the race without the extra fuel stop that others needed and we finished the race 611 laps later in 6th position. From 29th at the beginning, super consistency and great team work, this felt like a win.
Final Thoughts
A fantastic team result with a head of steam building to the special events in the future. We're all hopeful that the apparent curse from our recent special events could have been lifted, and wish a happy 5th birthday to NOMAD. Here's to another 5 years of results that the team craves.