The
new Le Mans Series season has started on a very positive
note for Tommy and everyone at RML, with a first round
podium in the Paul Ricard 8 Hours.
Tommy
made an emphatic start from fourth position on the LMP2
grid, and was through to third before the end of the opening
lap. He then started bearing down on Olivier Pla in the
#40 ASM Ginetta Zytek for second place, and with half
an hour gone, the Brazilian swept through to take the
place. Erdos then began catching Jonny Kane in the pole-setting
Strakka Racing HPD, narrowing the gap to just six seconds
before making his first pitstop.
Taking
on tyres was a wise precaution, despite the added length
to the stop, and Strakka followed suit, but ASM left the
change until the end of their second stint. This gave
Pla the class lead, with Tommy holding third behind Kane
until mid-way into the third hour. A bodywork problem
delayed the #42 Strakka HPD, and RML’s pitstop strategy
then enabled Erdos to fight through for the class lead.
Once there, he established a comfortable margin to hand
on to Mike Newton for the middle stints of the race.
Having
taken on the responsibility of the LMP2 lead, Mike responded
to the challenge, and held on to it throughout his two
stints, passing on the baton to Andy Wallace with nearly
five hours completed. Emerging from the pitstop in third,
Andy regained second before losing out in the next round
of pitstops to the recovering Danny Watts in the Strakka
HPD. Tommy Erdos returned to the Lola cockpit for the
final ninety minutes, setting some of the car’s
quickest laps as he fought back to third, and even raised
hopes of a possible second.
“It’s
a very positive result for us,” said Tommy. “A
podium and twenty-four points is a great way to start
the team’s new partnership with HPD (Honda Performance
Development), Lola and Dunlop. Once we moved into the
lead and the Strakka HPD encountered that problem, I actually
started to think then that we might have a chance. Our
own HPD engine ran like clockwork, and the consistency
of the tyres, especially on the double-stints, was very
impressive. It was such a great feeling, and one I felt
for the whole team, when I took the lead, and I’m
only disappointed that we couldn’t hold on to that
to the finish.”
“It’s
certainly a very encouraging start to the year,”
agreed Mike Newton, co-driver and CEO of AD Group. “The
whole interactivity between the chassis, tyres and engine
is very encouraging, especially as there’s evidently
so much more still to come. It was also personally very
satisfying for Tommy to give me a car in the lead, and
then to bring it back in again with one dot still showing
on the side. That was enormously rewarding.”
Pauline
Norstrom, Marketing and Motorsport Director of AD Group,
shared the team’s delight. “After last season,
when even a finish was something of an achievement, we’re
just so happy to score a podium in the first race of the
year. The engine has lived up to all our expectations.
We hope this sets the precedent for a successful year
all round, and the tide of change is here perhaps.”
The
next round takes place at Spa in Belgium on May 9th, followed
in June by the Le Mans 24 Hours.
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