Barker Lamenting “One That Got Away” in LMGT3 Battle

Ben Barker described Proton Competition’s result in the Lone Star Le Mans as “one that got away” after a call to remain on wets in the closing stages cost the team the LMGT3 class victory at Circuit of The Americas.

Proton came close to securing the Blue Oval’s first FIA World Endurance Championship victory since the 2018 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps after a strong performance that saw Barker, Bernardo Sousa and Ben Tuck lead a significant portion of the rain-affected race.

However, when the Christian Ried-led Proton squad called the No. 77 Ford Mustang GT3 into the pits slightly early to allow Barker to take over from Tuck, it made the decision to stick to wet tires.

This left Barker vulnerable to a group of chasing cars that had opted for dry tires, with the No. 77 Mustang GT3 eventually finishing the race in sixth position.

When asked afterwards if this outcome felt like ‘one that got away’ for Proton, Barker replied: “Absolutely, yeah.”

He added: “Imola we felt like it got away from us as well, to be fair, just on strategy. Here was a clear one that got away. But we’re due one. It’ll come.”

Barker explained he initially was focused on keeping Richard Lietz in the No. 92 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R at bay before both cars came under attack from a charging Davide Rigon in the No. 54 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3.

“I didn’t really have info on the radios to who was on slicks and the pace,” Barker said.

“I was just looking at Lietz really, just kind of trying to cover him off. He was on wets as well, [but] I was on a triple stint wet so mine were absolutely gone.

“Pressures were through the roof. So we were sort of hanging on. I felt like I probably could have hung on. We had some good power.

“But then Ferrari, those guys just came out of nowhere. They were like prototypes in the end.

“So then I was like, ‘Okay yeah, we’re screwed.’ It is what it is, but we move on.”

Sato Hails Significance of McLaren’s Maiden LMGT3 Victory

Although Rigon took the checkered flag first, the Italian later received a five-second penalty for contact with Barker while battling for the lead of the race.

That dropped the No. 54 Ferrari to third, instead promoting the No. 95 United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 Evo of Darren Leung, Sean Gelael and Marino Sato to the top step of the podium.

As a result, McLaren captured its maiden LMGT3 victory during its second season in the category, improving on its previous best result of second in the Qatar 1812km opener earlier this year.

Sato, who has been part of the program since it debuted last year, described the significance of the victory in the context of the progress the program has made since its inception.

“I think the decision for this program to happen came pretty late in the 2023 season,” he said.

“So in the first round in Qatar in 2024, we were nowhere near prepared and our goal was just to finish the race. 

“And we only just finished the race and I don’t even know how many laps down we were.

“From then on, we were working on the reliability and then finally we started to have an eye on the performance side.

“Still I think we are not close to perfect but every round I think there is a huge improvement [from] both McLaren working on the system side and the United Autosports team to get performance on the engineering side.

“There are a lot of ups and downs, like there’s some races that we look really strong, but we didn’t quite manage to execute it.

“On the other hand, there’s some times we’re really lacking in performance, and there’s nothing to do with the reliability.

“There’s so many elements nowadays in this LMGT3 category. Just such a tiny thing could go wrong and it could ruin the entire race.

“Today I think it was really the first time we just managed everything.”