Double LMGT3 Podium “A Sigh of Relief” for TF Sport

TF Sport boss Tom Ferrier hailed the double LMGT3 podium finish in the FIA World Endurance Championship finale at Bahrain as “a lovely way to end” a challenging first season with Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R.

Tom van Rompuy, Rui Andrade and Charlie Eastwood finished second behind race winners Vista AF Corse, with Daniel Juncadella holding off Iron Lynx driver Matteo Cairoli to finish third alongside Hiroshi Koizumi and Sebastien Baud.

The result marked an improvement compared to the previous best finish fourth at Fuji as part of a season in which the two cars collectively recorded five retirements between them.

The No. 81 car led a significant chunk of the race after Eastwood took over from Bronze-rated van Rompuy early on to manage tire degradation during the hottest part of the day, only to have its lead wiped out by a virtual safety car in the sixth hour.

Eastwood then fought his way back into the lead as part of an entertaining scrap after the second restart, only to be leapfrogged by Rovera’s No. 55 Ferrari 296 GT3 at the final stop.

Team boss Ferrier told Sportscar365 that he was “not too disappointed at all” by the outcome despite losing out on the win, hailing the significance of the result at the end of a first season with Corvette.

“I would take this over a first and a seventh, [seeing] how much the old boys and girls have worked this year,” said Ferrier.

“I think we were in the box seat at one point quite easily but it goes like that. What hurt one helped the other so yeah, I’m not too disappointed at all.

“Definitely as a package I think we just got really good with our tire wear here. I think that was the biggest bit for us.

“I think it was even qualifying, you could see that we weren’t that strong on a brand new tire. But I think we just looked pretty good on race pace, so we were fairly confident going into it.

“It’s a sigh of relief. It’s like it’s a lovely way to end it for everybody because, it’s not just our team but these guys, Pratt Miller and GM.

“It’s been a pretty big push this year to try and get somewhere up there. So, yeah, very nice. Hopefully it sets us up for next year.”

Eastwood, who was in the car for the closing stint and fought his way forward towards the end of the penultimate stint, noted that the result felt ‘a little bit like one that got away.’

The Belfast native took over from van Rompuy for the second stint of the race, which he explained was a decision to save “peak performance” for later in the race but also helped the team into a 22-second advantage over United Autosports by the end of the second hour.

“The degradation on the double stint tire in the day was just insane” said Eastwood.

“So we thought, ‘Let’s just try and break it up.’ If we didn’t go for that, [Tom] would have had to do a triple stint, Rui a triple, me a quadruple.

“So when it really matters, are you actually at your peak performance?

“So we also thought it better to just split it up a little bit, get everyone sort of a stint underneath their belt and then a double after that, so I think that strategy also worked pretty well for us.

“We just got unlucky with the VSC timing. We were always going to run [Tom] short to his drive time so what we done and VSC came out ten minutes later.”

The subsequent reshuffle meant Eastwood was outside of a podium position when the race resumed after the second and final safety car with 90 minutes left to go.

In the scramble that followed, Rovera’s No. 55 Ferrari led stablemate Davide Rigon in a 1-2 for the Prancing Horse before Eastwood staged a comeback and charged into the lead.

“It was super nip and tuck,” Eastwood said the battle with Rovera.

“Literally as we were driving down to Turn 11, he started to squeeze me and both of our wing mirrors both sort of snapped in within themselves.

“He’s always great, both the Ferrari guys are always great to battle with. They’re super tough, super switched on. They’re crafty when they need to be and also fair but aggressive, which is I guess all you can ask for.

“So yeah, it was a great battle and a nice relief to get them both by the end of the stint.”

Eastwood’s work was then undone when Rovera emerged back ahead on track after the final round of stops, with the Italian able to retain a sufficient enough margin to win.

Behind Rovera, meanwhile, the pair of Corvettes ran closely together and traded position before Juncadella, piloting the No. 82 car, came under pressure from the No. 60 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 driven by Cairoli.

“I was stuck behind him for like ten laps and Cairoli in the Lambo behind was absolutely flying,” Juncadella told Sportscar365.

“So I had to use my tires to defend from that, cooked my tires a bit behind Charlie as well but I don’t think even if I would have been in front, I don’t think I would have caught Rovera.

“It’s a great result and to finish it like this, it’s great. I didn’t really think I could hold Cairoli for the 40 minutes, but in the end I managed to. So pretty proud of that.”

Jamie Klein contributed to this report