Inside Dunlop - behind the scenes at the 6 Hours of Silverstone - The race
evo joins G-Drive Racing and its Dunlop tyre engineer at the WEC
The race
We’re not fortunate enough to join G-Drive Racing from the garage on race day, evo’s live web coverage of the race means we are largely consigned to the Silverstone Wing media room. But even sat behind tall, double-glazed windows, the team’s hunger to win is clear. The cars line up first and second on the grid, car 28 ahead of 26.
After losing the lead early on, the G-Drive Racing cars battle back with Sam Bird in the number 26 Ligier eventually slicing his way into first. The number 47 KCMG Oreca keeps pressure high, only to then pull into the pits with a holed radiator.
From then on the race is between the two G-Drive cars, with number 26 holding on to its early advantage to secure the perfect start to 2015. Unsurprisingly, the team is overjoyed.
‘Sam did the perfect job today so I have to say thank you to him, and also to Julien who was also very good. We just didn’t take any risks as we know we have a good car,’ a smiley Roman says in the post-race press conference.
And with that, the 6 Hours of Silverstone draws to a close. Podium celebrations, photos and lots of hugging are quickly followed with the packing up of cars and equipment, before G-Drive Racing’s lorries head back to base in France.
Dunlop has plenty of reasons to celebrate too; its tyres finished one-two and set the fastest lap time in LMP2. But the work is far from done. ‘We supply tyres to all but one of the teams in LMP2’ says Matt. ‘So we’ll compile the data that we’ve collected from this weekend at our R&D base in Birmingham, and use it to work out how to better approach future races.’
No doubt the Dunlop team will celebrate with G-Drive Racing tonight, but such are the demands of motorsport that it’s back to work next week. Matt confirms: ‘I’m in the office on Monday!’
