LATE CALL FOR TIM IN ITALY

Tim Sugden was in Italy for the 26/27 April weekend in his role as manager of James Walker, who races in the Renault World Series and so was on hand when James Watt Automotive (JWA) had a vacant seat in their Porsche 997RSR in GT2 of the Monza 1000km race, a round of the Le Mans Series.   Although he has driven most models of the GT Porsche this was the first race for him in the latest 2008 version of the RSR which has had many changes in order to compete with the dominant Ferrari F430.  

Marcus Paltalla who has raced the 997 on a previous occasion qualified the JWA car 7th and took the first stints before handing over to Tim having reported a failure of the clutch during the first hour.   The car was running 4th before the pit stop and 7th when Tim went out and after a few relatively slow laps to get accustomed to driving without the use of a clutch began to lap at increasing speed.   The team had made a well timed pit stop keeping the car on the lead lap and Tim was gradually able to work up to second place.

The next change of driver at just under 4 hours of the six hour event was to car owner Paul Daniels who eventually picked up a puncture probably caused by lots of debris off line including sharp shards of carbon fibre following several accidents.   As the team changed the tyres from this puncture Paltalla again took over the car in an attempt to regain time, the car having now dropped several laps but then suffered a failure of a front damper with about half an hour to go and lost more time eventually finishing 7th.  At post race scrutineering the Porsche that finished in first place and was running ahead of Tim when he was in the car was excluded for a technical infringement.  The team was left wondering what might have been as is often the case in motor racing

The next race in this series is the 1000km of Spa in Belgium on the 11th May and we could well see Tim back in the JWA car for that race