Last Sunday, the FBL Endurance Team took part in the Le Mans 6 hour race. The race had everything: mixed setups, lap 1 accident, technical issues and fuel miscalculations.
Nathan Brumby was in charge of the opening stint, starting from P24 due to wrong setup in Qualifying. He made a good start, but got caught up in the lap 1 carnage which reduced the team to P20. Luckily, the car was not damaged and the team was able to continue the race. Nathan got his head down and started carving through the field.
Nihad Gluscic took over for the next three stints. A few small driving errors crept up at the beginning, but his decent pace meant he was able make up further positions on track.
Iwan Bremer was very confident when he got behind the wheel and immediately started demonstrating superior pace. At this point, it looked as though the team was heading for the top 10 easily, as it had a comparable pace to those who were on the same lap. Unfortunately, midway through Iwan’s stint, a technical failure struck and Iwan was no longer in control of the Dallara P217. The car slid off the track at Turn 1, but thanks to it’s slow speed in this moment, the team once again avoided substantial damage – but nevertheless had to deal with a setback in form of a lengthy tow.
To ensure to make it to the checkered flag, Nathan took over from Iwan, followed by a short final stint by Nihad, whose endurance inexperience showed when he under fueled the car for the last stint by 4 liters. Yet, it was enough to lose one position due to a splash and dash pit stop on the last lap.
Overall, the team was happy with the finishing position of 18th but was left ruing the missed chance of a stronger result had it not been for all the issues outside of their control. All three quipped how much fun the challenge was, and there is no doubt that the team will represent the FBL in more races to come – and hopes for the FBL to field multiple teams in the future.