Lichfield driver Adam Christodoulou was forced to settle for fourth place despite seeing his CRS Racing team leading the pack for the majority of the Le Mans Series opener in France.
The six-hour race at the Paul Ricard circuit saw Christodoulou and team-mates Klaas Hummel and Phil Quaife set the pace for much of the GTE-Am class outing, before a technical problem ended any hopes of leading their class home.
An eventful opening saw the Lichfield racer forced to work his way through a confusing rolling start which saw the lights go green – only for the safety car to stay out.
The CRS driver explained:
“The start really was chaos. I had to go straight through the middle and do some serious debris dodging. Once the race got going I found I had little grip but as the fuel burnt away it all got better and I found myself in third place, battling for second. I got up into second, but then when I came in for my stop, the guys really nailed it and we double-stinted the tyres so that took me into the lead. The engineers gave us a great strategy.”
The first sign of problems for the team came about when a starter problem appeared as Quaife attempted to leave the pits after his first stop. The issue was fixed, but returned next time he came in.
Christodoulou added:
“It’s a shame we had the starter problems but it’s good to get the first race done so we know where we stand on pace so I’m now looking forward to the race at Spa.”
