Tough weekend for Tom Gamble, of Epperston, in the European Le Mans Series at the Red Bull Ring in Spielburg
It proved a difficult race weekend in the Austrian mountains for Epperstone’s Tom Gamble, writes Paul Horton.
Racing in round two of the European Le Mans Series (ELMS) at the Red Bull Ring in Spielburg on Sunday, things couldn’t have got any worse.
Nineteen-year-old Gamble and his United Autosports LMP2 team-mates Phil Hanson and Jonathan Aberdein encountered four hours of the Red Bull Ring race in horrendous weather that hindered their attack for a top place finish.
Things were not all lost, however, as the team made inroads, in particular Gamble, at getting used to the #22 United Autosports Oreca 07-Gibson super racer on their second race outing of the season.
Thursday’s two test sessions saw them take fourth and fifth fastest on a wet track. This continued through Friday’s official free practice session where they were fastest with a time of 1 min 22.051secs and a top speed of 189.5kph on the 2.683-mile circuit.
Saturday morning saw the team slightly slower but with respectable third fastest on track.
A few tweaks to the car saw them take eighth in qualifying to line up on the grid for Sunday’s race on row four.
The four-hour race started in glorious sunshine, but midway through things took a turn for the worse.
First in the seat was Hanson and, by the end of his session he had moved up to fourth place, despite taking a drive-through penalty.
By the time Gamble replaced Aberdein, the track had officially been declared a wet race.
Driving rain saw a lot of cars off and Gamble was one of the casualties. The car span and returned to the pits with damage to the side and a new nose fitted.
With 20 minutes to go Gamble was given a drive-through penalty for crossing the white line on pit entry, dropping him down from third to seventh.
Gamble clawed back in his usual style and saw him in fifth place and things were looking good until another spin with just over three minutes on the clock, pushed him back to seventh, where he finished.
A deflated Gamble said: “It just wasn’t our day. It was a tough race, things just didn’t go our way.
“Phil got a good drive at the start, the rain came down when I got in the car and I made a couple of mistakes, which cost us a good result.
“I’ll learn from them and come back stronger next time. All of the team did a great job to keep the car going during horrendous conditions”.
Next round of the European Le Mans Series sees Tom travel to France for the four hours of Le Castellet at Circuit Paul Richard on June 6.