Jake Hill had a weekend of what might have been in Germany in early July in the latest round of the Michelin 24H Series.
Keen to build on a superb Podium finish at Paul Ricard in June, Era Motorsport arrived at Nurburgring for their debut on the GP Circuit, round four of the European Series.
All three drivers who set a time in qualifying showed strong pace – with Hill setting second fastest time in his qualifying session, and his co-drivers Dwight Merriman and Ryan Dalziel also delivering strong lap times, that would ultimately result in the No.81 Ferrari starting P7 for the 12 Hour race.
Hill started on Saturday and worked hard to pass the Ajith Redant Racing Mercedes, the GetSpeed Mercedes and Hofer Racing, and handed over to Merriman now in fourth place.
Both Merriman and latterly Oliver Bryant lapped consistently and swiftly, with excellent strategy and a fast final stint by Ryan Dalziel resulting in the team in a very positive place at the end of Saturday’s first-half of the race.
Unfortunately a nasty looking accident befell the Muhlner Motorsport Porsche 992 Cup Car of Josh Bednarski which caused the race to be stopped early, thankfully with Josh shaken but not injured.
Sunday’s race saw Dalziel on board and lapping quickly, and running P5 overall and P2 in the ProAm class when heavy rain hit the track after an hour’s running, resulting in Dalziel taking huge amount of time out of the ProAm leading Proton Porsche, taking the lead when it stopped to change to their Pro Driver.
Still running P2 in class when Oliver Bryant took over, the Era Motorsport strategy looked to be working perfectly when out of nowhere a slower car lost control and spun off, collecting Bryant and putting him in the gravel with broken suspension.
The car was dragged out of the gravel, and Bryant carefully returned to the pits where the Era crew did a remarkable job to repair the car in 23 minutes and get it back on track, albeit now having lost 11 laps.
“So incredibly frustrating! said Hill “The team had got the strategy spot-on – we were looking really strong for at least a ProAm podium and possibly even a Win, and then we get taken out! Nothing Olly could do, and just an amazing job by the team to get us back out so quickly – that’s racing as they say….”
Late on Hill took the final two hours of the race to bring the car home safely in 4th in ProAm, but very much a case of ‘what might have been’
“We still are learning this car and had some technical support from Davide from the Ferrari factory this weekend which was really interesting. We now head to Barcelona in September for the 24 Hours and if we can get the strategy right again, we will be in good shape, I love 24 Hour races, and we learned a lot last year, so let’s see what we can do”
Image Courtesy of Mika Pietrus (