Blancpain Endurance Series, Paul Ricard, 30/06/2013

Markus Palttala, Henri Moser and Andrea Piccini finished 21st overall and 15th in Pro Cup at Paul Ricard, France, when an early race incident dropped the trio over a lap down and out of top 50 after a great start. The other Marc VDS BMW Z4 of Bas Leinders, Yelmer Buurman and Maxime Martin won the race getting Marc VDS back in the title hunt after a difficult start to the season.

“It is really frustrating that we’ve been very competitive but haven’t yet managed to get on the podium. I qualified 2nd in Q2 missing out on pole just by a tenth after I lost a few tenths behind a slower car. Henri was 6th quickest in Q2 and Andrea 9th in Q3, so we were one of the strongest line-ups and finally got to start from top 10. Henri took a good start but then got in trouble with Hummel’s Black Falcon Mercedes. The SLS had qualified 2nd but the gentleman driver was rapidly dropping down the order. Henri tried to overtake him a couple of times and got pushed off. The next attempt lead to a crash that damaged our car and got us a penalty so the race was practically over then. Too bad, because later on both Andrea and I were as quick or quicker than the leaders. We had a good car, which was also proven by our sister car taking victory – congratulations to them. Now it’s full focus on the 24 Hours of Spa where we and the entire team want to have a good result!”

by