Blancpain Endurance Series, Silverstone, 02/06/2013

Markus Palttala, Henri Moser and Nicky Catsburg finished 5th in the 2nd round of the Blancpain Endurance Series in Silverstone, UK, despite having suffered a drive through penalty during the 1st hour of the 3 hour race. The Marc VDS BMW Z4 #4 trio started from 22nd on the grid of 57 cars but all drivers showed great pace fighting to top 5 to score valuable championship points.

”It was a very good race for us. Henri did a great opening stint taking us from 22nd to 11th. He then had to serve a penalty for passing under yellow flags and that cost us about a minute or so, but Nicky got us back to top 10 by the end of his stint. Both pitstops were perfect and I got up to 5th and started chasing the Ferrari of Zampieri running 4th. I caught him a few laps before the end but he kept pushing me off which was a bit over the limit, but I finally got him on the last lap. Unfortunately, by then the JRM Nissan that I was earlier pulling away from had caught with us, dive-bombed me and I dropped back to 5th. Anyway, it was good to finally score some decent points and it was a nice reward for the #4 crew who have been working hard for months. I did the 2nd fastest race lap and both Henri and Nicky were real quick, so the pace is there. The penalty cost us a podium this time but we’ll continue pushing hard to get up there in the coming races.”

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