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!”

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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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