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David Brabham was denied the chance
to even compete in the American Le Mans Series round for Petit Le Mans at Road
Atlanta, when his Patrón Highcroft Racing Acura was forced to retire after an incident on
lap 17. The 43 year-old approached the penultimate round of the
season just four points adrift of LMP2 class leaders Timo Bernhard and Romain
Dumas and the non-finish at Petit Le Mans comes as a bitter blow to Brabham and
teammate Scott Sharp’s championship title chances.
After a
sensational run of impressive performances that have seen Brabham take four
victories, including an overall win and two outright pole positions, the Petit
Le Mans event has been a challenging one. The Patrón Highcroft crew did
an outstanding job to completely rebuild the Acura overnight, following an
incident in Thursday’s practice session, in time for qualifying on Friday.
Another solid qualifying performance from Brabham,
in a car turning its first laps out of the garage, secured seventh fastest in
LMP2. However, on Saturday morning the officials ruled that the Acura had to
start from the back of the grid due to missing night practice on Thursday.
Regardless, Sharp got a great start and was in 11th
position and seventh in LMP2 when he spun and made contact with the wall at
turn 10. Although unharmed, the safety crew led Sharp away from the Acura. If
he had been permitted to stay with the car he would have pulled into the pits
where the team could get to work.
The officials then allowed Sharp to return to the car
but he alone had to make repairs before he could circulate and get back to the
pits. But with a broken wishbone, the half shaft out of the gearbox and a
problem with the drive train, the Acura was forced to retire before Brabham had
even got behind the wheel.
Brabham commented: “It was unfortunate that we
had to start from the back of the grid but it wasn’t a big deal in what
should have been a long race. Scott was making good progress and he got into a
good rhythm when he unfortunately hit the wall. We don’t know what
exactly happened but it meant that I didn’t even get in the car and
neither did Dario [Franchitti]. It’s not great from a championship point
of view but now we have to concentrate on rebuilding the car so that we can
come back strong and win Laguna Seca for the final round.”
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