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The Patrón Highcroft Racing team was denied the
chance to battle for the Petit Le Mans title, and continue the fight for the American
Le Mans Series LMP2 championship, when the Acura ARX-01b was forced to retire
after just 16 laps at Road Atlanta.
It’s been a challenging weekend for the Patrón
Highcroft Racing crew who had to completely build a new Acura ARX-01b from
scratch following an incident in Thursday’s practice. An amazing team effort ensured the new car
was ready for qualifying. A solid
performance from David Brabham secured seventh fastest in LMP2, only for the officials
to rule that the Acura had to start from the back of the grid due to missing
night practice on Thursday. Yet, even
Dario Franchitti, the third driver for this event, remained optimistic about
the team’s chances.
With the team taking everything in stride, Scott Sharp
got a great start from 36thth overall
and eighth in LMP2 when the first full course caution was called on lap three. When the field returned to racing on lap
seven Sharp seized the opportunity to continue his attack to take two further
places and clear the GT field. and charged up to 17
By lap 12 Sharp was up to 11th position
and seventh in LMP2 when the Acura spun and made contact with the wall at turn
10. Although unharmed, Sharp was
escorted away from the car by the safety crew.
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 decided that Sharp was allowed to
return to the Acura, which was by this time on the back of a flatbed truck in
the support paddock. But Sharp alone was
permitted to make repairs before he could circulate the track and return to the
pits. That proved impossible. With a broken wishbone, the half shaft out of
the gearbox and a drive train problem, the car was forced to retire.
Sharp commented: “The Patrón Highcroft
Acura was running great. I was taking it
easy and trying to get through the traffic but making good progress. I got through turn 10A and then got on the
throttle. It’s not a tough corner,
but the car started to go into a lazy spin then it began to slide and I
couldn’t help but hit the inside wall.
It was like something broke or a tire went down, it was a very odd
feeling and very strange. It is a tough
day for our Patrón Highcroft team. They
worked so hard to get the car back together on Thursday after an early crash
and now this incident.”
David Brabham said: “It’s a real shame
to end the race this way after the guys did such a tremendous job to repair the
car and get it back into such good shape.
Scott was doing great and everything was looking promising. Naturally everyone is gutted but now we will
just focus on repairing the car and coming back stronger to hopefully win at
Laguna Seca for the final race of the season.”
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