New Zealand sportscar racer Brendon Hartley’s mechanical woes continued at the Red Bull Ring over the weekend at round three of the European Le Mans Series. Again the Kiwi piloted the Murphy Prototypes LMP2 Oreca-03 Nissan to qualify third and all was going according to plan until the first pit stop.
Hartley was confident in the speed of the car heading into the race. “The Murphy Prototype car was really strong and I moved straight to the top of the time sheets [in qualifying],” said Hartley.
“The others did twice the amount of laps to beat my time but they had to start on the tyres they over-used in qualifying.”
Hartley had a new co-driver in Jonathan Hirschi for the weekend and the Swiss driver was on fire holding second position from the moment the lights went out he pitted to hand over to Hartley.
Seventeen laps later the car was still in the pits with yet another electrical/starter motor problem and again a race win went begging. Once the problem was sorted the Kiwi roared out of pit lane and proceed to reel off a multiple of fast laps.
“I was really happy with my stint. I did the 10 quickest laps of the race — the fastest lap by over half a second. The car was very, very strong; we actually found an issue with the car this weekend that had been holding us back all year, so it’s a little bit frustrating when you look at it now.
“We would have won the race by a long way if we did not have the issue and lost 20 laps. I think the rest of the teams would be very nervous if we come back with the same line-up next time.”
The team eventually finished seventh in class and 25th overall, 20 laps down on the winners. Team owner Greg Murphy was as miffed as the rest of the crew and afterwards was philosophical about the outcome.
“We could have won the race by an absolute mile today,” he said. I’m sorry for the drivers. Jonathan was just brilliant for us and that’s the best silver performance I have ever seen in any team.
“Brendon had the top ten fastest laps of the race, which showed what we can really do. No stone will be left unturned to find the problem and make sure it does not happen again.”
