Bullitt Racing has competed in the four-round Asian Le Mans Series for the first time, fielding the #66 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 for Martin Berry, Jacob Riegel and Valentin Haase-Clot. The opening two rounds in Dubai yielded just a 17th place finish, while in Abu Dhabi, it was better, but not what the team were striving for, with a 13th place finish.
For the Spanish squad, it has been a tough start to the year. The freight issues in getting the car and equipment to Dubai ended up being a serious logistical problem which was overcome at some expense. The two rounds in Dubai saw contact end the first race almost before it started, while in the second it brought a lowly finish after a mid-race incident.
The pattern continued at Yas Marina on Saturday with Martin unable to avoid a spinning #21 Ferrari at the start and making heavy contact and ending the race. So for the final four-hour event, it was just a case of finishing.
That’s not to say that Jacob didn’t push hard in his opening stint, he did, moving from ninth to as high as fourth. Martin was next and given his misfortune in the previous three races, he was by his own admission, cautious.
The team now head back to base and put the finishing touches to the programme for the remainder of the year, and while Asian Le Mans didn’t work out as expected, better is yet to come.
Steffan Pattrick, Team Manager
“We came to the series thinking we had a shot at the championship in the GT3 class, and win an invite to Le Mans. Pure bad luck in Dubai put an end to that. So, we reset and came to Abu Dhabi seeking to show what we can do, and then we had the tragic news regarding (friend and former team manager) David (Price). Then we had the incident on lap one yesterday (Saturday) and that was that. We finished today, now we head back to base and look forward to the summer programme.”
Martin Berry
“The aim today was to play it safe, bring the car home and not to take risks. That meant we were rolling out the red carpet for some of the LMP cars in the race to ensure a race finish. We’ll have a review of the series as a whole, but a lot of it comes down to genuine bad luck and I am sure we’ll all come out of this stronger.”
Jacob Riegel
“I made my second start today and it was good, a balance between aggression and ensuring we don’t have an incident as it was pretty dangerous out there at times. I made gains, ran as high as fourth at one stage, which is promising for the future. I enjoyed my two races a great deal.”
