Equity-One Motorsport Press Release
Tough day at the
office for the Equity-One team at Bathurst
After one of the
most incredible races in Australian motorsport history, the Equity-One
Motorsport Class B Audi R8 has emerged from the madness to claim a sixth-placed
finish in class and fourteenth outright on a day where they were forced to run
well below par after an early performance issue drained them of significant
horsepower.
“What can you do,”
team-boss Dean Koutsoumidis shrugged post-race. “I had to make a decision
whether to park the car or do the best with what we had. We tried a couple of
things but we couldn’t fix the problem. I decided we would keep going despite
being down on power and not able to fight for the category B podium. It was
disappointing but better than the car being on the trailer before the end of
the day.”
The day had started
perfectly, former V8 Supercar regular Dean Fiore starting the car in the dawn light
at 6:15am, the West Australian forging through the field to be on the tail of
the top five before his first stop.
Dean Koutsoumidis
was next in, and he continued to punch out laps in the 12s and 13s, some five
seconds a lap faster than he had been in 2013. “I think the time I spent
driving the Radical around here this weekend really helped [Koutsoumidis also
entered the Radical support category to earn more valuable miles around Mount Panorama
“Dean Grant was next
in, but part way through his opening stint the experienced sportscar campaigner
noticed that something wasn’t right. “He felt the car was losing power, so to
his credit he bought it straight in,” Equity-One’s Andrew McInnes explained.
“They couldn’t find
anything initially, so he went out again, but came back in and the team did
some diagnostics, where the data showed a problem with cylinder five which
appeared to be an electrical coil. We replaced it, but it didn’t seem to help,
so we had to make a call about whether we continued on, or pull the car out. In
the end it made the finish, but after that it wasn’t pretty.”
Sadly it was
‘fait-accompli’ from that point, but all four drivers pressed on, ultimately
claiming fourteenth at the close of the 12-Hour endure, with 271-laps credited
to the team.
Dean Fiore, Dean
Grant and Michael Loccisano all shared the driving duties with the boss and
were consistent all day producing an impressive performance from a car that was
giving away a lot of horsepower to its rivals.
“I think all the
boys have done good job and despite the disappointment we had a good day,”
Koutsoumidis shrugged. “There’s always next year!”
Race [12-Hours] (Mount Panorama ,
Bathurst
01. 88.
Edwards/Bowe/Lowndes/Salo (Ferrari 458 Italia GT3) - 296-laps
02. 84.
Jaeger/Primat/Buhk (Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3) - 296-laps
03. 63. Davison/Le
Brocq/Crick (Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3) - 296-laps
04. 37.
Quinn/Quinn/Kirkaldy/Van Gisbergen (McLaren MP4-12C) - 296-laps
05. 3.
Frey/Rast/Vanthoor (Audi R8 LMS ultra) - 296-laps
06. 25.
Patterson/Lux/Winkelhock (Audi R8 LMS ultra) - 294-laps
07. 1.
Schneider/Engel/Bastian (Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3) - 291-laps
08. 4.
Grove/Bamber/Barker (Porsche 997 GT3 Cup - B) - 286-laps
09. 12.
Calvert-Jones/Davison/Long (Porsche 997 GT3 Cup - B) - 284-laps
10. 9.
Cini/Eddy/Mies (Audi R8 LMS ultra) - 278-laps
14. 71.
Koutsoumidis/Grant/Fiore/Loccisano (Audi R8 LMS - B) - 271-laps
Equity-One
Motorsport is proudly supported by Equity-One Mortgage Fund, Hallmark, VodkoO
and Melbourne Performance Centre.
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with Equity-One visit:
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www.equity-one-motorsport.com/
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Photo credit: Melbourne Performance Centre
