Frank Yu and Tomonobu Fujii finished in a fine third place, first in the GT3 Class, in the Aston Martin Festival support race at the Le Mans 24 Hours. Their brand new Aston Martin Vantage GT3 ran without a hitch in a wet race. A perfect shakedown for the car prior to being shipped to Sepang for the 12 Hour MME event in August.
A constant drizzle resulted in a wet track which put huge pressure on Frank Yu who started the race. He had completed only five laps prior to the race and would start from pole position in a car and at a track he had not seen prior to race week. In treacherous conditions Yu kept up a pace good enough to keep the car in contention. Once the pit lane opened after 15 minutes of the 45 minute race Yu pitted to hand over to Fujii after a fine drive.
Despite the team being one of the first to make the compulsory pit stop the pace of Frank Yu allowed the Japanese driver re-join the race in 9th position which soon bcame fourth after those in front pitted. Within three laps he was up to third place. This soon became second but the GT2 car of Marco Seefried was closing fast. “The tyres were suffering once the track started to dry” reported Fujii, “and I decided to bring the car home for a good finish”.
Craft Eurasia were given the Aston Martin “Spirit of Le Mans” award which completed a memorable event for the team. “We have to thank Martin Braybrook of Brookspeed Motor Sport for his help, our mechanics for doing a great job on a brand new car and Aston Martin for their support” stated Craft Eurasia’s Mark Goddard. “This was a perfect shake down and we now look forward to the MME 12 Hours at Sepang in August. This car is capable of winning the MME and as Frank Yu yelled over the radio on his first lap in practice, ‘I love this car’!”
