Eurasia Motorsport looked set for a fine fourth place finish this afternoon (3 December) in the second round of the Asian Le Mans Series held at Fuji Speedway in Japan. However, a crankshaft failure with just 15 minutes of the four-hour race remaining resulted in retirement after a spirited recovery drive from the back of the field.
The all new driver line-up of Yoshiharu Mori, Scott Andrews and Marko Asmer proved to be effective, the latter qualifying the #33 Ligier JS P2 in fourth position on Saturday afternoon.
Race day saw Mori take the start, only to suffer an off on the second lap that dropped the team to the back of the field. Mori pushed on and was able to make good progress as he working his way back through the field to run 11th before handing back over to Asmer.
The Estonian continued the progress, completing a double stint to run fourth before Andrews took over for what was expected to be the run to the flag. Having dropped to fifth behind the #4 Bratislava entry with an out of sequence stop, Andrews made short work of regaining the position and even managed to gain a lap on the rival Ligier before the mechanical failure curtailed the race for the team.
“It was looking as good as it could for us,” stated team principal Mark Goddard. “With a proper bronze driver in Yoshi, P4 is as high as we can rightfully expect to get. Until the crankshaft failed we had made an excellent recovery and looked set for a good result, but that’s racing. Now we look forward to 2018 and the remaining rounds in the championship.”
The next round of the Asian Le Mans Series takes place at Chang International Circuit, Buriram, Thailand on 11-13 January 2018.
