DISAPPOINTMENT FOR MACDOWALL AND BARWELL AT HOCKENHEIMRING WITH DOUBLE PUNCTURE
Alex MacDowall’s 2022 motor racing season continued to frustrate during round four of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Powered by AWS Endurance Cup at the Hockenheimring over the weekend, 3rd/4th September, with two punctures limiting him to 11th place in the Silver Cup.
Carlisle’s MacDowall, who had been contesting the new Gold Cup class over the course of the first three race meetings with Barwell Motorsport, returned to the Silver Cup for the visit to Germany as part of a new line-up featuring fellow Silver graded drivers Sam De Haan and Patrick Kujala.
MacDowall and Kujala, of course, combined – along with Frederik Schandorff – to win the 2020 Silver Cup title with Barwell but the British squad’s class return proved to be much more disappointing than expected.
With a general lack of pace making a challenge for good points unlikely in the No.77 Lamborghini Huracan GT3, punctures on two occasions after contact from other cars completely ended any hopes with Kujala taking the flag at the end of the three hours in 29th overall, 11th in the Silver Cup.
“It’s been a bit of a rubbish weekend again”, said MacDowall, “It was difficult from the start, we came in on the back-foot with the team not having been to Hockenheim before, a lot of the others have raced there in different championships like the GT Masters. We were a bit slow to get going in practice, plus the Lambos generally had a bit of a lack of pace which made things tough.
“In the race we were just unlucky again, two punctures from contact is the sort of thing that can happen to anybody but it meant we couldn’t move forward – we ended up going backwards. We didn’t achieve what we should have this weekend so it’s a case of more disappointment really as well as frustration with a lack of speed.”
Practice on Saturday, 3rd September, began on a very wet track with a lot of standing water but conditions did improve with the Barwell entry ending the session ninth in the Sliver Cup, before continuing preparations in pre-qualifying with a focus on set-up ahead of Sunday’s action.
In final qualifying on Sunday morning, MacDowall took the first of the three sessions and lapped fifth fastest in Silver with a time of 1m38.459 seconds. De Haan ran in session two, posting 16th in class, before Kujala was 15th in session three with an almost identical lap time to MacDowall.
Leading to 13th on the grid in the Silver Cup, determined from the average of each drivers’ best lap, De Haan took the start of Sunday afternoon’s race. Only seven corners into the contest, though, an incident led to a McLaren hitting the barriers and the resulting Safety Car period lasted half an hour.
When racing resumed, De Haan was 16th in the Silver Cup but a short while later contact from one of the Ferraris resulted in a rear puncture. After pitting for a replacement, De Haan then pitted again for his scheduled stop just before the end of hour one.
MacDowall entered the race and set about trying to undo some of the damage from pretty much the tail of the order. Running in 17th position in Silver midway through his stint, the Cumbrian pressed on to move into the top 15 in class as the bid to recover continued apace.
Kujala then climbed behind the wheel for the third and final hour and with around 50 minutes to go he was 13th in the Silver Cup. More contact soon after, though, led to the team’s second puncture and hampered his challenge for the top 10 – ultimately taking 11th in class and 29th overall.
Spain is the destination for the fifth and final round of the GTWCE Endurance Cup, with the last three-hour race of the 2022 season set to take place on Sunday, 2nd October, at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. MacDowall will again race in the Silver Cup partnered by De Haan and another new team-mate, British driver Charlie Fagg.
“It’s been a very bitty season for us with so many team-mate changes, it hasn’t helped us try and put together a consistent challenge at all, but hopefully we can end the season with a bit of a more positive result in Barcelona”, said MacDowall, “It’ll be difficult again, but we’ll do the best we can.”
