The Kaspersky Motorsport team finished fifth of the three hour Blancpain Endurance series race at Silverstone today, but the driver line up of Alex Moiseev, Garry Kondakov and Riccardo Ragazzi have clearly made good progress since the opening round, as their Ferrari led its class for all but 30 minutes of the three hour event.
Having qualified as the fourth best competitor in Amateur class, it fell to Alex Moiseev to be in the cockpit for the start. Shortly after the one hour mark, the car number #49 came in for its first stop, with Moiseev handing over to Riccardo Ragazzi as they refuelled and changed tyres. Our experienced Italian had been handed the responsibility of maintaining the class lead and he did just that, helped by a very efficient pit stop. It meant that the Kaspersky Motorsport name topped the results sheet in the AM class for a total of around two and a half hours in this three hour race.
Critically though, the Kaspersky Motorsport team weren’t leading when the race came to an end: a Safety Car period was needed because of an accident on track and, as is often the case in these scenarios, purely randomly it can make or break your race, depending if you are about to make a final pit stop or have just done so. Unfortunately, today the gods of good fortune were not shining on the team and it meant that others in our class were able to get ahead so that we took the chequered flag in fifth place.
“I’m pleased for the whole team, who did a brilliant job, as well as for my two team-mates who have made extremely encouraging progress,” said Moiseev after the chequered flag. “We were leading the race during the first two and a half hours! The positive side is that we were really competitive and we showed we can fight. The performance was there and I feel optimistic already that we are going to be able to fight hard for the top places in the coming rounds. That’s what we want; it’s why we are here.”
“I’m happy that we have again finished in the points, for the second race in a row,” added Ragazzi. “Alex drove brilliantly, especially when you consider that he had to start from the back, because of a mistake on the formation lap, on the way to the start grid. So when you consider that we were in the lead when he handed over the car to me at the first pit stop, that was really a great performance. Amazing job!
“I managed to increase our lead to around 50 seconds over the second placed car, which is down to the team doing a fantastic job at the pit stop, but the final stint didn’t go quite as planned. I feel we have made progress and we can aim for a podium finish in the coming races.”
In just one week’s time our crew will be in action again at the beautiful and extremely challenging Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium. It’s not a Blancpain event, but part of the GT Open Series.
Press release Kaspersky Motorsport
]]>
The Kaspersky Motorsport team finished fifth of the three hour Blancpain Endurance series race at Silverstone today, but the driver line up of Alex Moiseev, Garry Kondakov and Riccardo Ragazzi have clearly made good progress since the opening round, as their Ferrari led its class for all but 30 minutes of the three hour event.
