Racing for Holland 25th at Le Mans race with bizar finish

During the 75th Le Mans 24 Hours Racing for Holland has not been able to get the up front expected or hoped for result. In a race which had a bizar finish when a monsoon came down an hour before the finish the team had a lot of technical setback. In the end the team finished in 25th.

With a rain forecasted, in the end it stayed dry untill Sunday afternoon, on Saturday afternoon the race started at 15.00 hours. Racing for Holland had a good start, only a slight misjudgement with going for wet weather tyres after a short shower cost a few places. Jan Lammers took the start. After him it was David Hart’s turn, but he spent almost his entire stint driving behind the safety car due to repair works to the track.

Jeroen Bleekemolen had very bad luck when in his first lap out the dashboard came loose and dropped precisely onto the steering wheel, just as he accelerated out of the Playstation Chicane. The Dome spin and hit the guardrail backwards. Fortunately Bleekemolen was able to drive the car back to the pits, where the mechanics worked frantically to get the car back out on track as soon as possible.

Everything seemed to go fine and from a 50th place Racing for Holland climbed slowely but surely towards the top 20. Hart, Bleekemolen and Lammers all showed that as far as times were concerned the Dome certainly was competitive. Until a bracket for the throttle cable broke during Lammers sting during the night.

Again the mechanics showed tremendous improvisation skills and managed to get the car back out again. The same mishap occurred a few times more during the remainder of the race, but fortunately Racing for Holland was not forced to retire from the race.

With an hour of racing left the floodgates opened and a monsoon came down. The safety car went out and the remaining cars stayed in formation up to 10 minutes before the finish. In the pooring rain a totally wet and shivering Lammers drove the Dome S101.5 across the finish. The podium was for Audi, which stayed ahead of Peugeot and Pescarolo.

Jeroen Bleekemolen; "A shame that we had so much problems. We really showed a good pace here, I did a lap of 3’33.8, which I think was the fifth or sixth fastest time in the entire race. All stints that we were able to drive were good. Off course it was superb to drive this car in this race. It was a pleasure for me to do, especially at night and in my final sting and I was also able to battle the Pescarolo’s a bit".

Jan Lammers; "Too bad. It was a race which for us had potential if you look at our pace. Then you are talking about the top six. I think that we have learned enough and gathered enough for the new car next year. A very hard race. Within the potential of the car it performed well.

Stupid things such as the dashboard prove to be lethal. But anyway, that’s life. The throttle mechanism breaking is also something that you cannot blame the team for. This was some cast iron bit of the engine that just broke.

We have never had this before in the seven years of driving with these engines. The improvisation of the guys was fantastic, any other team would have immediately retired. Davy and the others made a new bracket and we were able to drive with that.

The rain in the end was a shame. Jeroen had just set a fantastic time and the track conditions were superb, so I was getting ready to try and beat that. But then the rain came".

- Jan Lammers, also photo -