Kerong Li, Jean-Francois Brunot and Tyler Cooke battled hard to salvage a top three GTX class finish during the Hankook 12H Spa-Francorchamps over the weekend, the Leipert Motorsport trio fighting back as strongly as possible after alternator failure threatened to totally derail their challenge.
Showing superb pace in qualifying to secure the GTX pole position and 11th overall, Brunot retained the class lead and sliced into the outright top five early in part one of the race on Saturday, before the alternator issue led to an enforced pit visit.
After losing a huge amount of time and laps while the Lamborghini Huracan was repaired, the trio ended the first five and a half hours of racing third in GTX and 39th overall. In Sunday’s six and a half hour portion, the team-mates ensured third in class and 29th overall.
Taking the finish within eight laps of the second placed car, impressive after losing so much time on Saturday, they also lapped significantly faster than their GTX rivals with a best time of 2m24.407 seconds – more than seven seconds quicker than the next best in class.
Germany’s Hockenheimring will host the fifth race meeting of the Hankook 24H Series, the 12H Hockenheimring, over the weekend 14th/15th May.