Calan Williams and team WRT have missed a strong chance for Gold Class victory in the 6 hours of Paul Ricard event due to a unfortunate issue with the car.
With a huge 57 car field, Calan, Niklas Krutten and JB Simmineaur qualified reasonably starting from P22 on the grid overall and P4 in the Gold class. As with many drivers, all of the three suffered from traffic in their flying laps preventing a stronger result, however with 6 hours to race they knew the pace was there.
Calan would start the race with the first 2 hour stint and got the car away well off the line and was up to P19 by turn 5 of the first lap. A spinning car in front of him forced Calan to take evasive action off the track and being right at the entry point to the 1.8km back straight, the loss in momentum would cost him dearly and by the end of the straight he would be back in P23.
Through strong pace in the opening laps Calan would push to overtake competitors ahead, but through being forced off the track through contact twice, he found himself in P28 by the 30 minute mark.
With the race settling down and having survived the early chaos, Calan's pace developed stronger and stronger, and in an outstanding drive he would make his way through the field with excellent overtaking moves particularly around the outside at the fast right hander at the end of the long straight.
By the end of a long 2 hour 10 minute stint, Calan had piloted the WRT BMW M4 GT3 up to P15 overall and P2 in the Gold Class. With nearly 4 hours remaining, this was a strong position with the gap to the leader also pulled back to just under 20 second.
JB Simmineaur then took the wheel after a good pit stop and driver change to set after closing down this gap.
Unfortunately, just 3 laps into his drive, the car lost power as it shut down due to a rare issue.
Whilst not the result Calan or the team were expecting, there are still many positives to take from the performance as they now look forward to the biggest event of the year, the 24 Hours of Spa.
