Date: 26.09.11
James Walker and his JMW Motorsport team-mate Rob Bell took a
truly amazing win at Estoril today in the final round of the 2011
Le Mans Series. This result lifts them to second place in the
GTE-Pro class standings, which in itself secures a Le Mans 24 Hours
entry for JMW Motorsport in 2012.
"That was the perfect weekend," said a jubilant James. "It was
definitely the best race weekend of my career. It has taken ten
years to get to this point and it feels great to know I am racing
against some of the best drivers in the world and winning
races."
James and Rob won the first race of the season at Paul Ricard back
in April and have been fighting hard for the second win ever since.
To take it in style at the last race of the year is testament to
the hard work that they and the team have put in.
"We had a great car today," explained James. "And our Dunlop tyres
were perfectly suited to the hot track temperatures. Rob got
us off on the right foot by taking pole position yesterday and we
haven't looked back."
Rob actually lost the lead at the start as he got tangled up with
the back markers in the prototype class but he got it back and
pushed on to create a 19 second lead by the time the first pit-stop
was due. James then joined the race and increased that lead
to over 40 seconds.
Nothing ever runs completely smoothly in a six-hour race though and
in Rob's next stint he lost a bit of time after tussle with an
Aston Martin. The Porsche in second position started to
stretch its legs at this stage too and the next time James jumped
in he found himself in second place to the Porsche.
"I managed to catch Marc (Lieb) in the Porsche and had a lot of fun
hounding him for 44 laps!" said James. "He was quicker than me in a
straight line but I had the edge in some of the corners. I did
actually pass him into turn one a couple of times but he got me
back. He then pitted a lap earlier than us so I got my head
down and made sure I made the most of the clear track on my in
lap."
The JMW Motorsport pit crew always executes fast and efficient pit
stops but they saved the best for last today and as James handed
over to Rob for the final time the yellow Ferrari rejoined the race
in the lead!
"Rob did the last stint with that Porsche literally glued to his
rear bumper," said James. "It was as close as it can get. They
actually came into the penultimate corner of the last lap side by
side, which did a fair bit of damage to our nerves!"
When asked to sum up his weekend James said: "Just perfect. I've
put my stall out for next year and shown that I deserve to be here
and I can't wait to do it all again in 2012."
ENDS