Andy Meyrick feels the pain as he crashes out of the Total 24hrs of Spa! by Rob Allender

 Despite showing potentially race-winning pace at the TOTAL 24 Hours of Spa this weekend, the leading Bentley Gp3 car driven by  Andy Meyrick and his team-mates Guy Smith & Steven Kane was forced to retire from the Blancpain points scoring marathon, after Andy had a rare accident! (Photo below - It was really that bad!)

The opening hours of the race were run under the all too familiar Spa conditions with the rain associated with the Ardennes region making the track extremely wet!  Initially running in 2^nd &  3^rd places, bad luck for the M-Sport Bentley team started early, as the both Andy’s car, and the sister car of Soulet,  Buhk and Andy Soucek, both  forced to pit during several long safety car periods, only to be held at the end of the pit lane each time. This was costing them minutes and dropping Andy’s car down to 32^nd after starting in 9^th place! However, both cars then showed impressive pace, to climb up the order and back in to the top 20 as a dry line started to appear! However shortly before 23:00 local time, (I.e.  7 ½ hours into the race) , Andy, who was now in the car, made an overtaking move past a slower competitor at Les Combes, only to be forced off the dry line and on to the wet part of the track and then the wet grass, losing control of the car and hitting the barrier, putting the car out on the spot!  Andy was taken to the circuit medical centre and then to a local hospital for medical checks, but has been given the all-clear, but only after a few fun Instagram photos had hit the Internet! Meanwhile the Soulet,  Buhk and Andy Soucek  car continued an impressive turn of speed, alternating between 2nd and 5^th  as out-of-sequence pit stops were taken as night fell. As dawn approached at 05:00, and with Maxi Buhk in the car and challenging for P4, a sudden electrical failure left Max stranded on-track. With no way to recover the car, Bentley Team M-Sport were forced to resign to their first ever double-retirement. Bentley’s Director of Motorsport, Brian Gush, comments: “We came to Spa hoping to cement our very strong championship positions, and while we fought back from some extremely bad luck with safety car interventions, the cars were frequently the quickest on the track. We had the pace but we just didn’t have the luck. The important facts are that Andy Meyrick is totally fine after his accident, and we know we can be competitive here again. The whole team is bitterly disappointed with the result, but we’ll try again next year with renewed energy. As always, we’ll focus on finding out what went wrong, learn from it and get ready for the next event.” The next race for Bentley Team M-Sport is the final round of the 2015 Blancpain Endurance Series, the three-hour race at the Nürburgring over the weekend of 19th-20th September.  Afterwards Andy said  “It’s a real shame we couldn’t put on a stronger show today. My stint was going quite well – I was on the pace of the leaders and making my way up the order. Overtaking another car, I was forced to move on to the wet line under braking, so I couldn’t stop the car and ended up in the barrier. I’m fine and we’ll be ready to race again at the Nürburgring in September.”

His team-mate Guy Smith, said  “It wasn’t our day today. My stint was in very difficult conditions – it was incredibly wet at the start and I struggled for traction, which cost me a few places. The car continually got better as the laps went by, but through pitting under the safety cars we lost huge amounts of time. That put us back well out of the top 20, but Steven gained some time back and Andy was doing the same. While it’s a shame not to score good points here, we’re all just glad that Andy is OK after what was a significant impact. Andy’s fine and we’ll repair the car and head to the final round of the championship with the aim of finishing on a high.”

The race was won by the Markus Paltalla, Lucas Luhr, Nick Catsburg  in a Team VDS BMW z4!

Veteran Cardiff racer Julian Westwood, and his team-mates in the Team Parker Racing Audi R8 LMS Ultra finished 14^th, winning the AM Class

P.s The Bentley Team HTP entry successfully completed the race in 9^th place, 5^th in class

http://www.blancpain-gt-series.com

BLANCPAIN ENDURANCE SERIES
19 September 2015  Nürburgring  Germany