McLaren Driver Development ace Alain Valente had a weekend to forget at Donington park last weekend for round 3 of the British GT Championship.
The #3 RJN Motorsport ran McLaren 570s GT4 started the weekend on fine form, and for the first time this season, looked extremely competitive due to a long overdue balance of performance relief from the championship organisers.
Free practise sessions 1 & 2 saw the #3 car finishing P2 in class and 3rd overall, a huge step forward from the opening 2 rounds previously. Qualifying would see the young Swiss driver take the wheel in the first session. Setting purple sectors throughout the 15 mins session, Valente would set a time that would put him P3 and just 1 tenth off pole position – a fantastic qualifying from the Swiss based driver. Team mate Benyahia was not so fortunate during his session and a track limits infringement would see the #3 cars combined times dropping them down to P7 overall and 4th in class.
Valente would start the 2hour race. As the lights went out Valente made a great start and managed to weave his way through the first lap carnage from the GT3 accident that occurred at turn 1. After an opening safety car period Valente was into a fantastic rhythm and began to make his way through the pack. Battling hard on lap 4 Valente would be involved in an incident that he was placed purely at the wrong place at the wrong time. Minding his business, battling for position, a competitor made an over exuberant move on a car behind which would have the knock on effect which wiped out 3 more cars from the race…Valente being one of them. The team had to retire the car after just 5 laps of racing.
The team move onto Round 4 on the weekend of 23rd – 25th at Spa Francorchamps.