Edge Duo Team Up for the ‘Crowdstrike 24hrs of Spa’
Tom Gamble & Dean MacDonald
The world-famous Spa-Francorchamps hosted this year’s 24 hours of Spa on what was a very special year for this particular race as it celebrated its Centenary of holding this prestigious spectacle.
EDGE management drivers, Tom Gamble and Dean MacDonald, teamed up for this very special race driving the Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo.
Pre-event testing went well and the car showed good reliability whilst the drivers found good set ups for both dry and wet conditions as the forecast for the race looked inclement.
Unfortunately, a small technical issue in the last part of qualifying meant that Gamble only managed to do one lap at the end of the session and missed out on qualifying for the Super Pole by just two positions.
The weather forecast did prove to be accurate and the race was very challenging with lots of changing weather conditions including torrential overnight rain which made these stints were particularly difficult due to poor visibility and there were many incidents and cars going out of the race followed by long safety car periods.
The EDGE drivers, alongside third driver Benjamin Goethe, used all their experience to navigate these tricky conditions and come out of the darkness unscathed as the final third of the race begun in the morning light.
At 17hrs the EDGE crew were 28th overall and 15th in class with seemingly quite a lot to do to get themselves into the top 10.
In hindsight this was predominantly due to a wrong tyre choice during the tricky wet and drying conditions which meant that the car had to make an extra pitstop over many of the other cars around it in the order and due to the very long pitlane ended up putting the Garage 59 car a lap down. This was a gap that proved too great a deficit to overturn so the rest of the race ended up a salvage mission to the best result possible which was an 11th overall and 9th in the Pro Cup class, which was also the top placed McLaren in the race.
Afterwards Gamble commented:
“The car had great pace in the race & didn’t miss a beat throughout, it was the same with all the other McLaren’s which was great to see. We hope to finish the season on a high in the remaining endurance races & finish with a result we all know we can achieve and deserve.”
Dean McDonald also added:
“The race we can be pretty happy with, we all showed strong pace in our stints, which at times were incredibly difficult. No extra time in the pits was needed for penalties etc. which was great and very smooth from all the team. It’s a decent result, to finish any 24-hour race is a good effort and to finish top 10 in our class was really positive.
Results Pro Cup Class – Q2 – P13 / Q3 – P17 / Q4 – P13 / Race – P9