Henrique Chaves ended the first Silverstone race, where this weekend is staged the fifth International GT Open’s round, in the fourth place, keeping his fight for this year title.
The season arrived at its decisive stage and all the results are important and the tactics are critical.
For today’s seventy minutes race it was Martin Kodric, the Portuguese’s teammate, who did the first stint in the #59 McLaren 720S GT3 from the Teo Martín Motorsport squad.
The Croatian lined-up in the grid’s fifth place, but in the start, he made a position and he was fourth when he went to the pits to leave the car in Henrique Chaves’ hands.
With a ten seconds handicap, the Portuguese signed a good out-lap, which was important to get another place and climb to third.
However, a second Safety-Car situation – there was one in the first lap – gathered the pack and, after the restart, the driver from Torres Vedras had to give-up a place to an opponent that, at that stage, was faster. The Portuguese youngster crossed the finish line in fourth, a good result for the championship.
“This is a good result and important for the championship. We always want best result possible and, after the second Safety-Car situation, we thought about fighting for the win. However, our opponents are very fast here at Silverstone and it was impossible to get them. This fourth place is very important because of the handicap, as it will be smaller tomorrow, which will be really decisive“, said Henrique Chaves.
Tomorrow, there will be held another race, sixty minutes long, and will be the Portuguese driver who will do the first stint into the race. The youngster is confident and determined in achieving a good result that gives him more points for the championship, as, with today’s race, he will have a five seconds pit-stop handicap. “We still have some work to do. The car isn’t as we want, yet, it’s a bit hard to drive, and that prevent us from fulfil its potential. We have improved it during the weekend, and I believe tomorrow it will be better set upped. We have to take advantage of the smaller handicap that we will have to gain points to our rivals and, for that, we will have to get a good result in the qualifying so we can fight for the win“, underlined Henrique Chaves with confidence
