Sander Tabbers and Henrie Koolen started the 1000 km of Suzuka in the McLaren GT3. A 60-car field. The brief was simple: stay clean, don’t do anything silly, keep the car in one piece.
That worked. From P15 in qualifying to P12 at the finish, car almost unmarked. In a field of 60, that’s a tidy race.
Qualifying: 1:58.2, P15
Sander took qualifying and put in a 1:58.2. P15. Better than we had expected going in.
Start and opening stints
Sander drove the first two stints. The start was good: he was in the pack straight away. Lap 12 brought heavy netcode — hit twice. No damage. The pace held and after those two stints we were P12.
Henrie in
Henrie took stints 3 and 4. About 1.3 seconds a lap slower than Sander, as expected. A few small incidents, again without damage. At the swap back to Sander we sat P13.
Closing stage: P12 and a whole car
Sander drove the final phase. A slide in the closing laps. The car stayed intact, the race was finished. Result: P12.
No hero story — just what we set out to do: stay concentrated, work together and get the McLaren across the line.