Bad luck and no race for KOX Racing at Hungary
The participation at the 3 hours of Hungaroring, the penultimate round of the European Le Mans Series 2013, turned out to be a short pleasure for KOX Racing. After qualifying everything looked quite promising for the Gallardo GT3 FL2 from REITER Engineering as well as its all dutch driver lineup Nico Pronk/Peter Kox/Dennis Retera. Starting from position 4 in the GTC class marked a good basis for a successful race even after Peter spun in qualifying on the wet track and slightly damaged the car. The team did a terrific job to fix the car just in time for the start of the race. All drivers were confident, the car was well-balanced, everything looked fine.
But then Nico Pronk proved the big effect that even small mistakes can have in motor racing, especially under tricky conditions such as those which prevailed on this Saturday in Hungary. During the warm-up lap he spun on the still damp track, hit the armco and damaged the Gallardo so heavily that it couldn’t make it back into the race.
No wonder Nico was badly disappointed: „My ego is more damaged than the car. The REITER Gallardo felt good and normally we should have had a good result. Now I am really looking forward to the final round at Le Castellet where I will aim for redemption, that’s for sure!“
As motor sport is always a team effort there were no allegations from his team mates. „I am very disappointed as we were having a good weekend so far“, reported Peter Kox. „I think what happened was just bad luck and maybe we also made a mistake with our strategy concerning the weather conditions.“ Dennis Retera added: „It’s a shame as I felt confident for the race. Bad luck for Nico, this could have happened to anyone!“
Now the whole KOX Racing crew will head back to the workshop to get the Lamborghini well-prepared for the final ELMS round in two weeks time at Le Castellet in southern france.
