Robertson Racing Le Mans Hour 18 Report

Robertson Racing safely through three-quarters distance at Le Mans

Robertson Racing’s #68 Ford GT continues to run strongly at the 79th edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours with the car up to fourth in class and 29th overall as the race entered its final six hours.

The American GTE Am contenders safely made it through the night and into dawn before the third lengthy Safety Car period of the 2011 race provided some relief from the relentless pace.

The astonishing reliability of the independent Braselton-based team’s self-developed Ford GT has been in evidence ever since the fourth hour when trademark speedy pit work saw the gearbox switched to its ‘manual’ sequential back-up. Aside from a regular full brake change, the driver trio of Dave Robertson, Andrea Robertson and David Murry has had little to worry about as all three continue to exert pressure on those ahead.

#68 Robertson Racing Ford GT-Doran: David Robertson, Andrea Robertson, David Murry

Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt

Robertson Racing’s decision to run a conservative race strategy also appears to be paying dividends with some of the class’ more fancied entries pre-race now falling by the wayside through a combination of mechanical maladies and incidents.

Andrew ‘H’ Smith, Team Manager: “The guys have all done an excellent job so far and their pit-stops have been particularly flawless. Obviously we have had the puncture and the gear shift issue but other than those there has been absolutely nothing else to report. The car has only been in the garage twice all race-long, once for the shifter change I mentioned and another for a scheduled brake service. Everything seems to be going well and although, in truth, we are not the fastest car out there, if we can keep going to the finish it will be an incredible achievement for the team.”

This year’s race finishes at 3pm local French time.

-source: robertson racing