Oliver Gavin had to settle for eighth place overall in the weekend’s Rolex 24 At Daytona after suffering a broken axle just as he was about to start his second stint in the car.
The Yardley Hastings-based driver teamed up with Antonio Garcia, Jan Magnussen and Richard Westbrook for the 50th edition of the endurance race, driving the new Daytona Prototype Corvette.
They had managed to qualify the Spirit of Daytona car fifth at the Florida circuit, but ended up finishing 15 laps down on the winning team of Ryan Dalziel, Lucas Luhr, Allan McNish, Alex Popow and Enzo Potoliccio in the Starworks Motorsport Ford Riley after a mechanical failure.
Gavin explained: “Around the midway mark I was down in the pits getting ready for my second time in the car and all of a sudden I saw some of our guys leaving the pit box and lots of worried faces.
“It looked like we had a transmission problem as Richard had reported that he’d lost a certain amount of drive.
“We had broken an axle but unfortunately the fix was a bit more complicated than they first thought and it cost us 14 laps.
“Looking back, we finished 15 laps down to the winner so we could have really been in contention but for that.”
His first run in the car was also fraught with difficulty as Gavin did not get in the car until the evening, and also suffered from pain in his left leg due to having to compromise his seat position because of the difference in height amongst his team mates.
“My first time in the SDR car wasn’t until 8:45pm which was quite a challenge as it was dark and quite cold by that stage,” said Gavin.
“I was very tentative on the first lap out as it took so long for the tyres to heat up, particularly the fronts.
“You have to weigh up the risk versus reward; you don’t want to lose time to your competitors but equally you don’t want to fly off the road and cost the team laps and laps getting a fix. It’s a tightrope to walk.”
Gavin’s next outing will be for Corvette Racing at the Sebring Winter Test on the weekend of February 8-9 ahead of the 12 hour race at the same venue on March 17.
