Swiss racing driver Harold Primat today embarked on his seventh 24 Hours of Le Mans, but a technical issue meant that the race was unfortunately brought to a premature end for Primat and his Aston Martin Racing team mates Adrian Fernandez and Andy Meyrick.

The 009 AMR-One LMP1 prototype had run encouragingly during Thursday’s sessions, as well as during the pre-Le Mans tests at Motorland Aragon and Monza. 

Following Thursday’s qualifying session, Primat’s team mate Adrian Fernandez lined the 009 car up on the grid in P25. Fernandez made a solid start to the race.  However, within the first hour of the race, a failure of the water-pump drive led the car to lock-up and spin.  The car was unfortunately unable to return to the pits and subsequently retired.

Team Principal George Howard-Chappell commented; “Obviously we are bitterly disappointed that 009 has retired so early. We found some cracks in an aluminium pulley, and elected to substitute the part with a steel replacement. This caused a problem elsewhere in the driveline and unfortunately led to the retirement of the car.”

Harold Primat commented; “The whole team is incredibly disappointed that the car was forced to retire so early in the race.  Having seen the progress that has been made over the past month, I was very much looking forward to driving the car in the race.  We are still at an early stage in the development of the car but the pre-Le Mans testing and the running we did throughout Thursday has been encouraging and it is clear we have taken steps forward since work began on the car in September last year. The development programme of the AMR-One LMP1 remains ongoing and I know the team will bounce back from this disappointment and continue to drive the project forwards.”  

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Notes to editors:

About Harold Primat:

Harold Primat is a Swiss racing driver with over 15 years racing experience including British F3, World Series Lights, Le Mans Series and American Le Mans Series. Harold Primat is supported by the following personal sponsors; Banque Baring Brothers Sturdza, Harwood International, Crans Montana and Primland.

www.haroldprimat.com

Follow Harold on Twitter @Harold_Primat and on Facebook  

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