A failed starter motor on their Pescarolo-Judd 01 ended Harold Primat and co-driver Christophe Tinseau’s participation in the Silverstone 1000kms just over two and half hours into the six-hour race.

The result marked a sad end to the European stage of the 2007 Le Mans Series season for Primat, especially after having secured his first podium of the year in the previous round at Spa.

Having started from 13thoverall, Primat made strong progress away from the grid, passing four cars to end the first lap in ninth. He continued to move through the field, his assent including a ballsy move on the Arena Zytek of Tom Chilton, climbing to seventh overall. Running quicker than Jonathan Cochet’s Courage ahead, Harold dived inside him into Abbey, but lost traction on the dirty line, running wide on the exit and across the grass, losing four places.

He battled his way back through the field to eighth, but was forced to lose some places by a gaggle of GT cars that blocked him whilst being lapped.

Tinseau took over the car after the first hour of racing and the Frenchman fought back up the pack. However, at the team’s second scheduled stop he couldn’t restart the car, the problem being diagnosed as a starter motor failure. Whilst the team attempted to fix the problem, it proved to be to no avail and the no.17 car was retired from the race.

Harold Primat: “To retire is obviously bad news for our championship position, but we did have good race-pace, which was pleasing. We made a great start, going from P13 to P7 in just a few laps, and the car was running fine. It’s a shame we couldn’t fix it but unfortunately there are certain things you can’t control.”

Christophe Tinseau: “I had no problems during my first stint and the car ran really well. Unfortunately, at our second stop it just wouldn’t restart. The team investigated the problem and the only solution would have been to change the whole gearbox. That would have taken too long so we decided to retire.”

Henri Pescarolo: “Car 17 has suffered with very bad luck because we have never experienced that problem before. The car is identical to the 16 car which finished third overall, prepared in the same way, with the same new parts and so I just feel really sorry for Harold and Christophe.”