Armaan Ebrahim’s strong run in the Blancpain FIA GT Series continued with the Indian driver, along with his Spanish teammate Miguel Toril, taking second place in the Silver Cup class in Race 1 at Zandvoort, The Netherlands. Driving for Fortec Motorsports, Chennai-born Armaan Ebrahim had two podium finishes in the previous round at Brands Hatch after returning from a high speed crash in the opening round in Nogaro, France.
Armaan had a difficult start to the weekend as he missed the entire practice session due to a failed water pump belt and went straight into qualifying and put the car in 11th place out of the 20 strong grid which included former F1 drivers Giorgio Pantano and Nelson Piquet Jr.
It was a good show as this was the first run on new tyres due to the missed practice session on Friday. Teammate Miguel unfortunately qualified lower down the order in 18th in the second qualifying which was where they started off for Race 1.
With changing weather conditions and the track getting wet after a solid shower, the Fortec pair managed a well earned second place on the podium in their class and 12th overall.
Race 2, however, did not go well for the team on Sunday. Armaan, who took the start, made places in Lap 1 and was up to 10th by the end of Lap 2 before the Safety Car came out due to a couple of cars going off. The weather changed again and when teammate Miguel took the wheel, he went out on slicks and came back into the pits to change to wets but soon to his dismay had to pit again to change back to slicks as the track had dried out and this cost the team the entire race as they lost close to 2 laps in the process of the two additional pit stops.
Said Armaan: “With no practice, it was a blinder going into qualifying as I did not know how the car would react on new tyres and what the limits would be. However, it turned out quite well and I managed a strong 11th place, while it was good to be on the podium in Race 1 taking 2nd place in our Class, it was a bit of a disaster in Race 2 with the pit stops.”