Spyker Squadron's Spyker C8 Double 12R (chassisnumber 006) claimed 6th place in GT Class in spite of its heavy penalties after a very successful test day prior to the 24-hour race in June.
 photo copyright © Rick Wilson Driven by Hans Hugenholtz and Norman Simon the car's performance improved by the hour whilst the engineers under the management of Hans Reiter worked through a set programme. During the morning session Norman Simon blew a rear tyre at 260 kph and had to bring the car in driving in first and second gear. Norman Simon: "In the third corner on my first lap I had a puncture when braking. The car did not only handle well in this severe condition but there was virtually no damage to the aluminium rear body work. A carbon body would have exploded as a consequence of this blow out and all aerodynamics would have been lost. The aluminium body did not have a scratch." The tyre incident did cause the dry sumptank to rupture slightly on a seam. After welding, the car continued to take seconds off every lap when set up and wing settings were changed. The morning session ended in 11th place in class at 4:28.08 sec. The set programme continued through the afternoon only to be halted by a repair to an exhaust manifold. At the end of the day Norman Simon set a best lap time of 4:18.7 sec placing the car 6th in class. Norman Simon: "With every lap the handling of the car improved and lap times went down. We have still many areas for improvement so I am confident as to what we will be able to achieve by June." Hans Hugenholtz: "The team has made phenomenal progress in the past 6 weeks since Sebring. The car is considerably faster and much easier to drive. The balance of the car felt much better. We have learnt so much again today that will help us optimise the car prior to the 24-hour race." Victor Muller, Spyker CEO: "After our first outing at Sebring we knew what massive task lay ahead to prepare for the test day. We managed to execute virtually all of our tasks except for reducing weight. The car now still weighs 1170 kilos but by June we will have dealt with that problem as well. Since we have a 15% smaller restrictor and 70 kilos of additional ballast as a consequence of not meeting three of the ACO's regulations concerning production numbers and homologation, the performance of the car is very promising to say the least. We very much look forward to the 24-hour race."  photo copyright © Rick Wilson |
