THE Tekno Autosports McLaren’s success at yesterday’s 12 Hour was anything but a walk in the park.
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The team of Shane van Gisbergen, Alvaro Parente and Jonathon Webb had to contend with a power cut and a pit lane penalty before climbing their way back up to first.
On top of that, a determined Katsumasa Chiyo in the Nissan GT-R entry started to eat away at a 12-second gap the team had built up after the final round of pit stops.
They still found a way through.
Parente was on song all weekend for a man unfamiliar with the track and said getting to grips with Mount Panorama was fun.
“I have to thank my two team-mates Shane and Jono. They’ve been fantastic all week,” he said.
“I really enjoyed it. I learned the track quickly and was on the pace quickly, so that’s important.
“We had a few issues today, but in the end we had the right strategy options.”
Parente was the man behind the wheel when the McLaren 650S suddenly came to a stop on Pit Straight.
That forced the Portuguese driver into a full reset of the car, which got their race back underway but at the cost of over 40 valuable seconds.
“I knew what I had to do to deal with the car, but it wasn’t letting me do it straight away,” Parente said.
“We lost a few more seconds than I would have predicted. Thankfully the car restarted and everything went smoothly.”
The victory for Webb was a welcome bounce back at the Mount.
Both he and van Gisbergen had their 2014 Bathurst 1000 ended early when the car failed to start after a pit stop, and prior to that they were looking like one of the favourites to win.
“I think it is [the biggest win of my career],” Webb said.
“To get onto the podium at Bathurst – obviously the 1000km race is well known as the greatest race in Australia, but this event the 12 Hour is catching up – for me it’s massive and a huge thanks to these guys [van Gisbergen and Parente].
“Alvaro picked things up pretty quick. I think the first flying lap he did was a 2:07.1. He didn’t mess around.”
A drive-through penalty for speeding in pit lane went against van Gisbergen, who had only just gotten back into the car.
It was to be the last yellow flag of the 12 Hour, however, brought on by the #40 Audi driven by Shae Davies blowing a tyre at turn two, that allowed van Gisbergen to catch up.
He grasped the chance with both hands to land McLaren its first ever major GT3 race victory.
