Primat and Rebellion storm to a fourth place finish at Silverstone

Swiss racing driver Harold Primat and his Rebellion Racing teammate Andrea Belicchi stormed to a fourth place finish at the Six Hours of Silverstone; recording their best finish of the season so far.

The #13 car finished top of the FIA World Endurance Championship LMP1 privateer and petrol classes after six hours of close racing at this iconic British racing circuit.

Harold’s teammate Andrea Belicchi qualified the car in sixth place during Saturday afternoon’s half hour qualifying session. The session was extremely close so Harold and his team were confident of making up places during the race.

On Sunday morning the #13 car posted the third fastest time of the warm up session and left Harold and the team confident of a good race result.

#13 Rebellion Racing Lola B12/60 Toyota: Andrea Belicchi, Harold Primat

Photo by: Daniel James Smith

At 12pm local time Harold’s teammate Andrea lined up on the grid in sixth place for the race start. Making a good start Andrea held sixth position behind the Strakka Racing car. After a solid first double stint Andrea pitted for the first driver change of the afternoon and Harold took the wheel.

Harold rejoined the track in sixth place and immediately set about catching and passing the HPD car for fifth place. Harold then focused on pulling out a gap ahead of the HPD car. Harold got the gap up to 25 seconds but unfortunately this advantage was lost when the safety car was brought out after two hours of racing.

When the safety car came back in Harold set about recovering the advantage he had lost under the safety car and soon had the gap back up to 25 seconds. Harold continued to push hard and after a solid double stint came into the pits to hand over to Andrea for his next stint.

Half an hour into Andrea’s stint, the sister Rebellion Racing car was forced to come into the pits for a stop go penalty which elevated the #13 car to fourth place. Andrea was due to hand over to Harold for his second stint of the afternoon but the HPD car in fifth place was gaining on the Rebellion Racing car so the team calculated that there wouldn’t be time to do another driver change if they were to maintain fourth place.

Andrea therefore stayed out for a triple stint. The Italian driver was pushed hard by the HPD car right until the checkered flag, but despite a closely fought few laps Andrea successfully brought the car home in fourth place. After six hours of intense racing the car crossed the finish line just 0.6 seconds ahead of the fifth placed car and the #13 car’s best result of the season so far.

“This is a fantastic result for the team. It is a great feeling to finish top in the privateer and petrol classes and the team has done a fantastic job all weekend. The HPD fought hard in the closing stages of the race but Andrea did a brilliant job to keep ahead and bring the car home in fourth place;” commented Harold Primat.

“I had a good stint in the car and was able to push hard to get a good gap ahead of the car behind me. It was a little frustrating that the safety car coming out meant this advantage was taken away from us but once the safety car went back in I was able to push hard to bring the gap back. The whole race went really well for us and it’s great to record the best result of our season so far;” commented Harold Primat.

“Our focus will now be to push hard as a team so that we are able to keep ahead of the HPD team in the FIA World Endurance Championship LMP1 Privateer Class for the rest of the season;” continued Harold Primat.

Source: Rebellion Racing