RML’s sportscar team completed over 20 Hours of this years Le Mans 24 Hour race and recorded the MG Lola EX257’s endurance record. The teams three drivers Mike Newton, Tommy Erdos and Nathan Kinch all drove a superb race, until an engine failure at 12:15pm on Sunday caused the cars eventual retirement.
Saturday saw the start of the 72nd running of the classic race and the first eventful 8 hours included the team working tirelessly to rectify an exhaust manifold problem. Back on track and with darkness falling the MG was running quite a way down the leaderboard before all three drivers put in some superb lap times and climbed their way back up to 10th position in class by Sunday morning.
The car was running strongly with each driver having set faster lap times than their qualifying stints and Tommy set the MG’s fastest lap of the race overall with a 3.41.383.
The race continued throughout Sunday morning, and with the car running strongly and over 255 laps of the famous circuit completed, the team were hopeful of a race finish. With Tommy in the car at noon he began to experience a loss of power and was forced to make an unscheduled stop. The team investigated and on discovering the failure were forced to officially retire from the race.
Ray Mallock commented “We are obviously disappointed not to complete the full 24 hours as the car was running so well. The team have all worked very hard throughout the year with the build up to this race and have put in a tremendous effort to ensure it stayed on track for over 20 hours”.
Tommy Erdos commented “To drive the Le Mans 24 hours is a fantastic experience and we had such a well balanced car with the MG that made it all the more enjoyable. We are disappointed not to cross the line at the finish but know that we have a strong car and are looking forward to capitalising on the work we have done here at the next LMES round”.
The MG Lola will compete in the next Le Mans Endurance Series round at Nurburgring on July 3rd.
For further information, please contact:
Tim Compston, RemGuard Visual Management, Tel: 0870 5736 482 Fax: 0870 6030416, email:
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