Last weekend Josh got the season finale underway for Le Mans Cup underway at Portimao with the Nielsen crew. After two days of testing in changeable conditions the team were looking strong in both dry and wet track conditions.
Teammate Tony Wells took the wheel of the 7 car for the all bronze qualifying, where a damp track made it difficult, but claimed the sixth best lap time to give the pairing a solid position to start Sunday mornings race.
After a Safety Car start to the race due to wet conditions, Tony held his position for the first few laps before slipping back to 8th. Wells made the positions back in the later end of his stint to hand the car over to Josh in P5. After a great opening few laps Josh had terrific pace working his way up the road to second on the track, and quickly bringing the big gap down to the leader by several seconds a lap.
Mid way though Josh’s stint a full course yellow procedure was announcement due to an incident on the track caused by the ever-worsening rainfall. As conditions were becoming dangerous with too much standing water, eventually they decided to call the race just under 20 minutes early, and with the lead car receiving a penalty for a FCY infringement earlier in the race, the Nielsen Racing duo crossed the line to take their first victory of the season in the finale.
Josh Commented,“I was looking forward to getting back out in the car at Portimao, to put things right after a difficult season and end the year on a high. We had a few strong test sessions over the week, especially in the wet conditions. Tony did a great job in his qualifying session to give us a solid platform to work from for the race on Sunday morning. The race was looking to be very wet with ever worsening conditions.”
“Following on from his qualifying performance he did a strong stint to eventually hand the car over to me in P5. I had great pace initially and was able to climb up to P2 and was quickly bringing the gap down to the leader. After the FCY just over halfway through my stint, the conditions became super wet and visibility was near on nothing, so the stewards eventually called the race results. A penalty for the lead car also meant we managed to pick up the victory. This is a great result for myself and the full team after the year we have had. I’m so happy to finally come away with a great result and what better time to do it. I would just like to say a big thank you to all of Nielsen Racing for all the hard work this year.”
