TDS Racing’s LMP2 entry will have to serve a three-minute penalty at the 24 Hours of Le Mans after Steven Thomas fell under yellow flags in Wednesday’s opening practice session.
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TDS’ ORECA-Gibson 07 entered under the Tower Motorsports banner suffered serious damage when Thomas set TF Sport’s Aston Martin Vantage GTE in motion which Casper Stevenson had spun into the fast sweeper barriers earlier of Tertre Rouge.
Several cars avoided the stalled machine before bronze driver Thomas, who was a late replacement for original contender John Farano after the Canadian’s IMSA SportsCar Championship crash at Laguna Seca, closed and hit British debutant Stevenson.
Stewards found that Thomas had not braked sufficiently before the impact and he will have to serve his penalty in four laps after the race director formally announces it when the 24 Hours start.
TDS and D’station missed qualifying on Wednesday afternoon while spare chassis were sourced, and will therefore start from the back of the grid.
TDS driver Rene Rast told Motorsport.com: “We probably lost a lap and a half in the first 10 minutes, so it’s very difficult to catch up obviously. I don’t know what’s possible.
“There might be a safety car, we might have a chance to get the lap back, but only if the race director decides to throw in a safety car.”
#13 Tower Motorsports Oreca 07 – Gibson by Steven Thomas, Ricky Taylor, Rene Rast
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
Both teams hope to have their cars ready by the end of Thursday’s third practice, with Stevenson needing to complete 10 laps in the dark to start the race in the car he shares with Satoshi Hoshino and Tomonobu Fujii.
Explaining the crash, Stevenson told Motorsport.com that he had been “a bit over the limit” on cold tires when he “got a tank of a tank”.
“I saved it once, I saved it twice and then it shot me into the wall. I think it would have been two or three hours of repair.
“Then I was picked up by LMP2, which has completely destroyed the car.
“I’m not that mad at him, I understand from a driver’s point of view. I get in the middle of the track, so it’s a mistake from my point of view.
“If we can have a good run now, it would be a good comeback story.”
TF Sport boss Tom Ferrier told Motorsport.com: “The second shot was completely unnerving. The chassis is gone, so we ended up bringing our ELMS car, which arrived at 9am this morning.
“We’re going to take his car’s gearbox into this. There was an option to try to unload again from the start, but it’s such a big job, you have to put in brake lines and wiring, so this is easier.
“It’s the chassis we had at home and it had all the electronics and the brakes. If we can fix it and get to the end, it’s going to be a happy team of cars.”
