Eoin Murray

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14th September 2009 // Podium finish for Murray in Albacete

 


 

A challenging weekend at Albacete, including a night race, saw Eoin Murray claim another podium with third position in race one, eleventh place in race two and sixth place in race three. These results move Eoin up to joint third position in the Seat Supercopa championship with two events remaining (six races).

Murray qualified in 6th position for race 1. It was a satisfying result as Eoin and his team made a tactical decision to only complete 2 flying laps in the qualifying session so as to save tyres for the races (maximum of 8 permitted). With the least amount of qualifying laps completed Eoin was confident ahead of the three races.

A strong start in the first race saw Eoin move up to 3rd position at the end of the first lap and defending his position right to the chequered flag, in the process claiming a valuable point for the fastest lap of the race. Ironically tyre wear problems at the midway stage of race one became a concern. With the second race of the weekend commencing immediately after race one, and no tyre change allowed, there was little the former European champion could do. Despite the poor condition of the tyres Eoin held on to his third position for a number of laps before he began to really struggle with his car & gradually dropped down the order. He eventually finished in eleventh place. After the race Eoin commented “Early in race one I could feel the tyres going off and with many laps still to go, and needing to do race 2 on the same tyres, I knew we were in big trouble. At the end of race 2 I was struggling to keep the car on the track and was lucky to finish as the front tyres were completely destroyed.”

Unsure of the cause of the problem, precautionary changes were made for the final race of the weekend, the night race. The team knew they had to try and solve the tyre issue for the final 18-lap race for which they would start in eleventh position. A downpour of rain just before the start of the race made conditions very difficult. A fantastic start during the opening laps of the drying track saw Eoin battle his way to sixth position. Unfortunately a re-occurrence of the tyre problem meant that Eoin was unable to fight further up the order. Despite the problem Eoin managed to hang onto sixth position to the finish.

Murray commented “It has been a really difficult weekend for me and the whole team. Now my engineers will analyse the data from the weekend and hopefully find the cause of the tyre problems. I’m disappointed but I feel got the maximum out of the car this weekend. After a very tough event we still managed to salvage a reasonable haul of points, including fastest lap, and we are still in the championship battle.”

Eoin’s next race is 17th/18th of October at Jerez in Spain.

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