Le Mans Cup Aragon: Qualifying to remember, race to forget
Josh Caygill celebrates pole position in the United Autosports #23 Ligier
The Le Mans Cup team started the day on a high in Aragon with a mega Qualifying session for Josh Caygill, who took pole position in the #22 Ligier JS P320 (see more).
Six hours later, we were on the grid and ready to race. Caygill started in the #22 and lead commandingly to the halfway point, when a routine pit stop and driver change turned into a 40-second loss due to a starting issue. Garnet Patterson rejoined the race in P20 and battled valiantly up to P11, but there was too much time lost.
The #23 Ligier also had a strong start, gaining eight positions on the first lap, with John Schauerman jumping from P22 to P14. Wayne Boyd took over, gaining further to P10 - before an engine failure stopped us on track, ending our race with a DNF.
Now, it's over to the trio of United Autosports LMP2s racing in the European Le Mans Series. Qualifying starts at 10:15 (UK-time) on Saturday 26th August followed by the 4 Hours of Aragon, which starts at 17:00 (UK-time) and runs into the night. Stay up to date on social @unitedautosports.
Josh Caygill and Garnet Patterson - racing drivers for United Autosports
car #22
QUALI P1 | RACE P11
Josh Caygill: "Pole was a dream this morning - coming back to the paddock with a great team, enjoying it, getting pole and then having an amazing start to the race ... I had a really solid first stint, did everything we wanted to do, came in with the lead and then had an issue restarting. The day that could have been."
Garnet Patterson: "Great result this morning in Qualifying with pole position for Josh. His stint was mega in the race, leading and controlling it ... then we had the pitstop and I couldn't get the car started. Where we were was where we were, I made a few passes but there wasn't much we could do really ... it was hard in all the traffic. Not the result we wanted at all."
John Schauerman and Wayne Boyd - racing drivers for United Autosports
CAR #23
QUALI P22 | RACE DNF
John Schauerman: "That was a long, hot race. We had some benefit at the start because a bunch of guys ahead of us had an incident at Turn 1. Then, I tried to hold that position ... only lost a couple of spots back ... but overall, I was happy to bring the car home and handover to Wayne. Not the end we wanted, sadly. But it was really really hot out there so I'm just glad to be out of the car!"
Wayne Boyd: "It's a disappointing weekend, not finishing the race ... but going into it, I feel like we had the fastest car on the grid, judging from how our practice was going so that's a big positive ... we know our car is fast but that shows it once again. These things happen, it's motorsport. It's very very rare that a failure like that does happen but unfortunately we just have to take that one on the chin. As always, thank you to John [Schauerman] and the United team for always doing such a good job."
TEAM MANAGER
Charlie Kemp: "We've had a strong week in Aragon - good practice sessions and strong pace, topped off with pole position for the Josh Caygill in the #22. We lead the first hour of the race, and John and Wayne made great progress in the #23 too. But unfortunately, the two issues we had were too big to come back from. Huge thank you to the United Autosports team who have worked incredibly hard in extremely hot conditions. It would have been amazing to end the week with a win, but unfortunately it wasn't meant to be this time. It's a tough one to take."
