“The race went according to plan for G-Drive. We knew that we had a very good package here at Silverstone and it went very, very well. The pit stops were very good, my team-mates drove exceptionally, I did my part and the result came,” said Bird.
“There’s going to be tracks where our car isn’t suited to the circuit we’re at, so it’s important that when the car is suited to a given circuit that we make the most of it and that’s happened today, so I’m really delighted.”
“In the end it was a race for them; Sam did a really good job and he pulled a gap from the first two stints that we could never get back,” added Yacaman.
“But I’m really happy with all my team-mates, we did a really good job considering we are like the rookies in this and we don’t have the experience Sam has got. We have good confidence now, we know the car is strong and we’re all strong, so if we make no mistakes and keep running the way we’re running, then we can fight for the championship in the long run.”
With others hit by setbacks – Paul Loup Chatin’s Signatech Alpine lost a wheel at Copse and crashed, while Danny Watts spun the troublesome new Strakka Dome at the very first corner and had to recover from dead last – Extreme Speed Motorsports collected the final place on the rostrum to give Ryan Dalziel an ideal 33rd birthday and a perfect swansong for the team’s venerable ARX 03b.
Or so they thought. Late on Sunday evening, ESM were excluded from the results after failing a post-race technical inspection, which meant Strakka inherited an unlikely podium for their efforts.
In GTE-Pro, damper problems for Patrick Pilet and Fred Makowiecki allowed 2014 champions Gianmaria Bruni, Toni Vilander and AF Corse to carry on where they left off. However, Bruni was made to work hard for the win by none other than by team-mates James Calado and Davide Rigon, although they were eventually jumped for second in the final pit stops by the no. 91 Porsche Michael Christiansen and Richard Leitz. Pole sitters Nicki Thiim, Christoffer Nygaard and sports car debutant Marco Sorensen were a disappointed fourth in the no. 95 Aston Martin Racing Vantage, ahead of home hero Darren Turner and Stefan Mucke in fifth, after both were caught out by the early full-course yellow.