Strakka Racing has regretfully been forced to end its 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship season due to engine issues and will not compete in either China or Bahrain. This means that the final race for an open cockpit LMP2 car was the 6 Hours of Fuji - farewell Gibson 015S!
The engine problem experienced in Japan, related to crankshaft pressure build up, is the fourth the team has encountered since the Bahrain rookie test last November and left the team with no spare units for the final round.
With customs regulations making it near impossible to ship another engine to China and, having already exhausted its allocation of engines for 2016 with a pre-season issue and a further retirement at Spa, the team would have to take a three-minute stop-and-go penalty in Bahrain, effectively preventing any chance to be competitive.
“It’s very sad that we have not been able to complete the championship due to issues beyond our control,” says team principal Dan Walmsley. “I’d like to thank the WEC organisers, the logistics team and the engineers at Gibson for their efforts to try to get us back out on track but it just wasn’t feasible to get an engine to China.”
Details from Strakka Racing
