17/06/2007 03:38:00

Gearbox trouble hampers Halliday’s podium charge

The Le Mans 24 Hours’ only female driver Liz Halliday was dealt a blow to her bid for the LMP2 podium after 13 hours of the classic endurance race, when gearbox problems struck her Del Bello Racing Courage LC75.

After an excellent race, which had seen the number 24 car take the lead having made steady progress through the field, was running in second position, with team mate Romain Iannetta at the wheel when the Frenchman ground to halt out on track. Iannetta managed to crawl back to the pits stuck in third gear from where the team worked overtime to get the car back into the race.

Whilst the problem was eventually fixed, in total the Del Bello Racing car lost just shy of an hour and dropped to sixth position in class when Iannetta resumed the race just before 4:30am.

However, with reliability troubles having affected almost the whole of the LMP2 field this year, the race is still very much on for Halliday and Del Bello Racing.