Lynn "heartbroken" after car issue thwarted Daytona victory shot
Alex Lynn has admitted that he was "heartbroken" by the technical issues that robbed his Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac of a shot at victory at the Daytona 24 Hours.
Lynn was confident in the wake of last weekend's IMSA SportsCar Championship season-opener that he and team-mates Earl Bamber, Kevin Magnussen and Marcus Ericsson would have been "able to fight for the win" but for the fuel pump issues that hit their Ganassi Daytona Prototype international in the 17th hour.
"We're all heartbroken at the team, because we had a lot of pace in our car and so did the sister car [which also encountered problems]," Lynn told Autosport.
"That's racing and everyone has their story, but I'm really disappointed because we were up there challenging."
"It was tough out there with 61 cars on track, but it was all about minimising mistakes and we did that.
"When the problem hit we had a clean car without any damage, so I'm sure we would have been able to fight for the win at the end."
Lynn's #02 Cadillac DPi-V.R led by as much as 30s in Magnussen's hands on Sunday morning before he encountered a fuelling problem that forced him to switch to the reserve pump.
#02 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac DPi: Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn, Marcus Ericsson, Kevin Magnussen
Photo by: Chris Owens / Motorsport Images
That subsequently failed, necessitating a long stop that left the car down in 12th place, 27 laps down on the winning Meyer Shank Racing Acura, at the end of the 24 Hours.
The Ganassi team's two cars led over 200 laps of the race between them, but both were out of contention three quarters of the way through the race.
The #01 car of Sebastien Bourdais, Renger van der Zande, Scott Dixon and Alex Palou was the first to hit problems in hour 13 when the alternator failed.
It also needed a lengthy trip back to its garage for repairs, ending up 12 laps down on the sister car in 14th.
Ganassi managing director Mike Hull echoed Lynn's disappointment after the race.
"You're always disappointed when performance and results don't cross over," he told Autosport.
"Everything on this programme came together late ahead of last season, but we raced right through the year without a fuel pump or an alternator issue."
Share Or Save This Story
Obituary: Sportscar pioneer Bob Tullius
How Porsche continued its IMSA dominance at Sebring but with intra-team drama
How Genesis is building up to a long-term future in the WEC
The ambition behind an ‘insane’ racing opportunity
Tanak involved in Toyota's development of its WRC 2027 car
The area Bezzecchi must improve upon to become MotoGP world champion
Neuville vows to bounce back from costly Rally Croatia error
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments