Barnicoat “Deflated” After Penalty Cost Shot of LMGT3 Win

Photo: Julien Delfosse/DPPI

Ben Barnicoat felt like he would have been in the mix for the LMGT3 class win if for not a late-race penalty that left the Lexus factory driver “deflated” following a hard-fought Qatar 1812km.

Barnicoat, Finn Gehrsitz and Arnold Robin combined to give Akkodis ASP and the Japanese brand its best finish in FIA World Endurance Championship competition, taking the No. 78 Lexus RC F GT3 to a fourth place result.

It came despite having to serve a five-second stop-and-hold penalty for a technical infringement late in the penultimate hour.

The penalty, for a powertrain over-limit infraction on Lap 233, took the French squad out of the immediate multi-car fight for the lead.

“Obviously we didn’t have to do the last pit stop that everyone else had to,” Barnicoat told Sportscar365.

“When you’re in the car, it’s obviously hard to know. Before I got in, I knew that we were going to be very close if I had a good stint, which I felt like I did.

“It’s quite hard around here, a very high speed track and high grip where you put a lot of load and energy through the car, so you always feel like you’re a bit over the limit and a bit out of control because you feel like you have so much grip and then you don’t.

“We were definitely in a good position, so obviously really devastated that we did get that penalty.

“From my understanding, it was a very, very tight margin. But at the end of the day, rules are rules and we broke it and we had to serve the penalty.”

Barnicoat made a late charge through the field, getting around the No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 of Alessio Rovera on the final lap to nearly end up on the podium.

“Obviously I tried my best in the last stint,” he said. “It’s just very hard here that the best overtaking opportunity in Turn 1 follows a super high-speed last sector where it’s really hard to follow closely.

“Overtaking was quite limited but I managed to get Rovera on the last corner for P4, and so close to the podium. I would have loved to have gotten that for everyone that has worked so hard in the off season, which is very visible to everyone how hard they’ve worked.

“[I feel] deflated but proud of the job that everyone’s done. We’ll learn from it and not let it happen again.”

When asked by Sportscar365 if a win was on the table, Barnicoat said: “We were certainly in contention.”

“I think it would have been tight but it would have been there,” he added.

“My engineer seems to think we would have won by five seconds, so it would have been very tight, obviously.

“With Hypercar traffic, you never quite know because it’s quite easy to gain or lose five seconds between two cars. But we were certainly on for the win.”

He added: “We had a couple of things not quite go super smooth earlier in the race.

“Arnold wasn’t in the car when we had those first quite long safety cars and our main rivals had their Bronzes in.

“We were on a slight back foot and kind of recovery mode from Hour three-and-a-half through four.

“We did recover well. We were there. I am deflated and a little bit disappointed. But as I said, I’m super proud of the team.

“If you had asked any member of that team that we’re going to be in the fight for a podium and miss it by two-tenths, they probably would have taken it given how hard last year was for them.

“You always have to put perspective on these things.”

Jamie Klein contributed to this report