ART Grand Prix driver Duncan Tappy believes his team took a major step towards becoming contenders in the Blancpain Endurance Series at a rain-soaked Silverstone on Sunday.

ART Grand Prix is becoming a contender, believes Duncan

After a career spent mainly in single seaters, Tappy has switched to GT racing with the French squad for its debut in the pro-am class of the championship.

Tappy topped pro-am qualifying, putting the team’s McLaren MP4-12C third overall on the grid, and he and team-mate Grégoire Demoustier were on course for a podium for most of the three-hour race until a late electrical fault sent the Frenchman tumbling down the standings in the final minutes.

Despite the outcome, Tappy sees the weekend as a clear sign that the squad is becoming a force to be reckoned with in the championship.

Duncan in action at Silverstone in the Blancpain Endurance Series

He said: “In only our second GT race we showed we are capable of challenging for victory in the pro-am class – and even of mixing it with the pro teams on merit. We have some work still to do before we can sustain this sort of level across a whole race weekend, but Silverstone clearly shows the enormous potential of this team.

“We were fast and we were good until a bit of an issue happened, but we’re very positive about the pace. It’s always been there and I think it’s going to stay there. We’ll take what we learned from this weekend and come back even stronger at Paul Ricard – we just need to keep working as a team to get that end result and I don’t think we’re too far away from that.”

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•   Filed under: Blancpain Endurance Series
•   Tagged as: ART Grand Prix, Silverstone