It’s a dream debut for new Euro king Sharp
RACE ace Tom Sharp clinched his most impressive victory to date after taking a superb, dominant win on his debut in the European VdeV Endurance Championship at Circuit Dijon Prenois in France last weekend.
The stunning victory is Sharp’s first since stepping up to GT3 machinery, and the breakthrough success came on his first outing with the factory Ginetta Team LNT squad.
Sharp partnered Ginetta chairman Lawrence Tomlinson for the weekend in the works Ginetta G55 GT3, and the partnership proved to be a successful one from the opening practice session of the weekend.
Running in the top three across all the practice sessions, including topping the timesheets in the opening session, Sharp and Tomlinson went on to place the #55 Ginetta second on the grid in qualifying.
A wet circuit greeted them for the beginning of the three-hour race, with Tomlinson starting in car. A great start saw him take the lead 15 minutes in, and he quickly pulled away from the pack to lead by nearly thirty seconds after the first hour.
At the halfway mark, a torrential downpour brought out the safety car and allowed the team to make their driver change. As a number of his rivals got caught out in the conditions, Sharp hit the ground running and extended their advantage to fortyfive seconds at two-thirds distance.
The 22-year-old adapted perfectly as the weather improved in the final stages, and after a late pitstop to change onto slick tyres, Sharp produced a composed drive to the chequered flag.
The win is Team LNT’s first in the VdeV Championship this season and the final classification showed the team’s sheer dominance of proceedings, with Sharp and Tomlinson having finished over a lap clear of their closest competitors.
With confidence naturally high after his first victory in a Ginetta G55 GT3, Sharp is now preparing to return to British GT Championship duty this weekend at the famous Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium.
He said: “It’s always a pleasure to be able to jump in the factory car and it ran faultlessly all weekend. The race was run in difficult changing conditions with a safety car period at one point after a torrential downpour, but the team made all the right calls to hand us a commanding lead by the end of the three hours.
“It’s been a long time in the making, but it feels great to finally get my first win in the car.”
Sharp will be rejoined by Colin White in the IDL Racing with CWS Ginetta G55 GT3 at Spa.