Noble’s New Year podium

Monday January 14th 2019

Noble Podium

Midlothian based and British Racing Drivers’ Club (BRDC) rising star, Colin Noble and his Ecurie Ecosse/ Nielsen Racing team enjoyed a second Asian Le Mans Series podium finish in a row at the Chang International Circuit in Thailand last weekend.

Noble and his team-mate Tony Wells once again showed front-running pace throughout the weekend and were rewarded with a strong, third place finish in Saturday’s four-hour race in sweltering conditions.

The duo started from fourth on the grid in the Merit Holdings-backed #79 Ligier JS P3 after Noble set a time less than half a second off the eventual pole time on his debut at the circuit. That laid the foundations for another strong finish in the race.

Wells started the race, and managed to stay out of trouble in the early laps.

When Noble climbed in, with ambient temperatures well over 30 degrees and cockpit temperatures soaring above even that level, the car was down to sixth, in what was a tight-race for LMP3 class honours throughout.

The young Scot fought hard though and clawed his way up to third spot during his stint, before a fuel pick-up issue blunted his pace towards the end of the race. Rather than gun for second, he was therefore forced to consolidate and secure the #79 crew third.

“The car was going really well, I felt able to even push for a second place before a late race issue cost me significant pace. After that it was a matter of working with the race engineer to manage what performance I had and keeping a gap to the car behind,” said Noble.

“In those circumstances, you have to say that keeping the podium finish is a great result, and it keeps us in with a chance at the final round of the Series next month.”

The result for the #79 puts Noble and Wells fourth in the championship, a point off third and 20 off the championship leaders with one race to go.

The final race weekend of the 2018/19 Asian Le Mans Series season is set to take place at the Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia on February 22-24.

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