Henry bags podium on McLaren debut
Henry Joslyn enjoyed a promising start to his time with the Elite Motorsport team with a podium finish in the latest rounds of the GT4 European Championship at Zandvoort.
The talented teenager was making his debut with the McLaren squad in the Netherlands having been given the unexpected opportunity to join forces with Yani Stevenheydens for the final two meetings of the campaign.
With no time at the wheel of the Artura GT4 ahead of the weekend, Henry was thrown straight in at the deep end for the penultimate meeting of the year. Things started well with the #77 entry on the pace in both free practice sessions to leave confidence high going into qualifying.
Stevenheydens would be up first and qualified in a fine second place on the grid for the opening race of the weekend, missing out on pole by just 0.052s before Henry took his turn in second qualifying to put the pair in P20 after qualifying P6 but losing out to track limits.
Saturday’s opening race got underway with Stevenheydens at the wheel and he battled wheel-to-wheel with pole sitter Gregory Guilvert before the race went under caution to allow a car to be recovered from the side of the circuit at turn one.
Although Guilvert led at the restart, Stevenheydens was able to battle ahead on lap seven, and was followed through by team-mate Charlie Hart to hold an Elite 1-2 through to the moment when the Belgian driver pitted to hand the car over to Henry.
Re-joining at the front of those drivers to have made their mandatory stops, Henry duly reclaimed first spot when the remaining drivers came in a lap later but officials then revealed that the car had been hit with a ten second penalty for speeding in the pits.
That gave Henry no option but to go on the attack in an attempt to negate the penalty, with the youngster retaining his place at the front of the field ahead of team-mate McKenzy Cresswell.
Strong pace throughout his stint meant that Henry was able to take the chequered flag first on the road, and also ensured that once the time penalty was applied, he was still classified in third place to earn a first podium finish in the series.
Henry took his place on the tenth row of the grid for race two and made a storming start before being tipped into a spin going through turn one, which dropped him to the back of the field before he was forced to pit for repairs.
Despite the best efforts of the team to replace a punctured tyre, Henry dropped off the lead lap which ended his chances to a strong result to add to the Saturday podium.
It meant the remainder of the race effectively became a test, with Henry staying out of trouble for the rest of his stint before handing the car to Stevenheydens for the run to the flag as the pair ended up classified in 27th spot.
Henry will now hope to replicate his podium pace when the series heads to Portimao in Portugal next month for the season finale.
Henry said: “My first weekend in the McLaren was really strong, and it was fantastic to be able to show my pace straight away despite the fact that I’d not had any testing before the weekend.”
“The car felt mega and we were able to show that in race one to come away with a podium finish, and it’s just a shame that a small error on my side in race two meant we couldn’t replicate it as I’m sure we would have been able to fight our way through towards the front.”
“A huge thank you to the team for welcoming me like they did, and I’m really looking forward to getting back behind the wheel for the final round in Portugal.”