Henry left to wonder what might have been at Spa
Henry Joslyn was left to wonder what might have been after a weekend of misfortune at Spa during the third meeting of the GT4 European Series season.
The talented teenager headed to the famous Belgian circuit for one of the biggest weekends of the campaign, with the GT4 series acting as one of the supports for the annual Spa 24 Hours.
Fresh from a tricky outing at Monza earlier in the month, Henry headed into the weekend looking to bounce back to form at the wheel of the Toyota Gazoo Racing Sweden GR Supra GT4 EVO2 he is sharing with Maximilian Boström for his first season of sportscar racing.
Things started in positive fashion with the pair showing solid pace in pre-event testing, with the #29 car topping the times in the second of two sessions held before the official weekend action got underway.
Come qualifying for the opening race of the weekend, Henry was able to lap quicker than the car had done in practice, although it meant he would line up on the eleventh row of the grid for the start - directly alongside Le Mans class winner Darren Turner.
Staying out of trouble as the field headed down to Eau Rouge for the first time, Henry was soon making up ground as the Supra raced into the top 20 on the opening lap as the youngster gained an impressive five spots on the opening tour before going wheel-to-wheel with the Mercedes of Lluc Ibanez at the top of the Kemmel Straight on lap two.
As rain started to fall to make circuit conditions even more challenging, Henry went on the attack and rose through the pack to sit in eleventh spot when the Briton came in as part of a long train of cars to make his mandatory stop and hand the Supra over to Boström for the run to the flag.
The Swede was able to keep the car well in contention for a top ten finish as the clock ticked down towards zero in fading light on Friday evening until the penultimate lap when a miscalculation by the team saw the Toyota grind to a halt on the side of the circuit.
Race two on Saturday kicked off with Boström at the wheel of the Toyota having qualified in 23rd place and although he lost places in the midfield squabbles at the start, he was soon starting to work his way back up the order to sit in a train of cars fighting for a spot inside the top 20.
Unfortunately for the pair, the race would end in disappointing fashion when slight contact with Pedro Perino whilst making a move for a position saw Boström go off into the gravel at Campus, resulting in a double DNF from the two races.
Henry will hope for a return to form when the series heads to Misano for round four, with the Briton having already won twice at the circuit earlier this year in a guest outing in the Italian GT4 Championship.
“The weekend has ultimately been hugely frustrating as we’ve had two retirements and both of them were for things that were completely out of my control,” he said. “That is obviously a massive disappointment given that we felt so positive after pre-event testing, but we just have to look to the positives and focus on those as we prepare for the next event.”
“On a personal level, I feel the pace I showed in the first race was really strong, particularly when the rain started to come down and the circuit was getting slippy. To climb to the edge of the top ten in those conditions showed the potential that is in both me and the car, and we just have to hope for more luck to be on our side when we head back to Misano.”
“Hopefully the knowledge we gained during the Italian GT4 meeting will prove to be beneficial and we can fight for some strong results.”