Weekend to forget on Misano return for Henry

Henry Joslyn endured a weekend to forget as his GT4 European Series season headed for Misano for the fourth round of the campaign.

Henry arrived at the Italian circuit in a confident mood following a successful outing  at Misano in the Italian GT4 Championship back in May, where he and Boström bagged a double victory.

After a solid showing throughout testing and practice, qualifying for the opening race of the weekend saw Henry set the 20th best time, with his quickest lap being little over a second away from pole position.

The Briton then took to the wheel for the start of the race on Saturday evening but it would prove to be short-run affair after a clash involving the BMW of Thomas Rackl and the Mercedes of Max Mayer going through the opening turns left Joslyn with nowhere to go.

The resultant contact caused damage to the front end of the car and although he was able to bring the Toyota back to the pits, the damage was too great for Henry to rejoin. 

With the car fixed for the second race, Boström lined up in 34th place with work to do to overcome a ten place grid penalty imposed by stewards at Spa during the previous meeting.

Staying out of trouble at the start, Boström started to make up places as he settled in to his stint, climbing ten spots in the opening 20 minutes of the race.

As the mandatory driver change approached, Boström’s impressive progress was halted after an on-track clash caused damage to the Supra. Managing to bring the car back to the pits, Boström handed over driving duties to Henry for the second half of the race.

Henry rejoined the circuit eager to try and maintain the forward charge, but the damage sustained from the earlier incident once again left the youngster with no option but to retire to the pits.

The series now enters the summer break before action resumes at the Dutch circuit of Zandvoort in mid-September.

“It’s difficult to know what to say after the weekend,” Henry said. “Heading to Misano, we felt confident that we could rebound from what happened at Spa, particularly after such a strong showing in the Italian GT4 event earlier in the year.”

“Practice was a solid start and I was happy enough with the pace we showed in qualifying, but sadly it was downhill from there. The first race was just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and then more contact shortly before the start of my stint put us out of race two, which had been going well.”

“Obviously a double DNF isn’t what we hoped for from the weekend but we have to accept that it can happen in racing and it only makes me more determined to come back stronger when we get to Zandvoort to challenge for the results we know we are capable of.”