Smiths suffers in Le Mans

BEVERLEY'S Guy Smith suffered disappointment in the Le Mans 24 Hours.

The 34-year-old Yorkshireman, together with co-drivers Olivier Pla and Miguel Paes do Amaral, drove a British-built Ginetta-Zytek 09S sportscar in the twice-around-the-clock encounter.

Smith began the race from fifth place in LM P2 but lost 30 minutes in the opening hour when the Portuguese Quifel-ASM team were forced to repair a broken fuel line.

Smith resumed in 53rd position overall, 11th in class, but with just over three hours on the clock, co-driver do Amaral crashed off at Arnage causing extensive right front corner damage which could not be repaired.

"Some braking issues had started during the warm-up on race morning" reflected Smith.

"We fitted new brakes for the race but something wasn't quite right.

"I encountered a fuel problem early on and with that repaired, was running well apart from a lack of straight line speed."