Dual Victories at Estoril Classics 2021

After their success at Spa, James and Harvey travelled back to the continent for the highly anticipated Estoril Classics in Portugal. James and Max Girardo entered their Dallara SP1 in the Endurance Racing Legends series. For the Sixties’ Endurance race, Harvey and Richard Cook took to the track alongside James and Max, with both pairs of drivers racing Shelby Cobras. All four cars prepared by Pursuit.

With two races for the Endurance Racing Legends series, James was out in the Dallara first, qualifying on pole for the race a full second faster than the Lola-MG of Mike Newton behind. In the race, James jumped off the line and head first throughout the race, showcasing the sheer dominance and speed of the Dallara. Impressively, his fastest lap was over five seconds faster than that second place Lola-MG and he managed to lap the entire field by the finish! In the second race with Max at the wheel, the Dallara yet again qualified fastest (three seconds faster than the second place car) and took the checkered flag, finishing 38.088 seconds ahead of second place.

Moving to the Cobras and the Sixties Endurance Race, James and Max qualified in third position with Richard and Harvey qualifying in seventh. In the race, James and Max shot to the front of the pack and quickly established a firm lead. By the end of the first lap, Richard had moved their Cobra up into fifth position, holding that spot for the following 16 laps before overtaking the Cobra of Leon Ebeling and Andrew Newall for third. A few laps later, he overtook the Cobra of Urs Beck and Patrick Simon for second, with only James now in front. Following the pitstops and a driver change from Richard to Harvey and James to Max, a minute seperated the cars and they lay P1 & P2. Harvey expertly chased Max down, and coupled with some unfortunate full course yellow flags for Max, the gap narrowed to 11 seconds with 15 minutes to go. Harvey's strong pace further diminished the gap with him ultimately passing for the lead with seven laps to go, and taking the chequered flag in the final Sixties Endurance race of the 2021 season by a close 1.6 seconds!

This coming weekend, the DK team will be back at Goodwood for this years Member’s Meeting, followed by the Motor Racing Legends Silverstone GP Meeting for the last weekend of October.

Photos courtesy of António Paquete